Cerny, Jerome Robert

Lake Forest (Ill.)  

This three-page chronology of events in the life of Jerome Robert Cerny, a nationally-known architect based in Lake Forest in the middle of the 20th c., was prepared for a program on him ca. 2003 and his work by Arthur H. Miller, in part from material in the Lake Forest College Archives and Special Collections.

After this presentation and handout were made, a Febrauary 1, 2005 interview with Paul Bergmann who maintains the Stanley D. Anderson Architecture archive (http://stanleydanderson.com/contact.html) yielded more information from the Anderson firm records.  Cerny worked for architects Chatten & Hammond in 1925 as an office boy, according to Bergmann. He joined the Anderson & Tcknor office in Lake Forest  in 1926, early in the firm's history, and remained as a full-time employee through 1929.  Cerny was a graduate of the Armour Institute (later IIT) and from this obtained his license, by 1936. All of the Anderson staff were laid off in 1932, and Cerny may have studied some then, but he came back to the firm briefly by 1933.  He had many articles about his work published in 1936, and in Better Homes & Gardens he even had monthly stories or a column.  This contributed to his developing a naitonal client base.  

Cerny's career saw him design many notable residnces, locally and naitonally.  Whether his houses were large or small, pre-World War II or after, they embraced classic style and echoed high-profile classic and Art Deco motifs associated with architects such as David Adler, for whom Cerny said that he also had worked; Delano & Aldrich; Anderson. Several of his local houses were published in articles, collections of examplary deisgns of many architects, and in monographs of his own work.  

The document copied here in pdf form is located in Cerny's Special Collections People reference file, along with other materials and images.