History Hour: The Glessner House and the Family who Shaped It

Learn the history of Glessner Family and the Glessner House, a National Historic Landmark located in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood. The Glessner House is regarded as the urban residential masterpiece of architect H. H. Richardson. Rescued from demolition in 1966, the house has been fully restored since that time and contains most of its original furnishings. It is believed to have the most complete representation of William Morris interiors of any publicly accessible house in the United States.

Presented by William Tyre, Executive Director and Curator, Glessner House. William Tyre has served as the Executive Director and Curator of Glessner House since October 2007. A Chicago native, Tyre holds a master’s degree in historic preservation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is the author of Chicago’s Historic Prairie Avenue, published in 2008, and Frances Glessner Lee and the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, published in 2019. He resides in the Town of Pullman, a National Historical Park on Chicago’s Far South Side, where he has restored an 1881 manager’s house.