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Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence

house in Illinois, United States of America

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2025
Entity authorityQ6779676 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Mary Greenlees Yerkes House (also known as the "Mrs. Charles Yerkes House"), is a 1912 prairie style house in Oak Park, Illinois by American architect John S. Van Bergen for Mary Greenlees Yerkes, the widow of Charles Sherman Yerkes and mother of somewhat noted impressionist artist Mary Agnes Yerkes. The home was featured in a book by Patrick Cannon, titled Prairie Metropolis.

Architecture

Recipient of a 2002 Oak Park Historic Preservation Award, the house is clad in cedar clapboards that go up to the second-floor windows and has a distinctive artist's studio that sticks out over the alleyway. The house features large overhanging eaves and a low hipped roof. The house is based on a variation of Wright's "Fireproof House for $5000" Plan, featuring square-centric massing with a central fireplace.

Notable residents

Tax records show the Yerkes' living in the house until 1919. The house was later briefly resided in by Jim Ameche, brother of Don Ameche, and radio star.

The house was bought in 1992, and restored by architect John Garrett Thorpe, who sold the house in 2010.

Editorial summary

“Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence” enters the record as house in Illinois, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mary, Greenlees and Yerkes can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912, 2002, 1919, 1992—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Mary, Greenlees and Yerkes.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Mary, Greenlees and Yerkes provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6779676. Authority coordinates are 41.897, -87.787. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1912, 2002, 1919 and 1992.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence primary sources, Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence archive and Mary research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Mary Greenlees Yerkes Residence” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.