Inside Joseph Sears’ Home

Joseph Sears and his family lived at 517 Sheridan Road in a stately Queen Anne mansion along the shore of Lake Michigan. 

“Waverly,” designed by Franklin Burnham in 1891, was a hub of social activity. The initial classes of the Rugby School, early meetings of the Kenilworth Club, and the first meeting of the Kenilworth Historical Society in 1922 were among the many community events held there.

Following the death of Joseph Sears in 1912, his wife Helen moved into her parents’ home at 417 Warwick Road. Waverly remained in the Sears family until it was destroyed by fire in 1945. 

While Waverly no longer stands today, the legacy of the Sears family in Kenilworth is memorialized in many objects, documents, and photographs that the family kindly donated to the Kenilworth Historical Society.