aesthetic, extensive amounts of glass, steel and millwork were used throughout.

William P. Krause was a successful music salesman when he chose to build and desired a storefront worthy of attention. Itwas the first retail building on the block. A neighbor of his, architect William C. Presto, was hired for the project. It was Presto who recommended Sullivan to design its facade. A onetime draftsman for Sullivan, when designing the Farmer & Merchants Bank (1919), Presto reached out to his former boss. The project was to become Sullivan’s last.

By 1922, commissions had dried up for Sullivan’s designs. His buildings were no longer in vogue as taste changed in favor of the Beaux-Arts style of architecture. In ill health and living in a rented room, he began writing The Autobiography of an Idea, and working on a series of drawings. It was during this period of reflection on his life and career that Sullivan accepted the Krause commission. The design illustrated that he still possessed an astonishingly moving artistic talent.

Sullivan designed a storefront with an inspired amount of detailed ornamentation. Symmetrical, the facade has two main entrances, one for an apartment and one for a store. The two entries and a large central window were set back from the sidewalk to provide a recessed shelter for pedestrians, while attracting attention to the display window. Sullivan also prominently featured a large lyrical symbol above the display window, which rises up through the second story and extends above the roofline.  

In 1929 Krause died, and the property was initially rented and eventually sold to a funeral company. For the next six decades, the Krause building served as a funeral parlor and underwent much neglect and alteration to its windows, doors and façade. It was out of that altered past that the renovated building has emerged. Compelled to save Sullivan’s last great work, the Krause Music Store was meticulously restored to its rightful place as a national historic treasure.

The project has received a number of awards for its historic restoration and adaptive reuse. It has been honored by the American Institute of Architects with a Crombie Taylor Honor Award, Landmarks Illinois with a Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award, the City of Chicago with a Landmarks Preservation Award, and the National Park Service added it to the National Register of Historic Places.