Mayslake Hall in Oak Brook to close for extensive upgrades
Mayslake Hall still has an air of English nobility.
There’s a Tudor-like feel to the mansion, built for Francis Stuyvesant Peabody, the coal titan who joined the ranks of gentlemen farmers with his estate.
A subsequent owner, a Catholic Franciscan order, sold the last piece of the property, some 90 acres, to the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County in the 1990s. More recently, the district has restored the mansion’s facade to its past splendor. Even a fortresslike portcullis was reproduced and installed at the front entrance.
The conservation agency is now setting the stage for more improvements. As a result, Mayslake Hall is set to close March 1, with construction likely starting late spring or early summer, pending permit approvals.
The estimated cost for the project is $8.3 million, including contingency. The district anticipates the project to be completed in early 2027.
The scope of work will include new heating and cooling plants for the mansion and the Franciscan retreat building, according to Kevin Horsfall, the district’s planning and development director.
Crews will also remove a portion of the relatively modest retreat building and close the resulting opening. Added in the 1950s, the E-shaped building and the Peabody residence are linked together by a breezeway.
Demolishing the south wing of the retreat building will open up views from the more-than-a-century-old mansion to the surrounding grounds.
“In taking this wing down, it creates a lot of opportunities for engagement with the natural world,” Ellen Stoner, principal of AltusWorks, a historic preservation architecture firm, told officials last year. “It reinstates the historic vistas to the lake.”
While the details are still being worked out, the district also intends to make the mansion’s first floor accessible for all visitors upon completion of construction, Horsfall added via email.
It’s such an architectural marvel that researchers put together more than 600 pages cataloging dozens of rooms and eccentricities — and a not-so-secret spiral stairway — in the mansion.
“An imposing fireplace of Bedford limestone with Gothic detailing is centered on the north wall” of Peabody’s library, Jackson Hartley, David Hill and Linda Neff wrote in their digital book, “Inside Mayslake Hall: An Illustrated Guide To A Century Of Change.”
“Lovely plaster Tudor roses” embellish the living room ceiling, the authors wrote. The forest preserve district has used that room as an art gallery.
Electrical improvements in the retreat building will involve replacing and upgrading electrical panels to meet current code requirements and replacing the exterior lighting control panel for site lighting, Horsfall noted.
Exterior building envelope repairs on the retreat side call for replacing windows and doors as well as repairing damaged brick and lintels with limited tuckpointing where needed.
The district also plans minor plumbing upgrades. Several mop sinks will be added in the mansion and retreat building.
The third floor of the latter provides storage space for a forest preserve collection of artifacts. A deconsecrated Franciscan chapel has also become an event hall and has displayed nature-themed art.