Loyola University Chicago announced Monday it received the largest gift in its history, a donation valued at $50-million that includes a mansion, artwork and furnishings, almost 100 acres of land in a northern suburb of Chicago, and cash for scholarships and a new academic building.
The Cuneo Foundation, the family foundation of John Cuneo Jr. and his wife, Herta, made the donation of the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in Vernon Hills, Ill., which the university will preserve and operate. The estate was built for Samuel Insull, one of the founders of the General Electric Company, in 1918. Mr. Cuneo's father, John Cuneo Sr., bought it in 1937, and it served as the Cuneo family home until 1990. It opened to the public as a museum in 1991.
The mansion and grounds appeared in the 1997 movie My Best Friend's Wedding, and the university plans to increase the use of the estate as a site for weddings and special events, in order to create a revenue stream for the property, said Maeve Kiley, a spokeswoman for Loyola. The university plans to also use the estate for fine-arts and artist-in-residence programs.
Ms. Kiley declined to say how much of the $50-million gift was given in cash. The cash portion of the gift will go toward a building on the Chicago campus and scholarships.
The Cuneos are longtime supporters of Loyola. John Cuneo Sr., a devout Catholic who built a chapel on the estate, established an annual awards dinner for Loyola's medical school that is the school's largest annual fund-raising event. John Cuneo Jr. and Herta Cuneo gave $14-million—previously Loyola's largest gift—for the medical school and scholarships.
Comments
1. wjerves - December 08, 2009 at 10:40 pm
God bless them. Just think what this will do for education!