Dunham Castle in Wayne, IL
Below is how the property looked in 2016. The home had been broken up into apartments. There was actually a waiting list to get an apartment.
By 1880, Mark Dunham had become fabulously wealthy, and decided to build a mansion on his property. Dunham wanted to integrate French chateau designs with modern American architectural trends. The house, now known as Dunham Castle, is on the northwest corner of the property. The interior had been converted into apartments and then back to a private residence, but the exterior remains intact. Dunham himself designed the building with some help from Elgin builder Smith Hoag. The house is 70 by 100 feet (21 m × 30 m) and stands two-and-a-half stories tall. The brick was imported from Racine, Wisconsin and sits on a foundation of Batavia stone. The northeast corner featured an octagonal tower, while a round tower adorns the southeast corner. The center of the main (eastern) exposure features a gable with three arched windows. Each of the main floors on the east has three pairs of windows with decorative lintels, although the main entrance takes the place of the central pair on the first floor. The roof is steep with patterned tile. Although the exterior has been well preserved since its 1883 construction, the interior has been completely remodeled. Below is a picture after being remodeled.
In 2016, a charitable group was allowed to show the house as a money maker. We toured it. I had been admiring it for 30 years, but never saw the inside. Click below to see the pictures before it was remodeled. Click 2 and 3 at the bottom to see more.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31300792@N08/albums/72157633414121525/
In 2022, I offered to give the owner my before pictures in exchange for a tour of the finished house. He agreed.
They remodeled the house and did not restore it. It was all done very high end and would have been very expensive. The owner wanted to turn it into a venue but the city of Wayne would not allow it so he made it into a single-family home. He took up hardwood floors and inlays and put in fancier ones. He took out nice fireplace mantles and put in bigger, fancier ones. He replaced all of the windows. He took out a fancy walnut interior balustrade and added a new one. When you replace an element you have to go by modern codes so the new balustrade is 36 inches tall. It looks terrible.
Click below to see current pictures. Hit the 2 and 3 to see all of them.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/31300792@N08/albums/72177720304644064/with/52577663997
