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[title]As only the third owner of a mansion on Logan Square Boulevard in 102 years, Lewis Coulson has seen quite a few changes in the neighborhood over the past 30 years. He moved out of his frat house and into what he calls the “Irish Castle,” an ornate turn-of-the-century abode in Logan Square, in the late 1970s as a medical student at University of Illinois at Chicago. Back then, the price was right for a twentysomething with limited income and what he describes as “grandiose” taste. A year later, he purchased a second home with a Greek Revival facade three blocks down the boulevard, where he currently resides; he rents out the first home.
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Since moving to the area, Coulson has been dedicated to boosting the neighborhood’s reputation. “Anytime anything [bad] happened in Humboldt Park or the Western Suburbs, the newspapers would always report it as Logan Square,” he says. “My friends and I would call and correct them. I didn’t want people to think I was living in a slum.”
As founder and president of the Logan Square Preservation Society, he’s been equally committed to safeguarding the area’s historic buildings—he was instrumental in earning the boulevard national and city landmark status—as well as learning and documenting the history of the neighborhood and greater Chicago. He can easily spout off details about the development of the wide Logan Square Boulevard (a.k.a. his front yard) and the evolving ethnic and generational groups that have moved into the neighborhood over the past 100 years.
Playing teacher is a role Coulson is comfortable with: By day he’s an associate professor of medicine at UIC, and in his off hours, he’s tending to the boulevard’s good looks with projects such as working to restore its historic lighting, running the annual Logan Square house walk, hosting monthly Preservation Society meetings in his home and interviewing residents about what Logan Square was like back in the day.
His house reflects that same ethos of preservation. From the hand-carved hutches to the colorful Steuben glass shades, everything, except the kitchen, is original. “When I bought this place it was pristine,” Coulson says. “The woodwork, the plasterwork on the ceilings, the stained-glass windows. No one has ever cut it up or damaged it.” Like a true historian, he points out details in the design that explain the way the house was originally occupied: The pocket doors, for instance, allowed the ladies to retreat to the closed-off front room while the men lounged in the smoking room off the dining room, where Coulson now reads or watches TV.
As a testament to Coulson’s commitment to the history of the place, he keeps a larger-than-life–size painting of one of the original owners hanging over one of two couches in the living room. As for the furniture, they’re very much period pieces, reflecting the shell of the home. Some pieces, such as the Victorian-style coffee table, came from Goodwill for $30, while a select few have been handpicked over the years from antique shops around the country. For instance, the living-room hutch, made of walnut wood and French rouge marble, came from Normandy, France, by way of New Orleans; it arrived in 72 boxes, and Coulson single-handedly reassembled it.
But he’s not afraid of small upgrades. “Things are always changing [here],” he says. “I’m always redoing something, but because I’m interested in preservation, I won’t do anything to change the original look and feel of the house. Painting walls, [for example], that’s just maintenance.”