The ONAN Pyramid House

Location: Gurnee, IL
Function: Residence
Owner: James Onan
Size: 85' base, 54' altitude, 52 degree slope (1/9 cheops)
Architects: Himself?
Opened: 1978-1981
Reference: Seattle Times, page D17, Sept. 1984. Captioned Photo
Occupants: Onan Family

5-story, 5 Bedroom.17,000 square feet.
stainless steel sheathing, 23K gold-leafed finish.
wood-framed.
on man-made island, Surrounded by 300-400 foot wide moat..

Onan, who is/was a contractor, designed and built the house for his family to live in as an experiment. Built several scale models, the last 14' tall, before building for real.

The image (to appear here soon) is a colored-pencil rendering of a newspaper photograph.

From Chicago Tribune article, July 29, 1989:

On Dilley's Road, North of Grand Avenue. 50 foot statue of King Tut on same property. Property faces Tri-state Tollway. Onan says roses on his property and fish in his moat quickly double and triple normal size. Started the pyramid in 1977 and began living in it 6 1/2 years ago.

Onan wants to build a Hero's memorial in the shape of a huge Aztec stepped pyramid. Once the memorial is there, he intends to donate the pyramid (the memorial or the house? --jm) to an organization that till run it as a museum. "We will give the pyramid away free because this is my hometown. I'm sentimental."

Onan is known in Lake County as "The Garage Man" since that was once his speciality.

In the article on the steelcase pyramid, the writer refers to this pyramid as a residence/museum. Perhaps part of the house is being used as the museum?

This just in from Moon Druid in IL.. Onan decided he wanted to cover it up from the road because people were too intrested in it. He put up a dome, basically. But then people weren't taking a tour of it as often. So he took the dome down.

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