Potter Palmer was one of the early landowners in the neighborhood. While most of high society lived in mansions on Prairie Avenue, Palmer began to buy up land on the north end, which was only lightly populated and still mostly swamp after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Interest in the area increased when Lake Shore Drive was opened in 1875 from North Avenue to Oak Street, and a favorite Sunday afternoon pastime became a ride along the lakefront. By 1882 the Palmers had started building one of the first mansions on the drive in the block between Schiller and Division. The Palmers' Gothic castle sat at 1350 N Lake Shore Drive became the center of Chicago's high society. Bertha Palmer stocked the home with an extensive collection of Impressionist paintings, helping create a market for the then avant-garde works and which later formed the core of the Art Institute's collection.