Inside Allerton: The Essential Guide to Robert Allerton Park

Named one of the Seven Wonders of Illinois, Robert Allerton Park is visited by nearly 100,000 people annually. Allerton, a wealthy Chicago philanthropist and art collector, donated his palatial country estate to the University of Illinois in 1946 with the intent that it should be maintained as a wildlife preserve and an example of landscape gardening. Today Robert Allerton Park is a National Natural Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.

Take a tour of the home and gardens, led by architecture graduate student David L. Finnigan. Beautiful color photography and original architect’s drawings bring the history of Allerton Park to life. Dozens of archival photographs, 21 in color, have all been painstakingly restored especially for this book, many never before published.

This extensively researched book begins with the story of the Allerton family, from origins as Mayflower pilgrims to Samuel Allerton’s fortunes in the Chicago banking and stockyard industry. Follow the path of young Robert Allerton, Samuel’s only son, as he travels to Europe for art school, becomes a patron of the Art Institute of Chicago, and develops his Piatt County estate into an oasis on the prairie with formal gardens and statuary. The story concludes with the changes to the Park since 1946 when the University of Illinois acquired the property. Beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated, Inside Allerton stands as a definitive record of this unique destination in central Illinois.