Robert Allerton had too much money and a massive obsession with European grandeur. In 1897, the Chicago banking heir decided to dump his wealth into 1,500 acres of flat Illinois farmland along the Sangamon River. He built a mansion. Well, a 40-room Georgian Revival powerhouse modeled after England's Ham House. Completed in 1900, the brick behemoth stood in absurdly sharp contrast to the endless surrounding cornfields. They called the place "The Farms." Allerton lived there with his romantic and creative partner, John Gregg, whom he later legally adopted to secure his inheritance. They hosted wild parties. But behind the glitz, the estate functioned as a quiet, safe haven for queer artists during a deeply repressive era.
Now, the grounds. Allerton hated standard, boring lawns. He spent decades carving out intricate formal gardens, importing heavy stone sculptures from Europe and Asia to pepper the woods. Walk the gravel paths and you will face twenty-two blue-glazed Chinese ceramic Fu Dogs. They glare down at you from towering concrete pillars. Keep walking. Suddenly, a massive, three-ton bronze statue of a muscular man singing to the sky appears in a clearing. That is Carl Milles Sun Singer, shipped over from Sweden in 1932. Allerton spent a fortune on these imports. He successfully blended formal European garden design with the wild, untamed Illinois timberland. You do not find this anywhere else in the Midwest.
In 1946, Allerton decided he was done living there and gifted the whole 1,500-acre spread to the University of Illinois. He wanted the public to use it for forestry research and relaxation. But maintaining a massive, deteriorating estate on a university budget is a brutal task. Floods threaten it. Meanwhile, the 100-year-old brick mansion constantly demands expensive structural repairs. Still, the site survived. It officially hit the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. It remains a strange, beautiful monument to one man's eccentric taste and enormous bank account.
