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Savvy Tours’

Illustrated Guide to

Frank ’s in Oak Park

Authored and Photographed by George Pudlo Copyright © 2013

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Getting to Oak Park

Oak Park is approximately 7 miles west of the Loop, and there are multiple ways to get there. If you simply need an address to punch into your GPS, a good place to start is the Home and Studio, located at: 951 Chicago Ave., Oak Park IL, 60302.

Driving Directions: The highway that will take you to Oak Park is Interstate 290. From the , you will take 290 East, and exit at (note: the exit for Harlem Avenue will be on the left side of the highway in the direction you are driving, in the center of the eastbound and westbound lanes). After you exit 290 East, make a right (north) on Harlem Avenue. Drive 1.4 miles north to Chicago Avenue, and make a right (east) on Chicago Avenue. Once you turn on Chicago Avenue, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio will be 2 blocks east on your right hand side at the corner of Chicago and Forest Avenues.

Train Directions: From the Chicago Loop, take the Green Line elevated train toward Harlem. You can access the Green Line from any station in the Chicago Loop. The Green Line train (the “el”) will say “Harlem” on the outside of the train. The Green Line runs counterclockwise around the Chicago Loop before heading west toward Harlem. Exit at the “Oak Park” station. Once you exit the train, you will be on the south side of the train tracks –walk under the train tracks via the underpass at Oak Park Avenue, which is just outside of the train station. Continue north on Oak Park Avenue (you are now in downtown Oak Park, and the first major intersection you will approach and cross is ), make a left (west) on Chicago Avenue, which is about half a mile north of the “Oak Park” elevated train station. Once you turn left on Chicago Avenue, continue past Kenilworth Avenue until you reach the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio at 951 Chicago Avenue in Oak Park. The complex will be on your left hand side.

Taxi: Taxis are readily available in downtown Chicago, and a taxi to the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio will cost about $30-$35. If you need a taxi return to the Chicago Loop, 303 Taxi offers flat rates: (708) 303-0303.

A note to consider while examining the following pages and exploring Oak Park: Unless otherwise noted, all properties are private residences. Please be respectful of the homeowners’ property and do not approach the homes beyond the sidewalks.

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Map of Oak Park and the Frank Lloyd Wright – of Architecture Historic District (central)

Horse Show Fountain (1909): Corner of Lake St & Oak Park Ave [page 31] Harrison Young House (1895): 334 N Kenilworth Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 14] Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio (1889/1898): 951 Chicago Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 7] Robert Parker House (1892): 1019 Chicago Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 9] Thomas Gale House (1892): 1027 Chicago Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 10] Walter Gale House (1893): 1031 Chicago Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 11] Francis Woolley House (1893): 1030 Superior St, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 12] Nathan G Moore House (1895/1923): 333 Forest Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 13] William Copeland House (1909): 408 Forest Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 32] Arthur Heurtley House (1902): 318 Forest Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 24] Hills-DeCaro House (1906): 313 Forest Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 29] Laura Gale House (1909): 6 Elizabeth Ct, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 33] Peter Beachy House (1906): 238 Forest Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 30] Frank Thomas House (1901): 210 Forest Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 21] (1905-1909): 875 Lake St, Oak Park IL 60301 [page 27]

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Map of Oak Park and Frank Lloyd Wright- Prairie School of Architecture Historic District (outskirts)

Oscar Balch House (1911): 611 N Kenilworth Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 34] Harry Adams House (1913): 710 W Augusta Blvd, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 35] William Martin House (1902): 636 N East Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 23] William Fricke House (1901): 540 Fair Oaks Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 22] Rollin Furbeck House (1897): 515 Fair Oaks Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 20] House (1903): 520 N East Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 26] Harry Goodrich House (1896): 534 N East Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 16] Charles E Roberts House (1896): 321 N Euclid Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 18] George Furbeck House (1897): 223 N Euclid Ave, Oak Park IL 60302 [page 19] Francisco Terrace Arch (1895): Lake St at Linden Ave [page 15]

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Table of Contents

Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio ……………. 7 Robert Parker House ………………………………..… 9 Thomas Gale House ………………………………….…10 Walter Gale House ………………………………………11 Francis Woolley House ………………………………..12 Nathan Moore House …………………………………..13 Harrison Young House …………………………….…..14 Francisco Terrace Arch …………………………..…...15 Harry Goodrich House ………………………………...16 George Smith House ………………………………..…..17 Charles E Roberts House ………………….………….18 George Furbeck House …………….……………….…19 Rollin Furbeck House ………………………………….20 Frank Thomas House ……………………………….…21 William Fricke House …………………………………22 William Martin House ……………………………...…23 Arthur Heurtley House ……………………………….24 Edwin Cheney House ……………………………….…26 Unity Temple …………………………………………..…27 Hills-DeCaro House………………………………….… 29 Peter Beachy House …………………………………....30 Horse Show Fountain …………………………………31 William Copeland House …………………………….32 Laura Gale House …………………………………….…33 Oscar Balch House ……………………………………..34 Harry Adams House …………………………………...35

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Introduction

Oak Park is a beautiful village, located approximately seven miles west of downtown Chicago. One of the nation’s first suburbs to develop, Oak Park boasts a priceless collection of historic and . Frank Lloyd Wright is the most well known architect to have touched this suburban retreat, though he was certainly not the only one. Among Wright’s contemporaries represented in Oak Park are Burnham & Root, , George Maher, John S Van Bergen, Eben Ezra Roberts, and others.

Oak Park was first settled in the mid 1830’s, and grew slowly until the of 1871, at which point Oak Park became heavily populated as displaced Chicagoans moved west. What is now the Village of Oak Park was originally an area in Cicero Township, until 1902 when it became its own municipality. At the time of Frank Lloyd Wright’s arrival in Oak Park in 1889, the town was still steadily developing. Oak Park had most of the modern amenities that a satellite town would have needed back then, most importantly a train line. There is a plethora of Victorian Queen Anne’s strewn about the town, particularly in the area south of Augusta Street, between Austin and Harlem Avenues. Oak Park’s early Twentieth Century architecture truly offers a one-of-a-kind case study of the Prairie School of Architecture.

Pioneered by Wright, the Prairie School was the first example of an American domestic architecture, not derived from European and Classical . To explain in brevity the physical characteristics of a Prairie School house, they are a symbolic representation, in execution, of the natural terrain of the Midwest: typically long, flat, and horizontal. Frank Lloyd Wright’s theory on Organic Architecture centered on the idea that a building should grace the landscape instead of disgrace it. The spatial properties and layout of the Prairie houses offered new ways of living in the modern, industrial world with the nuclear family in mind.

Today, Oak Park has the honor, and responsibility, of holding the greatest concentration of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed structures in the world. As you visit Oak Park, enjoy all that this spectacular architectural has to offer. Downtown Oak Park features a variety of small, local shops and charming restaurants. As you view the collection of houses listed in this guide, please be respectful of the property homeowners and their privacy. Keep in mind that unless otherwise noted, all houses are privately owned, and it is inappropriate to approach the houses beyond the sidewalks.

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Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, 1889/1898 Frank Lloyd Wright Home

Frank Lloyd Wright Home 428 Forest Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Open for tourism Rating: 

Tours of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio are offered daily by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, except on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Tickets are required for entry.

For tickets and information, visit: gowright.org or call (312) 994-4000

The first house that Wright ever created was his own home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. Built in 1889, the young architect was only twenty-two years old when he designed his Shingle style abode. Visitors are commonly taken aback by the appearance of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home, often expecting a house with a low profile, and long, horizontal lines, but it would be more than a decade before Wright would develop his first mature Prairie house. The general massing and planning of the house contributed to, but were refined in Wright’s later Prairie houses, but certain features of the house were the precursors of Wright’s later architectural themes.

The most immediate, striking feature of the house, and a trait that would be seen in all of Wright’s work to come, is its strong sense of geometry. When looking at the house, one immediately notices the giant triangle, the gable. The A-framed gable was not uncommon in Oak Park when Wright built his house, in fact many of the surrounding houses have a similar gable. But notice how much more dramatic it is in Wright’s design, how much broader it is, and how much closer it is to the earth. Wright was already beginning to connect the house to its site. The eyes then begin to sense the texture of the shingled façade. The house is set far back on the lot, and the trees frame the house in a lovely, picturesque manner. The Frank Lloyd Wright Home, in many aspects, was Frank Lloyd Wright’s first natural house- an abstraction of nature, sympathetic to the simplicity of materials. The home foreshadows the direction Wright’s architectural evolution would take, following a period of experiment and transition, when the client’s wishes were nonnegotiable. Historical reference is minimal, though it maintains contemporary characteristics of other late nineteenth century homes.

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Frank Lloyd Wright Studio, 1898

Frank Lloyd Wright Studio 951 Chicago Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Open for tourism Rating: 

Tours of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio are offered daily by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, except on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Tickets are required for entry.

For tickets and information, visit: gowright.org or call (312) 994-4000

In 1898, after having offices in downtown Chicago, Wright decided to move his full-time practice to his home and created the Frank Lloyd Wright Studio. He figured, what better way to advertise as an architect than to practice out of a creation of his own design. The Frank Lloyd Wright Studio is adjacent to the original Frank Lloyd Wright Home, and the two are collectively known as the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Studio has a layout similar to that of the Unity Temple (page 27); it is a binuclear structure. It has two, large octagonal rooms separated by a central entrance. One walks into the columned entrance and is forced in either direction. To the right is Frank Lloyd Wright's office and library, where he stashed away many of his prized Japanese prints. To the left is the two-story studio and drafting room. The top floor of the studio and drafting room is suspended from chains to free it from interior columns.

After Frank Lloyd Wright's departure from Oak Park in 1909 to Europe with his mistress, Mamah Cheney, Wright converted the studio into living quarters for his estranged wife and children. He converted the home into rentable apartments to subsidize the living costs of his family. The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio was sold in 1925 after Wright's children had grown up, and was maintained as a multi-unit apartment complex for the next several decades. In 1974, a non- profit organization named the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation formed to purchase the Home and Studio and restore it back to its 1909 appearance. At a cost of nearly $3.5 million, the restoration took more than 13 years to complete. In 2000, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation changed its name to the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust after taking over management for the restoration and tourism of the .

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Robert Parker House, 1892

Robert Parker House 1019 Chicago Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/Visible from the street Rating: 

The Robert Parker House was commissioned by Thomas Gale, who owned the six lots on Chicago Avenue, immediately west of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. The house was then sold to Robert Parker, a fellow attorney friend of Thomas Gale. At the time Wright was commissioned to build this house, he was still working for Adler & Sullivan, and it was strictly forbidden in his contract to take on outside work. The design of this “bootleg” house, as well as the others he designed in Oak Park and Chicago would eventually lead to Wright’s dismissal from the firm.

The Robert Parker House is a modification of the so-called Queen Anne style of the day, but in a more geometricized manner. Ribbons of windows wrap around the polygonal bays in both the front and back of the house, top and bottom floors. This began the early stages of breaking the box, as Wright proclaimed. The windows are delicately partitioned by thin slabs of wood and lined along the bays in such a manner that leaves little actual wall space on the interior. The garage in the back of the house was originally built as a stable. The street-facing entrance and noticeable basement windows are clues that this is one of his early works. However, even in the early houses, Wright devised an open floor plan, one of the key differences between Wright’s houses and the typical house of the day.

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Thomas Gale House, 1892

Thomas Gale House 1027 Chicago Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Gales were a prominent family of the Oak Park community in the late nineteenth century. Thomas Gale owned six lots on the block of Chicago Avenue immediately west of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Thomas Gale would end up selling the other lots on this block to friends and family. This house was built shortly after the Robert Parker House (commissioned by T. Gale, and then sold to Parker), and is also a “bootleg” house. The house is virtually identical to the Robert Parker House, two doors east, and the Robert Emmond House in La Grange, . It is a modification of the so-called Queen Anne style of the day, but in a more geometricized manner. Ribbons of windows wrap around the polygonal bays in both the front and back of the house. The windows are delicately partitioned by thin slabs of wood and lined along the bays in such a manner that leaves little actual wall space on the interior. Rather than relying on paintings or photographs as décor, Wright is asking nature into the home to be the decorative element one experiences while in the interior.

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Walter Gale House, 1893

Walter Gale House 1031 Chicago Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/Visible from the street Rating: 

The Walter Gale House was Frank Lloyd Wright’s first independent commission in Oak Park, though not from the ground up. After Thomas Gale sold this lot to his brother Walter Gale, Walter initially hired Solon Beman to design the house. Solon Beman was the architect of the Fine Arts Building, of which Wright would later have ties, and the Pullman complex for George Pullman. Wright took over the Walter Gale House commission after a falling out between Gale and Beman. The house is even more of an expression of the so-called Queen Anne style than its two bootleg neighbors, the Thomas Gale and Robert Parker Houses. The heavy use of shingles recalls the influence of Silsbee on Wright.

Wright used art glass windows for a number of reasons. The way that light reflects on the outside of the windows makes any number of the individual panes appear to be opaque, thus elevating a sense of intimacy and privacy, strong themes in Wright’s later work. The windows act as the function of curtains from a privacy perspective. While one cannot easily see into the house through these art glass windows, the occupants can see out with perfect clarity, while light is softly diffused through. Art glass windows also offer an opportunity to compress the decorative elements of the house’s exterior within the window work to free the rest of the house of unnecessary ornament. Perhaps what most detracts this house from being a true Queen Anne is the general lack of ornament. The Queen Anne’s are generally flustered with ornament, so the eye is constantly shifting around, trying to process all of the individual features, rather than recognizing the geometry, composition, and materials of the house –the things Wright wanted to be recognized. The only unnecessary ornament on the house is within the dormer, which in itself is rather unusual, being two stories. Additionally, the two windows within the dormer are different: the top window is a casement window, the bottom a double hung. Fast forward ten years and Wright would eliminate the use of double hung windows; he called them “guillotine windows”. Wright much preferred the casement window that opens out into nature.

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Francis Woolley House, 1893

Francis Woolley House 1030 Superior Street Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Francis Woolley House in Oak Park was one was of Wright’s earliest independent commissions and is stylistically typical of the time period, though not specifically to Wright. The Woolley House is arguably the least dramatic of Wright’s Oak Park designs, though this may be attributed to the small budget Wright had to work with. In the Woolley House, Wright was trying to demonstrate that a beautiful house could be built for a small price, though he would have trouble doing this in his later career. The characteristics that point directly to Wright are the overhanging roof eaves, still a new concept in his buildings, as well as the siding. Horizontal clapboard siding is brought up to just beneath the windowsills of the second floor. Typically this type of siding would cover the entire façade, or it would be brought up to the first floor. But Wright would often raise the siding to the base of the second floor, as seen later in the Harry Goodrich House (page 16) of 1896. Between the horizontal clapboard siding and the roof are shingles, another common feature of Wright’s early work. For a time, the Woolley House was covered in asphalt shingles, but has recently been restored to Wright’s original exterior design.

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Nathan Moore House, 1895/1923

Nathan Moore House 333 Forest Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/Visible from the street Rating: 

Nathan Grier Moore requested a Tudor revival home, and a Tudor revival home he got, but not without Wright’s personal flares. Frank Lloyd Wright had the honor of designing the house twice, first in 1895, and again in 1923 after a Christmas Day fire in 1922. The newest version of the house is similar to the original design, but Wright incorporated features similar to those seen in the textile block homes he was creating in Los Angeles at the time, including a stylized block of terra cotta that was inserted into the side of the home facing Forest Avenue.

The house features half timbered, high-pitched gable roofs that overhang off of the base of the home and are the dominant physical presence of the home. The Nathan Moore House is a classic example of how a structure with too much ornament cannot be viewed as a whole - the eyes are shifting around trying to understand individual characteristics, instead of those features working together to create one organic whole. Each characteristic tries to upstage the next. The corners that mark the transition from the base of the building to the larger second floor are sprawled with Sullivanesque florals. The dormer windows are reinterpreted in shape and detailing as abstractly modern dormers with flecks of colored glass. The second version of the home grew a series of Gothic bay windows at its base. In Wright’s view, Gothic architecture was the last organic architecture before the Renaissance. The great cathedrals of the Gothic period inspired Wright in their declaration of space enclosure and in the way they were built from the inside out, as his Prairie homes would come to realize.

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Harrison Young House, 1895

Harrison Young House 334 Kenilworth Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/Visible from the street Rating: 

The Harrison Young House was one of Wright’s earliest commissions to remodel a house. The house is typical of other homes in the neighborhood of that time frame, and alludes to different historical eras. Wright was hired to enlarge the Young’s house only three years after they had been living in it. He pushed the house back nearly 17 feet on the lot to enlarge the living room and add an enclosed porch. The overhang in the porch’s roof was used to exit a carriage with protection from the elements -a precursor to the carport. The arched windows in the cross gables are art glass, casement windows, and the gables themselves give the appearance of half timbering, as seen in Wright’s Nathan Moore House.

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Francisco Terrace Arch, 1895

Francisco Terrace Arch Lake Street at Linden Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/Visible from the street Rating: 

This arch was originally a part of the Francisco Terrace Apartments, built on the west side of Chicago by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1895. The apartments were demolished in 1974, but the terracotta arch was saved and rebuilt into an apartment complex in Oak Park. The ornamentation is highly reminiscent of .

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Harry Goodrich House, 1896

Harry Goodrich House 534 N East Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Harry Goodrich House is one of Frank Lloyd Wright's transitional/experimental homes leading up to the Prairie School. Like the Francis Woolley House, the horizontal clapboard siding is brought up to the second level of the home. Geometrical windows form the bay that pushes out of the front of the house. The most interesting feature of the home, though, is the roof -it appears as if Frank Lloyd Wright took a high pitched roof and placed it on top of a low hip roof, making the house look as if it's wearing a party hat.

The Harry Goodrich House was undergoing renovations to fix the roof at the time of this photograph. The staircase that wraps around to the front of the house was temporary for construction purposes. The wooden screen leading to the enclosed porch has since been rebuilt, and the house painted a golden yellow.

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George Smith House

George Smith House 404 S Home Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

With its shingled façade, the George Smith House recalls the Frank Lloyd Wright Home, just blocks away. One can see through the front windows and out the back of the house, a testament to the house’s open floor plan. The double pitch roof is characteristic of Wright’s early phase of design and gives a party hat appearance to the house. The eaves extend far over the walls of the house. Note how they help to shade the windows beneath the roof. Diamond-paned art glass windows grace the front of the house. Wright would eliminate the tall chimneys in his later work.

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Charles E. Roberts House, 1896

Charles E. Roberts House 321 N Euclid Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

Frank Lloyd Wright was hired by Charles E. Roberts to remodel this house in 1896. Although unremarkable in its features, the house bears much historical significance in the fact that it was originally designed by the architectural firm of Burnham & Root in 1879. This is the only house worked on by both of these brilliant architectural sources. The same sequence of architectural design would be seen almost a decade later when Wright remodeled the lobby of 's in 1905.

Frank Lloyd Wright and would have known each other personally by the time of this remodel. In fact, Daniel Burnham had offered Frank Lloyd Wright the deal of a lifetime.

After Frank Lloyd Wright designed the William Winslow House in River Forest in 1894, Ed Waller, a wealthy developer, admired the house from his own home across the street. Waller invited his good friend Daniel Burnham to a dinner at his River Forest home, along with Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife Kitty. This was no ordinary dinner as Frank Lloyd Wright discovered when Waller invited him and Daniel Burnham into his library and locked the door. By this point, the wildly successful World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 had been over for a year, and Burnham's chief design partner, John Root, had been dead for more than three years. Recognizing Wright's talent, Daniel Burnham offered to send Wright to Paris for four years to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, all expenses paid, followed by two years of study in Rome. As for Wright's family, Burnham would also cover their living expenses while Wright was away. Upon his return, Wright would be Daniel Burnham's new partner. Wright was shocked by the offer. Although he was both flattered and grateful, Wright declined. Wright declared that Louis Sullivan had spoiled the Beaux-Arts for him. He dreaded the idea of America becoming an extension of Europe, filled with dead replicas of the ancient Greek and Roman architectures.

Frank Lloyd Wright's rejection of the offer showed the true determination of the young architect to fulfill his quest for a new American architecture. It's interesting to imagine how the course of architecture, specifically in Chicago, would have been altered had there been an architectural firm of Burnham & Wright.

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George Furbeck House, 1897

George Furbeck House 223 N Euclid Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

Frank Lloyd Wright completed the George Furbeck House in 1897; it is from his experimental and transitional phase leading up to the Prairie School. The George Furbeck House is one of two houses that Warren Furbeck commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design for his two sons, George and Rollin, as wedding gifts. There are few elements in the George Furbeck House that Wright would carry over into his mature Prairie houses, save for the intricate wood banding around the windows between the two towers and the over hanging roof eaves. When the Prairie School was fully evolved, Wright would eliminate the texturizing of the . Overall the house maintains a stout, fortress-like appearance due to the two polygonal towers. Originally the house had an open-aired porch that was later covered, note the difference in the color tone of the brick. According to the grandson of a previous owner, the house was purchased in the 1940’s at a cost of $27,000.

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Rollin Furbeck House, 1897

Rollin Furbeck House 515 Fair Oaks Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Rollin Furbeck House was completed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1897, another transitional home in the phase leading up to the Prairie School. Warren Furbeck commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design two homes for his sons as wedding gifts. The Rollin Furbeck House has many more elements pointing to the Prairie School than his brother George's house. If you try to imagine the house without the vertical, central portion, it looks like a Prairie house tucked behind it with the low hipped roof and overhanging eaves. Wright would eliminate the use of decorative columns in his mature work.

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Frank Thomas House, 1901

Frank Thomas House 210 Forest Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Frank Thomas House is the first mature Prairie house that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Oak Park. The house maintains most of the qualities seen in Wright’s other Prairie homes. It has a very low hip roof, broad overhanging roof eaves, and ribbons of art glass windows. Most of Wright’s Prairie houses have either a square or cruciform floor plan. The Frank Thomas House is unique in that is has an L-shaped floor plan. The shorter part of the L extends from the front of the house and was designed as a breakfast nook. The first floor was designed for utilities and servant’s quarters. The main level of living is on the second floor, with bedrooms on the top floor. This was one of the biggest differences between Wright’s houses and the typical Victorian home with the main level of living elevated above the earth for enhanced privacy. Being that Wright eliminated the basement, the first floor acts as the function of the basement.

The arched entryway at the ground level is somewhat deceiving as it makes one believe that this is where the entrance is. However, one must enter the arch, and turn left to walk up a flight of stairs –but don’t try it, remember this is a private residence. The front door is actually disguised as one of the art glass windows that wraps around the inner corner of the L-shaped house. The windows on the top floor are a variation of the Chicago Style Window.

There are posts that support the projecting roof - a good indication that this was one of Wright’s earliest Prairie houses. If the house had been built a few years later, the roof would be cantilevered off of the house without vertical support. Remember, Wright was always trying to eliminate the vertical.

The Frank Thomas House is also a good reference for estimating the age of other houses in the neighborhood, as it was the first house in Oak Park to be covered in stucco. Any building covered in stucco indicates the house was built after the turn of the century.

Walter Burley Griffin, who worked in Wright’s office, later designed an addition to the rear of the house. Griffin went on to design Canberra, the capital city of Australia.

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William Fricke House, 1901

William Fricke House 540 Fair Oaks Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The William Fricke House is an early Prairie house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1901. Indicative of his early work, there is a clear struggle between the horizontal and vertical elements of the home. The William Fricke House maintains most of the elements of Frank Lloyd Wright's fully mature Prairie School homes (concrete water table, horizontal banding, overhanging roof eaves, low hip roof, stucco exterior), however the two-story art glass windows thrust the building upward instead of pulling it closer to the earth. The privacy wall and garage were added in 1907.

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William Martin House, 1902

William Martin House 636 N East Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The William Martin House is an early Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Prairie house from 1902. Here, there is a struggle between the vertical and horizontal elements of the home where the two-story, outer columns thrust the building upward. However, this is balanced by the long, overhanging roof eaves that step down from the top to bottom of the William Martin House in a cascading effect. The house maintains many of the other Prairie School characteristics commonly seen in Wright’s architecture: it rests on a concrete water table; it is covered in stucco; it has horizontal wood banding; and it has banded art glass windows. Note how the windows wrap around the corner on the third floor.

The relationship between William Martin and Frank Lloyd Wright was a very fruitful one for Wright. The creation of the William Martin House would lead to the commission for the EZ Polish Factory in Chicago, as well as the building of the Darwin Martin House, , and the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, .

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Arthur Heurtley House, 1902

Arthur Heurtley House 318 Forest Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

Arthur Heurtley was one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s wealthier clients, as seen in this impressive structure. The house built for Arthur Heurtley in 1902 is a tangible representation of Wright’s radical , and it maintains nearly all of Wright’s characteristic Prairie features.

Beginning at the bottom, the house is resting on a base of concrete. This is known as a concrete stylobate or concrete water table, and is a good indication that there is no basement in the house. Wright would eliminate both the basement and the attic of a house. He considered them to be unnecessary vessels of clutter. More importantly, Wright didn’t want to dig a hole in the ground and put the house in this hole. Rather, he wanted the house to gently rest upon the Prairie.

The house is everything horizontal. Stripes of brick pull the house outward. Some of the stripes are flush with the house, while some of the stripes protrude from the house. What’s more is that Wright had the vertical mortar between the dyed the same color as the bricks, while leaving the horizontal mortar its original color, thus bringing out even subtler horizontal stripes within the larger stripes of brick.

A privacy wall extends from the south facade, bringing out another horizontal line, and elevating the idea of intimacy and privacy. The top floor of the house is a nearly uninterrupted ribbon of art glass windows. These again promote privacy by allowing the occupants to look out without being looked in by outsiders. The art glass windows are casement windows that extend out into nature and comprise a strong, geometrical design. By the early 1900’s, Wright abandoned the use of diamond-paned art glass windows for a more intricate design, as seen here in the Arthur Heurtley House. Because the windows are aligned in such a manner, it decreases the available wall space of the interior. The walls are no longer walls in a traditional sense; they have become light screens.

Most of the Prairie houses have either a flat roof or low hip roof. The Heurtley House has a low hip roof. What this does is push the building down into the earth, and really ground it to its

25 specific location. The roof also allows for the overhanging roof eaves, which provide shelter for the house in a literal and metaphorical sense. They also affect the heating and cooling of the house. Notice how the windows are touching the underside of the roof eaves. During the summer, with the position of the sun high in the sky, the overhanging roof eaves protect the windows from receiving too much direct sunlight. During the winter, with the sun being much lower, the interior receives more direct sunlight as the ribbons of windows allow for maximum light.

A broad, central chimney caps the house. This leads one to believe there is a broad central fireplace within the home. Wright felt that the fireplace should be the hearth of the home, where the family could gather, and all of the rooms of the open floor plan circulate around the central fireplace. Note that the chimney is slightly offset from the center. The left edge of the chimney aligns with the central, exterior pier of the house, which in turn aligns with the right edge of the porch, creating an appearance of asymmetrical balance.

Wright would typically place the main entrance of his Prairie houses on the side, or even in the back of the house. Since long, horizontal lines define the houses, a prominent opening in the front of the house would interrupt its horizontality. In the Arthur Heurtley House, the lines remain uninterrupted because of the horizontally streamlined nature of the porch. The arch behind the porch mimics the opening of the interior fireplace. The arch itself is reminiscent of Wright’s Leibermeister, Louis Sullivan, whose favorite architectural motif was the arch. Built-in planters enforce a connection to nature.

Together these characteristics create an organic whole. The sum is greater than the parts. The most shocking and impressive facet of the Arthur Heurtley House is its age. Built in 1902, it was radically modern in a time period still engulfed by the so-called Queen Anne style.

26

Edwin Cheney House, 1903

Edwin Cheney House 520 N East Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from street Rating: 

The Edwin Cheney House was completed in 1903 and is a mature Prairie house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house rests on a concrete water table; is long, flat, and horizontal; has a low hip roof; a high terrace wall to protect the privacy of its occupants; beautifully orchestrated art glass windows; a broad, central chimney; and overall is inspired by the nature on which it rises from. Though the Edwin Cheney House appears small, it is actually quite large with four bedrooms.

It was during the making of this house that Frank Lloyd Wright became "involved" with Edwin Cheney's wife -the affair culminated in 1909 with Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney traveling in Europe together while Wright published his . The relationship ended tragically in 1914 when Mamah Cheney, her two children, and four house workers were brutally murdered by a deranged servant at Frank Lloyd Wright's in .

27

Unity Temple, 1905

Unity Temple 861 Lake Street Oak Park, IL 60301

Accessibility: Open for tourism Rating: 

Interior tours of the Unity Temple are offered through the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust every day of the week except for Sunday and Tuesday. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

Frank Lloyd Wright began the design of the Unity Temple in Oak Park in 1905 and it was opened for use in 1909. The Unity Temple is the only non-residential building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park. During the days of Wright, Oak Park was often referred to as "Saints Rest" because of the number of churches in the area. People's schema of what a church traditionally looks like can be seen all throughout Oak Park, but when one approaches Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple, it is easy to stop and gaze in partial confusion as to what the structure is -it doesn't exactly fit into most people's idea of what a church looks like.

The Unity Temple is what Frank Lloyd Wright considered to be his contribution to modern architecture, as it was one of the first, large-scale buildings in America made of poured concrete. Every structural element (and many decorative elements) of the Unity Temple is made of poured concrete -the floors, walls, ceilings -all concrete. Frank Lloyd Wright relied on and embraced the expression of materials for ornamental use. The decorative columns were added to Unity Temple to relieve what would have otherwise been a "severely simple facade", according to Wright.

As with many of Frank Lloyd Wright's structures, the architect liked to develop an anticipation of entering one of his spaces. One needs to make seven sharp turns before entering the main auditorium of the Unity Temple. Once inside this structure, one is overwhelmed with a vast enclosure of space and volume, and surprised at the amount of light inside Unity Temple. From the outside, it is easy to assume that Unity Temple does not receive much natural light, as the only windows one can see are the art glass windows recessed behind the decorative columns, which are in turn shaded by the overhanging concrete roof. However, Frank Lloyd Wright added 25 auburn colored skylights to the roof of the main space, so Unity Temple receives an abundance of natural light. Moving from the entrance into the worship area exemplifies Wright’s idea of

28 compression and expansion. Additionally, Unity Temple is unique in that the pews are arranged in a horseshoe pattern, so everyone not only faces the alter, but each other, which further enhances the sense of community in the Unity Temple.

Fun Fact: Throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s, the interior of the Unity Temple was pink, and remnants of the pink paint can still be found in the nooks and crannies of the concrete.

29

Hills-DeCaro House, 1906

Hills-DeCaro House 313 Forest Avenue Oak Park IL, 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Hills-DeCaro House sits on the lot adjacent to the Nathan Moore House, with a large gap in between the two. Nathan Moore purchased the two lots next to his Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Tudor revival home, and had Frank Lloyd Wright remodel what was then a Stick style house on the adjoining lot into a Prairie house. Mr. Moore originally used the house as a rental property and then gave it to his daughter and son-in-law, the Hills family, as a wedding gift. Frank Lloyd Wright completely remodeled the home, rendering the original house unrecognizable. He morphed the house toward Prairie School with its overhanging eaves, and beautiful art glass windows, but one can also see the Japanese influence of Frank Lloyd Wright with its pagoda roofs.

When the Hills moved into their new home, they were apparently pleased with the exterior, but were dissatisfied with the interior, Prairie School layout. They hired an outside architect to undo the Prairie School updates -surely to the dismay of Frank Lloyd Wright. In the 1970's, there was a terrible fire that destroyed most of the interior of the home. The DeCaro family owned the home when the fire occurred, and they hired an architect to restore the home back to Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1906 design.

An interesting feature of this home is the white kiosk in the side yard- it was originally a ticket booth from the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and was acquired by Mr. Moore in the early 1900’s. It was at the World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, that Frank Lloyd Wright was first exposed to Japanese architecture in the Ho-o-den of the wooded island –the beginning of a lifelong love affair between Wright and all things Japanese.

30

Peter Beachy House, 1906

Peter Beachy House 238 Forest Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Peter Beachy House is another Frank Lloyd Wright remodel. In the Beachy House, Frank Lloyd Wright completely transformed the original property into an entirely new structure. The original house was a small, Gothic cottage. Wright was commissioned in 1906 to remodel their house, and in the process, he enlarged the house. Wright built a new structure around the existing structure, and knocked down the interior walls to give it an open floor plan. On the exterior, we see most of the Prairie features: horizontal bands of concrete, a screen of windows, a concrete base, built-in planters, a strong sense of geometry, and overhanging eaves. Most of the Prairie houses have either a low hip or flat roof. The Beachy House differs in that it has Gothic gables. Even though the gables perch up triangularly in the center, they still pull out horizontally on the sides, pulling the house parallel with the flat lines of the prairie. It should be noted that the windows are not art glass; this was a request of Mrs. Beachy. The concrete base in a Frank Lloyd Wright house typically indicates that there is no basement in the property. However, the Peter Beachy House does have a sublevel, so the concrete base is purely aesthetic.

31

Horse Show Fountain, 1909

Horse Show Fountain NW Corner of Lake Street and Oak Park Avenue

Accessibility: Open to the public in Rating: 

The Horse Show Fountain, also known as the Wright-Bock Fountain, is a collaborative project between architect Frank Lloyd Wright and sculptor . Wright and Bock collaborated on many occasions, with Bock contributing many sculptural features to Wright’s designs, including Wright’s Studio and Wright’s house for Isidore Heller in Chicago.

This fountain was commissioned by the Horse Show Association in 1909 and was originally intended to be used by both people and horses alike. Neither the fountain itself nor its location is original. The fountain was originally constructed on Lake Street, about half a block west of its current location. The fountain was initially closer to the road for horses to drink from. It was reconstructed in 1969 on its current site after structural deterioration. There is debate over how much Wright contributed to the design, with some historians suggesting that Wright only contributed the idea for the opening in the center of the fountain.

32

William Copeland House, 1909

William Copeland House 400 Forest Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence Rating: 

The William Copeland House does not immediately evoke Frank Lloyd Wright because it was not built from the ground up by Wright, rather, it was remodeled by Wright. The original house was built in the 1870's and designed in the Italianate style. The Copeland's originally hired Wright to build a garage for their property, and then to remodel their house in the Prairie mode, similar to some of his other work on Forest Avenue in Oak Park. Frank Lloyd Wright stripped most of the Italianate ornament off of the building, flattened out the rooflines - note the two, strong horizontal lines created by the roofs, and modified the dormer. Originally there were only two dormer windows; Wright brought it out to four windows, thus bringing out another horizontal line. There is a strong sense of geometry in both the dormer windows and the entry, but most of the work Wright carried out was inside. Frank Lloyd Wright knocked down the interior walls to give it an open floor plan, bordered it with wooden trim, and painted it Prairie colors.

33

Laura Gale House, 1909

Laura Gale House 6 Elizabeth Court Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

Laura Gale was the wife of Thomas Gale, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's earliest clients, for whom Wright built two of his "bootleg" houses. Thomas Gale passed away in 1907, and the Widow Gale subsequently commissioned Wright to design this house for her and her children. Laura Gale would remain in the house until her death in 1943.

The Laura Gale House is one of Frank Lloyd Wright's smaller properties in Oak Park, although it has four bedrooms. It was incredibly modern for the time period, and evokes European modernism of the 1930's and 1940's. The juxtaposition of the Laura Gale House between its neighbors creates an architectural contrast. The houses look worlds apart next to one another.

The Laura Gale House maintains a strong sense of geometry. With its blocky appearance, the house is similar to the Unity Temple. Everything about this house is horizontal: the ribbons of art glass windows, the horizontal,wooden trim, and the relationship between solid and void spaces. Wright would later acknowledge the Laura Gale House to be a precursor to his famed , in Pennsylvania, with its cantilevered balcony.

Cantilevering had been used in architecture for centuries by the time Wright designed this house, but it was used in a very primitive manner. It was not until the development of steel and iron that cantilevering could be achieved to such a degree, and Wright was a pioneer of such techniques. Cantilevering occurs in nature all the time: leaves are cantilevered off of branches; branches are cantilevered off of tree trunks. Wright took this concept from nature, and applied it to architecture. But the important question is: Why would he cantilever the balcony off of the structure? Well, if he didn't cantilever the balcony off of the building, he would have to use vertical columns to support the balcony, and Wright tried to eliminate every vertical element of the building.

34

Oscar Balch House, 1911

Oscar Balch House 611 N Kenilworth Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Oscar Balch House was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's final projects in Oak Park. By this point in 1911, Wright had just returned from Europe and was living up at Taliesin, with frequent commutes to Chicago for business. The house is perhaps Wright's most fully mature Prairie house in Oak Park. The floor plan is more complex than its Oak Part contemporaries, and reminiscent of the Ward in Highland Park with its cruciform layout. It is generally unadorned with ornament, with a complex interplay of planes and surfaces. Horizontal, wooden trim and flat rooflines pull the house outward. The top floor of the house's facade is lined with unbroken bands of windows. The Oscar Balch House is complex in its planning, yet simple in its display of geometric blocks.

Interestingly, Oscar Balch was an interior designer and would have known that Wright would be the decider of how the home was decorated.

The grey house with white trim on the corner (600 N Kenilworth) was author Ernest Hemmingway’s childhood home.

35

Harry Adams House, 1913

Harry Adams House 710 Augusta Avenue Oak Park, IL 60302

Accessibility: Private Residence/ Visible from the street Rating: 

The Harry Adams House was the last house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park. Completed in 1913, it is a pristine example of a mature Prairie house, and a great closing to Frank Lloyd Wright's Oak Park period. Originally, when the Adams' contacted Frank Lloyd Wright to build them a home, the design he came up with was far out of their budget. They subsequently contacted a different architect to build them a Wright- like home -this too was still out of their budget. They went back to Wright who reluctantly agreed to scale down the home to fit within their budget.

The Harry Adams House features a low hip, almost flat roof; a broad central chimney; it rests on a concrete water table; and it maintains a long, flat, horizontal appearance. One of the scale backs of the Harry Adams House included using only art glass windows on the top floor. It is likely that Wright originally intended to use Roman Brick, but instead used common brick for cost reasons. The Harry Adams House is the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Oak Park that has a carport. It would have been incredibly modern to have a built-in carport in 1913.

About the Author

George Pudlo is the owner of Savvy Tours, a Chicago based tour company that conducts architectural and historical tours, including a variety of Frank Lloyd Wright-themed tours. Pudlo has visited more than 150 Wright-designed structures across America, and has spent considerable time studying, photographing, and documenting the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. Follow him on Instagram: @savvytours