SUSAN BENJAMIN is an architectural historian and author whose career spans over 40 years. She has managed her own firm in historic preservation, Benjamin Historic Certifications, LLC, since 2004, practicing with her associates in the Chicago area and beyond. She oversees and collaborates with her experienced and talented firm colleagues in numerous preservation endeavors.
NATIONAL REGISTER AND LOCAL LANDMARK NOMINATIONS BHC researches and writes National Register nominations for individual buildings, historic districts and boundary extensions. She and firm members also write local landmark nominations for significant houses, hotels, apartment buildings, commercial buildings, designed landscapes, clubs and schools. Among recent National Register nominations are 3500 N. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago; the Adlai Stevenson Farm in Libertyville, and an updated nomination of the Lake Forest Historic District. Local and National Register nominations include buildings in a variety of architectural styles, dating from the Victorian through the modern era. These are located throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, many designed by prominent architects — including Howard van Doren Shaw, David Adler, Paul Schweikher, Bertrand Goldberg, Keck and Keck, and Booth & Nagle. Following landmark designation, tax incentives were often acquired for the property owners.
TAX INCENTIVES Susan and her associates work throughout the Chicago area, especially on the North Shore and in the City, with owners of single-family houses, cooperatives and condominiums to acquire the Illinois Property Tax Incentive Freeze when a rehabilitation takes place. The cooperatives at 1260 N. Astor Street and 5490 South Shore Drive are two recent multi-family projects. The firm also collaborates with real estate developers and owners of income-producing buildings of all sizes (from duplexes to large multi-use properties) throughout the Chicago area and northern/central Illinois so they may receive historic tax credits for rehabilitating historic buildings. The Spiegel Office Building in Chicago, converted to offices and artists studios by Blue Star Development is a recent project.
HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY (HABS) RECORDATIONS, HISTORIC RESOURCE EVALUATIONS, HISTORIC AND ARCHITECTURAL IMPACT STUDIES (HAIS) BHC regularly writes required HABS recordations for schools, single family houses, factories, and other types of buildings when alterations or demolitions are proposed. A recordation was recently completed for the sensitively updated Ravinia School in Highland Park. One is currently being undertaken for the replacement of a closed bottling factory by housing in Geneva, Illinois. The firm regularly prepares historic resource evaluations for buildings in Lake Forest and Kenilworth when demolition is being considered. In Winnetka when documentation of demolished buildings is being required., BHC frequently writes a Historic and Architectural Impact Study (HAIS).
HISTORIC SURVEYS During the past several years, BHC has conducted many historic surveys throughout the North Shore; including post-World War II subdivisions and estate properties in Lake Bluff. Our firm has collaborated with The Lakota Group on surveys of three areas of Highland Park and is currently surveying subdivisions in West Wilmette.
BOOKS, TALKS, TOURS Susan is the author of several books. Her most recent one, co-authored with architectural historian Michelangelo Sabatino, Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses, 1929-1975 (Monacelli Press, 2020), won an award for excellence from DOCOMOMO (the international organization promoting modernism: Documentation and Conservation of the Modern Movement) in 2022 and is in a second printing.
She also co-authored with architect Stuart Cohen, North Shore Chicago: Houses of the Lakefront Suburbs, 1890-1940 and Great Chicago Houses, 1871-1921 (Acanthus Press, 2004,2008)
Susan contributed essays on the Mrs. Carolyn Morse Ely House and the Mr. and Mrs. David Adler House to David Adler: The Elements of Style (The Art Institute of Chicago and Yale University Press, 2002) and an essay on the Isabelle and William E. Clow, Jr. House to Art Deco Chicago: Designing Modern America (Chicago Art Deco Society, 2018). She recently contributed research to the book, A House that Made History; The Illinois Governor’s Mansion by M.K. Pritzker. Susan and historian Bob Sideman are currently writing a column: "History by Design" for the publication Record Horth Shore.
Susan has prepared oral histories on John Holabird and Wilbert Hasbrouck for the Architecture Department of the Art Institute of Chicago. She frequently lectures on her recent book and on historic architecture and landscapes — locally and nationally. Recent venues have included Palm Springs Modernism Week, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Center, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Cliff Dwellers Club, numerous historical societies and libraries, preservation groups and various national associations. Susan has appeared on television programs on WTTW, HGTV and on two segments of “Home Again” with Bob Vila.
VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES Susan is a member of the Emeritus Board of Landmarks Illinois and the Board of the Paul Schweikher Preservation Trust. She has recently served on the Building Committee at Ragdale, architect Howard Van Doren Shaw’s home in Lake Forest and frequently advises not-for-profit preservation organizations and preservation commissions. She served as first chairman of the Highland Park Historic Preservation Commission.
EDUCATION Susan holds a BA in Art History from Brown University and an MA in Art History from the University of Minnesota.