An experienced business leader, Cameel Halim is the owner of the Halim Time and Glass Museum (www.halimmuseum.org). Under the leadership of Cameel Halim, the museum has grown from a collection of timepieces and stained glass artwork to include restoration services and wedding and business event hosting. Weddings at the Halim Time and Glass Museum are often held in the Wisteria Room, a large event space with beautiful furnishings and a masterpiece stained glass ceiling. The glass dome is appropriately decorated with a wisteria vine in bloom over an arbor. A series of Louis Comfort Tiffany landscape windows, including three rare Tiffany portrait windows, provide guests with a lovely fourth-floor view of the surrounding city. In terms of event hosting, the room features a dance floor, kitchen, and full-service bar. The museum provides a number of options in addition to the Wisteria Room. The Garden Room, for example, can comfortably fit 40 guests. The Museum Cafe Gallery provides an even more intimate setting, while the Rooftop Garden offers views of downtown Chicago and Lake Michigan.
0 Comments
The real estate investor, Cameel Halim, manages and owns properties in the Chicago area. Cameel Halim founded the Halim Time and Glass Museum, which brings together an impressive timepiece and stained glass collection. A new addition to the museum is the Ascension window, a stunning stained glass window by the legendary glassmaker, Louis Comfort Tiffany. L. C. Tiffany, the son of Charles Lewis Tiffany, the celebrated jeweler, was born in 1848. He established his glassmaking factory in Queens and went on to develop the form of glass called “Favrile.” His work enjoyed immense popularity. In the 1890s, one of Tiffany’s stained glass masterpieces was installed in Newark’s Trinity Episcopal Church in Ohio. Known as the Ascension window, the remarkable piece depicts Christ, flanked by angels, rising above his followers. After housing the Tiffany masterpiece for more than 100 years, the Trinity Church hit financial straits and had to close down. Halim was able to rescue the beautiful window, acquiring it for the Halim Time and Glass Museum’s collection. Learn more about the Ascension window and other exhibits at the Halim Time and Glass Museum by visiting the museum website, halimmuseum.org/. A project of timepiece collector Cameel Halim and his family, the Halim Time and Glass Museum showcases over a thousand clocks and more than 70 pieces of stained-glass art. The pieces have all been selected by Cameel Halim and the Halim family from their personal collection. The Halim Time and Glass Museum opened in 2017 after 11 years of planning and development. It is a four-story building located at 1560 Oak Street in Evanston, Illinois. According to Halim, most of the clocks are more than 300 years old. Timepieces are displayed in eight rooms, each specific to the collection’s country of origin. Four rooms, on the other hand, exhibit stained-glass pieces. The fourth floor is a designated banquet hall that can accommodate over 300 guests. The hall features a number of works of art, as well as Tiffany portrait and landscape windows. There is also a rooftop garden available for rental. The Halim Time and Glass Museum is open every day except Mondays and select holidays. Student discounts are available, and there is no charge for children under the age of nine. Based in Chicago, Cameel Halim is a longtime collector of antique and historically significant timepieces who along with his family recently launched the Halim Time & Glass Museum (halimmuseum.org). For many visitors, a highlight of Cameel Halim’s museum is the major stained glass collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany on display. Active in his craft from the 1880s to the 1920s, Tiffany pioneered the use of hues and textures that had not previously been incorporated into stained glass. He was able to create multilayered scenes through mixing a combination of metal oxides and minerals directly into the glass. This contrasted with other artists of the era, who simply painted on the surface of the glass. Tiffany’s laboratory experimentation was carried out by skilled glass workers and chemists working under his direct supervision. With the goal of creating delicately hued and differentiated colors, unique formulations were developed for each new shade. One major discovery was that the addition of various metals to the glass would give the glass color. Examples include gold, which would give red; cobalt, blue; iron oxide, green; and uranium, yellow. The exact chemical composition of each color was kept a company secret that was not shared with employees, and sometimes not even known by Tiffany himself. These glass formulations preserved a mystique and unique look to Tiffany pieces that kept them in high demand for decades, and has helped make them extremely collectable up to the present. The president of Chicago-based CH Ventures, LLC, Cameel Halim is a real estate investor and developer with over 5,000 units under his management. Since he was a little boy, Cameel Halim has been fascinated with watches. For years he, his wife, and their three daughters have been collecting timepieces from around the world. Today, this rich collection of timepieces can be explored by the public at the Halim Time & Glass Museum in Evanston, Illinois. The museum is five stories tall and houses a collection of over 1,100 timepieces, 30 masterpiece stained glass windows, and many other works of art. Admission costs adults $17, with reduced prices for children, seniors, and students. There is also a one-year membership option which costs $85 for individuals, $125 for two people, and $175 for families. Two-year membership is $160 for individuals, $230 for two people, and $295 for families. Membership to the museum symbolizes support for the preservation and restoration of timepieces and stained-glass art. Membership benefits include unlimited admission to public programs and exhibitions, access to members-only events and tours, discounted tickets to premium events such as films, lectures, and performances, and a 10 percent discount on gifts, books, and jewelry at The Museum Shop. To learn more about the museum and its collection, please visit halimmuseum.org. An accomplished investor with over 40 years of experience, Cameel Halim leads CH Ventures, LLC, in Wilmette, Illinois. In September 2017, Cameel Halim and his family celebrated the opening of the Halim Time and Glass Museum, which displays the Halim Family’s vast collection of timepieces and stained glass. A decorative tradition going back many centuries, stained glass has been produced since ancient times. While the use of stained glass in windows dates back to at least the 1st century AD, one of the earliest examples to have been unearthed was found in England at St. Paul’s Monastery, a building established in the late 7th century. In Europe, stained glass had become an art form by the turn of the 13th century. As the art continued to develop, most stained-glass pieces were used in churches and cathedrals, but they began to appear in homes and public buildings during the Renaissance period. The glassmaking tradition was carried to the New World and became one of the first industries set up in Jamestown during the early 1600s. The earliest examples of stained glass in America were created in the mid-17th century, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that a distinctive American style of stained glass developed. The best-known American stained-glass makers include John La Farge, Richard Lamb, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Licensed as a structural engineer, Cameel Halim guides a Chicago real estate firm consisting of 200 employees and undertakes diverse urban restoration projects. A longtime collector of objets d’art and timepieces, Cameel Halim recently launched The Halim Family Museum of Time & Glass in Evanston. The four-story museum houses a wide range of clocks spanning the history of horology from Asia to Europe. One of the most significant developments in the horological sphere involved the creation of the wristwatch, which came about in the late 18th century. These were not conceived of as wristwatches per se, but as spring-driven clocks compact enough to be worn as ladies’ bracelets. In 1809, the jeweler Nitot in Paris created a couple of the most unique of these early models, one with a clock and the other with a mechanical calendar, as a gift from the Empress Josephine to her daughter-in-law. This trend of royal wristwatches continued for the next half century, with Patek Philippe creating an innovative key-winding model in 1868 for a Hungarian countess. Developments in technology were formalized in 1889 when Albert Bertholet in Switzerland filed a patent claim on a “simplified wristwatch” that operated through turning a bezel connected directly to a mainspring barrel, using the human hand instead of a key. Despite this innovation, the wristwatch did not take the place of the predominant pocket watch for some decades to come. After leaving Egypt more than four decades ago, Cameel Halim has made a name for himself in real estate in the greater Chicago area. Also passionate about antiques and antiquities, he and his wife, Hoda, are soon to open the Halim Time and Glass Museum, which offers visitors an opportunity to view a private collection of timepieces and stained glass. Located in Evanston, Illinois, the Halim Time and Glass Museum showcases many historic Tiffany stained-glass windows and notable timepieces. Many of these timepieces come from Seth Atwood’s Time Museum, a Rockford, Illinois, institution that closed in 1999. Mr. Halim purchased approximately 200 of the pieces, some of which include European clocks and American pocket watches. In addition to those items, the museum includes other rare pieces, such as an 18th-century clock once owned by a Japanese ruler, a pocket watch originally constructed for a blind man, and an early 17th-century elephant clock. This piece features a man who is tied to a tree being circled once every hour by a leopard and lion. The oldest item, circa 1520, is table clock from Augsburg, now part of Germany. Cameel Halim is a real estate developer who has become known around the Chicago area for restoring historic buildings. In addition to his work in real estate, Cameel Halim has an extensive collection of timepieces on display at his family museum in Evanston, Illinois. The timepieces come from all over the world, including China and several European countries. Many date back to the 1500s, when timekeeping was first being mechanized. Some of the collection was reclaimed from Seth Atwood’s Time Museum in Rockford, which closed its doors in 1999. The Evanston museum was able to keep some of the Time Museum’s legacy available to the public. One of the clocks once belonged to an 18th century Japanese shogun, who had a clock-winder working full-time to keep it running. Another is a French pocket watch grooved especially for a blind person to tell the time. The museum also features a library of horological books, as well as several historic stained-glass windows and other artifacts. As the founder and president of CH Ventures, LLC, in Chicago, Cameel Halim has been investing in and managing real estate for more than 40 years. Cameel Halim is also responsible for the Halim Museum of Time and Glass in Evanston, which houses more than 80 stained-glass windows created between 1880 and 1920 by famous artists, including John La Farge.
A renowned stained-glass painter of the late 1800s, La Farge studied painting in Europe before settling in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1859 to formally launch his career in the arts. La Farge’s first noteworthy work came when he was appointed to create stained-glass pieces and murals for the Trinity Church in Boston. Upon the success of this work, La Farge secured important commissions for both private patrons, such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, and public spaces, such as New York’s Church of Ascension. La Farge is also well known for the watercolor paintings he created while traveling, especially the paintings made during his time in the South Seas. Like his stained-glass pieces, La Farge’s watercolors feature bold colors and architectural elements. La Farge continued to create murals and stained glass until he passed away in 1910. |
AuthorA successful real Chicago estate investor, Cameel Halim supports his community through a variety of charitable efforts. Archives
February 2018
Categories
All
|