Open House Chicago runs October 17–18, 2026. The Chicago Architecture Center's festival site lists it as free, and WBEZ reports that you don't need to register in advance and can arrive anytime during open hours. In the Gold Coast, only two of the participating buildings were built as houses. One is an 1876 Italianate mansion on Dearborn that has been an art academy since 1921. The other is a 1917 lakefront mansion that has been a museum since 1954. Every other Gold Coast site this year is a church. Over the past century, this neighborhood's grand interiors have stayed open to the public mainly by becoming something other than private homes.
The CAC's Near North Side roster covers the Gold Coast, Old Town, River North and Streeterville, and it has 13 sites this year. None of them are Astor Street residences. The festival as a whole has more than 200 sites in its 16th year, many of them normally closed to the public. For anyone who lives between North Avenue and Oak Street, that leaves six addresses within a short walk, plus one tavern just over the line on Wells.
Two houses that left private life
The Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts, 1012 N. Dearborn St. William Waller's family built this Italianate mansion in 1876, on land the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 had leveled. Waller bought the lot from George Dunlap, an executive with the Northwestern Railroad. By 1921, when the Palette & Chisel acquired it, the house had become a rooming house for musicians, nurses, milliners and others.
The rooming-house years explain why the building survives as it does. A Gold Coast mansion that had already been split among boarders was ready for a second public life, and the academy filled it with working artists. Today the first floor holds two renovated gallery rooms, a dining room, and a library and kitchen area that displays a permanent art collection. The second floor has private studios and a drawing studio. The third floor is given over to painters, with natural light for up to 20 artists at a time. The coach house holds private studios and a sculpture studio, and the courtyard and front gardens have been restored.
The house is still in use during the festival. From 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both days, teachers and members will paint and sculpt from live models in the second-floor studio, the third-floor studio and the coach house. The listing calls it family friendly, and this is its sixth Open House Chicago since 2019.
The International Museum of Surgical Science, 1524 N. Lake Shore Dr. Howard Van Doren Shaw designed this house in 1917 for Eleanor Robinson Countiss, as a wedding gift from her father, a Diamond Match Company executive. Shaw modeled it on Le Petit Trianon, the château on the Versailles grounds that Louis XVI gave to Marie Antoinette. Since 1954 it has housed the only museum in North America devoted to surgery. Edouard Chassaing's sculpture "Hope and Help" stands out front.
The whole museum will be open for self-guided tours. It is the one Gold Coast site open on Sunday only, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and it's closed Saturday. Photography is allowed, and refreshments are for sale.
So both houses lasted by taking on a public mission: an artists' academy in one case, a medical museum in the other. Their interiors are open this weekend because institutions own them, and institutions take part in festivals.
The congregations that built for a crowd from the start
The churches on the list never had to change hands to admit the public. They were built for gatherings, and three of them went up within 14 years of each other.
- Christ the Savior Orthodox Church, 927 N. LaSalle Dr., completed in 1901, is a parish of the Orthodox Church in America. Its exterior combines red brick and limestone in the Tudor style, topped with battlements.
- Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Chicago, 1017 N. LaSalle St., was built in 1910 by Greek immigrants from Sparta and Laconia, in a Byzantine Renaissance style. The icons of the iconostasis came from Mt. Athos in 1919, and the stained glass windows date to 1938.
- Fourth Presbyterian Church, 126 E. Chestnut St., was completed in 1914 to a design by Ralph Adams Cram, a leading champion of the Gothic Revival. It's the second-oldest building north of the river on Michigan Avenue, after the Water Tower and Pumping Station.
The two LaSalle churches are about a block apart, and both were built in the decade before the Waller house became a boarding house. That fits the same pattern. In the years after the fire, the Gold Coast grew by building rooms meant for many people, and those rooms are the ones still open to everyone.
Just west, The House of Glunz & The Glunz Tavern at 1206 N. Wells St. opens both days from noon to 5 p.m. It's the one stop on the route where you can end the afternoon somewhere to sit down.
The hours set the order of your walk
The sites keep different hours, so where you start matters. Annunciation closes mid-Saturday and reopens late in the afternoon. Christ the Savior closes at 3 p.m. on Sunday. Fourth Presbyterian is open only in the morning on Saturday and only in the afternoon on Sunday.
| Site | Address | Saturday, Oct. 17 | Sunday, Oct. 18 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Christ the Savior Orthodox Church | 927 N. LaSalle Dr. | 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | Noon–3 p.m. |
| Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral | 1017 N. LaSalle St. | 10 a.m.–12:30 p.m. and 4–5 p.m. | 12:30–5 p.m. |
| The Palette & Chisel Academy of Fine Arts | 1012 N. Dearborn St. | 10 a.m.–5 p.m. | 10 a.m.–5 p.m. |
| Fourth Presbyterian Church | 126 E. Chestnut St. | 10 a.m.–1 p.m. | 1–5 p.m. |
| International Museum of Surgical Science | 1524 N. Lake Shore Dr. | Closed | 10 a.m.–5 p.m. |
| The House of Glunz & The Glunz Tavern | 1206 N. Wells St. | Noon–5 p.m. | Noon–5 p.m. |
Sunday is the only day you can see all six Gold Coast addresses, and the posted hours suggest this order:
- 10 a.m., International Museum of Surgical Science. It opens first, and it's the stop you can't make on Saturday.
- Late morning, The Palette & Chisel. The live-model demos run all day, so this one fits anywhere in the schedule.
- Noon to 3 p.m., Christ the Savior Orthodox Church. It has the shortest Sunday window on the list.
- After 12:30 p.m., Annunciation Greek Orthodox Cathedral. It's on the same street as Christ the Savior.
- After 1 p.m., Fourth Presbyterian Church. It's open until 5.
- Before 5 p.m., The House of Glunz & The Glunz Tavern on Wells.
Saturday works better for the churches, since Christ the Savior is open all day and Fourth Presbyterian is open in the morning. Just go to Annunciation before 12:30 or after 4.
Lines are likely at the busier buildings. A CAC membership comes with a Priority Pass that skips the line at all 200-plus sites. After October 1, the Chicago Reader's October issue is available, and it includes the printed festival guide, a site list and a bingo card.
After the weekend, the Newberry carries on
The Newberry Library isn't on this year's Near North Side list. Even so, it's the clearest example of the pattern: a Gold Coast institution whose building is open to the public most weeks of the year. The Newberry says its public programs are free, though some events ask for preregistration. The rest of the fall calendar is full:
- October 22, 6–7 p.m.: Writers on Writing with Justin Torres and Rebecca Makkai, in Ruggles Hall.
- October 28, 4–5 p.m.: "Beyond Belief: Religion and Social Change in 1960s Chicago," a colloquium in the Baskes Boardroom.
- October 29, 5:30–7:30 p.m.: "Terry's Scaries: A Night of Indigenous Horror Stories," in Ruggles Hall.
- October 30–31: the 2026 Rare Map and Book Fair. The calendar doesn't list hours yet.
- November 7, 9:30–10:30 a.m.: Genealogy 101, in Baskes Hall.
- November 12, 6–7 p.m.: the McNickle Distinguished Conversation, in Ruggles Hall and on Zoom.
The exhibition "Collecting Stories: New Acquisitions at the Newberry" runs in the Hanson Gallery through December 30. If the Rare Map and Book Fair is the stop you want, check the calendar again closer to October 30 for hours.
Two seasonal events in Block Club Chicago's Halloween guide fall on either side of the festival. The first comes before it. Somerset's Annual Pumpkin Patch takes place this Saturday, October 10, from 2 to 5 p.m. at Somerset at Viceroy Chicago, 1118 N. State St., and reservations are available. The second comes on October 31, when the Northside Halloween Bar Crawl covers 16 bars across Lincoln Park, the Gold Coast and Old Town. Tickets are $12.85, and cover fees are waived.
The Waller house sat in a burned-over neighborhood when it was built, then became a boarding house, and has been an art academy for more than a century. On October 17 and 18, its third-floor studio will hold painters working in the north light, open to anyone who comes up the stairs.
If you've ever walked past an Italianate front or a vintage co-op lobby in the Gold Coast and wondered what's inside, many of those doors open only for buyers. Through Lucyna Wrucha, backed by Jameson Sotheby's International Realty, you can get access to my private listings, including Gold Coast residences that never reach the open market.
