Mount Lookout/ McPike Mansion

Built in 1869 for Henry Guest McPike, this three story , mansard-roofed red brick Second Empire Italianate mansion was designed by architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger. The McPike House is a fine example of the Second Empire Italianate style. Set in its large grounds and almost hidden much of the year by vegetation, occasional glimpses of the vacant McPike mansion excite the imagination of the casual passerby as well as the seasoned Altonian.

Built in 1869 for Henry Guest McPike, this three story , mansard-roofed red brick Second Empire Italianate mansion was designed by architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger. The structure has sixteen rooms on three floors. The below-grade limestone-walled basement is compartmented into 6 chambers including a vaulted wine cellar. The entire front block of the house has round-head windows, including the three dormers in the concave-slope mansard roof (the center dormer is Palladian in style); the rear wing has segmental arch windows. At the ground and second floor levels, the symmetrical east (entrance) façade has twin round-head stone-silled windows on either side of an extended center section which has triple windows. Each of the windows is separated from its twin (or triplet) by a narrow brick mullion. A full width front porch with paired posts, a rear porch, and a rectangular side bay-solarium (on the south) form extensions to the T-shaped structure. Elaborate railing over the front porch, the back porch and bay have been removed. The round-headed double door entranceway is ornamented with rope molding and contains tall doors with round-head lights. The house has six interior chimneys and a limestone string course. Paired and widely-spaced decorative brackets support the overhanging eaves. In front of the house, the original iron fence and gate still guard the large yard.

Eleven of the sixteen rooms in the McPike House are bedrooms. Originally, Italian marble mantels graced fireplaces in almost every room – at present, only one mantel remains. Thieves and vandals have either taken or destroyed all but the steps of the once magnificent, wide staircase which rose continuously from first to third floor. Wide ornamental woodwork still borders window and door openings in the interior of the house; in the northeast double parlor, the sculpted grape-design molding between walls and floors are oak. John Haley McPike, the last of the McPike family to live in the house, had electricity and steam heat installed; radiators were made of solid brass. Years of vacancy (since the 1950s) have taken their toll, but the house is still structurally sound, albeit endangered.

The McPike House is a fine example of the Second Empire Italianate style. Set in its large grounds and almost hidden much of the year by vegetation, occasional glimpses of the vacant McPike mansion excite the imagination of the casual passerby as well as the seasoned Altonian. It was designed for Henry Guest McPike, who played a very important role in the early beginnings of the city of Alton, by architect Lucas Pfeiffenberger. Pfeiffenberger also played an important role, not only as a prominent reginal architect, but also as another of Alton’s leading citizens.

In Alton, the highest ground was commonly sought out first by industrial and commercial magnates for building their splendid baronial palaces of the post-Civil War days. In 1871, after three years of construction, the McPike House was completed in “Mount Lookout Park”, a 15-acre estate of trees and rare shrubs, vineyards, orchards, fruits and flowers. Situated on one of Alton’s high hills, to the south, east, and west, the house overlooks ravines cut by the Little Piasa Creek; to the north the hilltop gradually merges with the high prairie back from the river. Although Alby, 20th, and Piasa Streets, which bound the property on east, south and west, are some of the city’s most traveled thoroughfares, the house is shielded by a large grove of trees along Piasa Street and by a luxuriant growth of vegetation and trees on 20th and Alby streets. On the north, neighboring houses are set well apart and back from the street. Surrounded by its remaining 4.4 acres, the McPike house still retains its air of isolation and sufficiency of space in the center of the busy city.

The McPike family lived in the house until 1936, when ownership passed from the family. Since then, Browns Business College was located there, briefly; later it became a multi-person dwelling. The house has been unoccupied since the 1950s.

Researched and Written by Madelyn Knight

Uploaded on behalf of Madison County Historical Society by Kiley Fuchs

http://hpa.illinois.gov/PDFs/200413.pd