The Wright Neighborhood

Don't you wonder what Frank Lloyd Wright's neighbors thought as they watched him build his home so differently from the Victorian houses popular in 1889?  I'm certain that there was at least one Oak Park, Illinois resident who lamented, "Well, there goes the neighborhood!"  Still others grew to like Wright's innovative designs.

We were fortunate that the sun shone on the day of our visit to Oak Park because a walking tour of the neighborhood where Frank Lloyd Wright built his home and studio was on my agenda.  Luckily, I was able to persuade my husband Tim and my daughter Jillian to accompany me on this walk.

Ernest Hemingway's Home

From 1892 to 1909, Wright built more than a dozen homes in his distinctive Prairie School style for neighbors who became his clients.  However, before I share photos of a few of these homes with you, let me also mention that Oak Park, Illinois is the birthplace of Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961).  If you need a comparison between Victorian and Prairie style architecture, Hemingway's home is a good example of the Victorian style homes so popular at the beginning of Wright's career.  

Frank Lloyd Wright's Home and Studio
951 Chicago Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois

On the block just west of Wright's own home are the first three houses on our tour.  These homes are called the "Bootleg Houses," because Wright completed these designs in 1892 while he was still employed by the architectural firm, Adler & Sullivan, which forbade employees to accept outside commissions.  

The Robert P. Parker Home, one of the "Bootleg Houses"
1019 Chicago Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois

Two more "Bootleg Houses"
Thomas H. Gale Home at 1027 Chicago Avenue on the left
Walter H. Gale Home at 1031 Chicago on the right

Wright left Adler & Sullivan in 1893 to start his own architectural firm.  The Bootleg Houses show the beginning of Wright's movement away from the fussy Queen Anne style homes popular at that time to his more massed structures with his signature diamond window panes.

The Nathan G. Moore Home
333 Forest Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois

Chicago attorney, Nathan G. Moore, asked Wright in 1895 to design a home in the English Tudor style at 333 Forest Avenue, just a block south of Wright's own home.  According to Wright's autobiography (1), Moore said, "I don't want you to give us anything like the house you did for Winslow (referring to the home Wright recently finished in River Forest, Illinois.)  I don't want to go down backstreets to my morning train to avoid being laughed at."  Wright obliged his client's wishes because he was struggling to build his own architectural firm and had a growing family to support, but he was embarrassed by the home's conformation to historical style.  Wright wrote in his autobiography that such conformity was "uncreative and completely contrary to American freedom."  When a 1922 fire destroyed part of the home, Wright leaped at the opportunity to rebuild the home, using influences from Mayan architecture and from his mentor, Louis Sullivan who believed that since architecture is the result of the culture, its works should represent the ideas of the current era rather than replicate the past.

Jillian and I on the north side of the Nathan G. Moore home 
where Erie Street intersects with Forest Avenue

When Wright built homes in his neighborhood, he tried to situate each foundation as close to the northern property line as he could.  This allowed him to build a porch or veranda on the south side where the sun could warm the interior of the home during harsh Chicago winters.

The Edward R. Hills Home, formerly the Gray Home
313 Forest Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois

In 1900, Nathan Moore purchased the Gray home next-door as a future wedding gift for his oldest daughter Mary who wed Edward R. Hills in 1908.  When a third home on the same block became available for purchase, Moore bought it as well and demolished that home so he could move the Gray's house to the south end of the block.  Once again he commissioned Wright to remodel the home.  Wright rotated the house ninety degrees so its entrance faced north towards the Nathan Moore home and built a concrete porch leading from the street to the entrance and then further on to the rear yard.  The north and east-facing pagodas reflect Wright's growing interest in Japanese architecture.  Mary Hills was not enamoured with her wedding gift.  Nathan Grier Hills, one of her sons, said his mother found the house "too stern and austere." (2)  She hated the small kitchen and in 1912 hired another architect to design a pantry and breakfast room addition.

The Arthur Heurtley Home
318 Forest Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois

At 318 Forest Avenue (and just across the street from the Moore and Hills homes) is the 1902 home of banker Arthur Heurtley, a devotee to the musical and visual arts.  The Heurtley home is considered one of the earliest examples of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in full Prairie Style.  Once again, this home is set against the north property line to allow the veranda on its southern facade (to the right in the above photo) more exposure to the sun.  The entrance arch reminds one of The Rookery Building in downtown Chicago.  Reversing the traditional layout of typical American homes, Wright moved the living and dining rooms to the top floor of the home and made them open to one another.  Their ceilings are high, echoing the line of the roof.  The fireplace is in the center of the home, reflecting Wright's belief that home and hearth are integral.  

The Peter A. Beachy Home
238 Forest Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois

Peter A. Beachy, another banker, asked Wright to remodel his 238 Forest Avenue home in 1906, soon after Wright returned from a trip to Japan.  The seven gables of its roof are one of its Japanese-inspired elements.

The Frank W. Thomas Home
210 Forest Avenue

In 1901, James C. Rogers commissioned Wright to build a home for his daughter and her husband, Frank W. Thomas.  This home was Wright's first all-stucco home in Oak Park.  By switching from wood to stucco, Wright was able to achieve the precise geometric mass structure he envisioned.  The arch entrance leads to a "false door," hidden from view on the upper level.  

Mrs. Thomas H. Gage Home
6 Elizabeth Court, Oak Park, Illinois

Remember the "Bootleg House" that Thomas H. Gage commissioned Wright to build in 1892?  That house was a success, for his wife must have loved that house.  When Thomas Gage died, his widow Laura asked Wright to build a smaller home for herself and her children.  The narrow property on Elizabeth Court was a challenge, but Wright designed a home with cantilevered balconies that flooded the interior with light.  Completed in 1909, this was one of the last homes Wright built in his own neighborhood.

Without a doubt, future commissions from his neighbors were lost due to a scandal in Wright's personal life.  After twenty years of marriage,Wright left his wife Catherine in 1909 to travel to Germany with his mistress, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the wife of one of Wright's Oak Park clients, Edwin Cheney.  Their departure was the talk of the neighborhood.  John Moore Hills, the son of Edward & Mary Hills, described his parents' reaction thus:  "At about the time that my parents were moving into one of his houses, Mr. Wright was leaving town under somewhat questionable circumstances...my parents recognized that Frank Lloyd Wright was a genius, but they did not believe that excused him from obeying the moral law.  This seemed to be the attitude of much of the neighborhood as judged by what I heard from my playmates and overheard from their elders.  When the tragedy at Taliesan struck, there seemed to be a feeling that it was as much a judgment as an accident." (3)

Sadly, this seems like a wrong ending to the early history of a Wright neighborhood.


Sources
1.  Wright, Frank Lloyd.  Frank Lloyd Wright: An Autobiography.  Petaluma, CA: Pomegranate Communications, 2005.
2.  Gunning, Don (2002).  313 Forest Ave.  Frank Lloyd Wright's Forest Ave. dgunning.org   Retrieved 29 November 2011.
3.  Hills, John Moore.  "The Hills Family and Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright."  January 17, 1985.  (Unpublished manuscript on file at the Historical Society of Oak Park and River Forest and the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust Research Center.)