Maurice H. Webster

Maurice H. Webster was a Chicago area architect who designed private homes and public buildings, including the award-winning Chess Pavilion on Chicago's lakefront. Personal life Webster was born September 20, 1892, in Evanston Illinois, the youngest child of Chicago industrialist Towner K. Webster and Emma Josephine Kitchell. His older brother was author Henry Kitchell Webster. Maurice was trained as an architect at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In 1916 he was licensed to practice in Illinois. His first commission was to build a summer home for his father. Bee Tree Farm, in Oregon Illinois, was completed in 1917. It was a wood frame house with a great room and a large screened-in porch overlooking a pool and pastureland beyond. Some years later, his nephew, the noted artist Stokely Webster, described the Bee Tree as a “magical place” that shaped his style of painting. Maurice Webster went on to have a long career designing a public buildings and private homes in a variety of architectural styles. Among his projects, Webster would build an airport, a castle, a stadium and field house, and Chicago’s Chess Pavilion. He died on May 17, 1982, in Evanston. Sky Harbor Webster went into partnership with architect Alfred P. Allen. In 1929 they designed the Club House at Sky Harbor Airport in Northbrook Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago. The United Aviation Corporation conceived of Sky Harbor as an “aviation country club,” and spent an unheard of $500,000 on its construction. The central feature and public face of the airport was the Club House. The Chicago Tribune described it as the “latest thing in modernistic architecture and also reminiscent of ancient Aztec buildings.” It had a large square base with each succeeding floor stepping back to form a central tower. The first floor contained a waiting room and public facilities. The second floor housed a restaurant and nightclub. The third floor had a lounge and rooms for overnight guests. Outside, the building was surrounded by terraces where people could watch the airplanes. The Club House opened in June 1929. But the Great Depression brought an end to Sky Harbor just six months later. The building was later destroyed by fire.