Only a few of landscape architect Jens Jensen's Midwestern designs survive.

Story from the archives by Mary Beth Klatt / May 7, 2004

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Jens Jensen (Chicago Park District Special Collection)

In Lake Forest, Ill., a quarter-mile, private asphalt road splinters off a public street, then twists and turns through a historic 22-acre estate known as Lansdowne. The thoroughfare crosses over two limestone bridges and meanders past a polo field where Gen. George Patton once played. It ends beneath a dramatic porte-cochere for a private residence overlooking Lake Michigan.

The prairie style landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860-1951) designed the estate, and there's a method to Jensen's madness, according to Arthur Miller, co-author of the book Classic Country Estates of Lake Forest, published last year.

"Jensen designed the road to slow the heart rate of his clients, who were coming from Chicago," he says. "You can actually feel something physical happen to you as you leave the street and enter the estate. It's cleansing, almost spiritual."

The property, as well as the 14,500-square-feet Georgian revival home designed by architect Benjamin Marshall in 1911 for Rand McNally executive Harry Clow, was on the market last year for $25 million. Because neither the mansion nor the grounds are designated historic landmarks, preservationists worried that the dwelling could be demolished and the polo field and surrounding land subdivided.

Although Jensen designed landscapes for more than 350 private residences during his career, today fewer than 10 percent survive intact.

Jensen was born in 1860 in Denmark, and studied agriculture, like his father, a farmer. When his parents objected to his girlfriend, Marie Hansen, the two eloped to the U.S. in 1884. The couple worked on a few farms in Florida for two years before moving to Chicago, where Jensen took a job as a sweeper for the city's park system. Two years later, he was allowed to redesign part of Union Park. His design caused a sensation, and he soon became superintendent of Union Park.

Jensen's signature winding road, on the former Allison estate

In 1906, the charismatic, outspoken architect was fired for refusing to go along with the graft, so Jensen set up a private landscape-design practice, attracting big-name clients such as Armour, McCormick, and Florsheim. He designed the gardens for wealthy clients who owned mansions in Chicago's affluent North Shore suburbs. Jensen repeated certain signature elements: a large meadow or prairie, a formal garden, often centering on a lengthy pergola, a rectilinear vegetable garden, and a pond or "prairie river." In 1908, Jensen created a home on the North Shore for himself, which he called the Clearing. The designer stayed in Highland Park, Ill., until 1935, when he moved to Wisconsin to found a school, which he also called the Clearing.

After decades of the loss of Jensen's work, a growing number of homeowners are restoring their Jensen-designed gardens, even those that are subdivided. Scott Mehaffey, a landscape architect with the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Ill., is restoring a major portion of an estate in Riverside, Ill., that Jensen completed in 1917 for the Coonley family. Mehaffey's clients, Ellamae and Dean Eastman, have also rehabbed their half of the 1906 Frank Lloyd Wright prairie style house on the property. (The house was divided in the 1950s.)

So far, Mehaffey has restored two massive concrete urns and a grape arbor to their 1920s glory. A large reflecting pool, which previous owners had converted into a swimming pool, now precisely echoes vintage photos taken during the Coonley estate's heyday. The pool's water, dyed black as Jensen first intended, reflects the house and sky and teems with koi and waterlilies. The driveway is again gravel, and the concrete sidewalk has been replaced with orange tile. Mehaffey hasn't been able to do an exact restoration of the gardens, since the original estate was subdivided and 90-year-old trees now cast a shadow over a once-sunny garden. "Still, the Coonley House and its setting, once fully restored, promise to provide one of the best examples of a Wright/Jensen collaboration and will hopefully suggest the ambiance of the original space," Mehaffey says.

Jensen's original design, now Marian College

Architects revamping the grounds of Marian College in Indianapolis hope to restore Jensen's vision as closely as possible on the former James Allison estate. The 114-acre campus is comprised of the former estates of three of the four founders of the Indianapolis 500: James Allison, Carl Fisher, and Frank Wheeler. The Allison family sold their 1915 estate, called Riverdale, to the Sisters of St. Francis of Oldenburg, Ind. in 1936, and the college moved in the following year.

Landscape architects working on the Allison portion of the college grounds didn't realize that those 64 acres were designed by Jensen until they began clearing the land in 2000 for Ecolab, an outdoor nature lab for their students. When they discovered half-moon benches and a council ring of limestone slabs—signature Jensen motifs—the architects searched files in the college's maintenance office and found Jensen drawings. They shifted their plans for the Ecolab slightly so they wouldn't disturb key elements of Jensen's work; for example, they reshaped a pond to more closely match what the body of water looked like in the 1920s.

"I'm torn between what was done and what should be done," says landscape architect David Roth. "We need to finish the Ecolab." That means putting trails where none existed previously.

Lansdowne (Baird & Warner)

There's more at stake for Lansdowne than a few new trails. "The landscape is one of the best preserved Jens Jensen designs on the North Shore," Miller says. "If it were lost, it would be a great shame."

But there's hope. Andrew Fisher, director of development for the Illinois Landmarks Preservation Council, says the first step is for the owner to get the house listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Then the owner signs a preservation-easement agreement, which designates an organization such as the council as a conservator of the property. This easement restricts development on the property and prevents demolition. In return, homeowners receive a one-time 20 percent tax break, Fisher says. "This is how we stop teardowns," he says. "It's the most important tool we have."

The owner of the Clow property, automobile executive Ronald Friedman, is not seeking landmark status, according to listing agent Jane Lepauw of Baird & Warner.

But landmark status and its accompanying tax breaks could be a great incentive for the next buyer, Lepauw says. "It's a beautiful property. Hopefully someone will fall in love with it, save it, and be a Chicago hero," she says. "I'm open to all offers."

Chicago writer Mary Beth Klatt writes about historic preservation for USA Weekend Magazine, the Chicago Tribune, and Chicago Magazine.

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