FEATURE Image: May 2024. 143 First Street, c. 1863. 7.52 mb_6360. Since the 19th century Batavia, Illinois, 40 miles west of Chicago, was a railroad and manufacturing center in addition to its farmsteads. This mid-19th century limestone factory building is testament to Batavia’s industrial heritage. After the U.S. Civil War, Batavia was a major manufacturer of Conestoga wagons used in the country’s westward expansion.
Text & Photographs John P. Walsh.
May 2024. 143 First Street, c. 1863. 7.52 mb_6360. The square shaped south façade’s stone cut is more grandiose than the longer west side indicating that it is the front face of the building. The tower at the north end likely held the building’s water tank and added more room and height for pulleys and other equipment.May 2024. Batavia is one of the towns along the Fox River settled in the 1830’s between Geneva and St. Charles to the north and larger Aurora to the south. 95% 7.75 mb DSC_6350.July 2016. Fermilab is to the east and adjacent to Batavia. Since 1969 it has housed a herd of bison when Fermilab’s first director, Robert Wilson, established the herd as a symbol of the history of the Midwestern prairie and the laboratory’s pioneering research at the frontiers of particle physics. Each spring new calves are born signaling the herd’s rejuvenation. 4.70mb _0577 see – https://www.fnal.gov/pub/about/bisoncam/ – retrieved 1.24.25.May 2024. Campana Sales Company Factory, Batavia, Illinois, East Elevation, 1936-1937. The Campana Factory was built in the International Style to manufacture cosmetics for The Campana Company. At the time Campana’s “Italian Balm,” heavily promoted on the radio, was the nation’s best-selling hand lotion. The building was designed by Frank D. Chase & Company (founded in 1913) with Childs and Smith in Chicago. Frank David Chase (1877-1937) built newspaper plants in St. Louis, Milwaukee and Oklahoma City and a number of important buildings in Chicago including hospitals and office buildings. The central tower reflects the 19th-century heritage of Batavia’s limestone factories. The one story wings on the extremity of the building were added in the late 1940’s. The factory was purchased by the laundry detergent brand Purex who later closed Campana operations in 1982. 77% 7.72mb _6437.https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102112/campana-sales-company-factory-batavia-illinois-east-elevation – retrieved January 22, 2025.https://www.artic.edu/artworks/102113/campana-sales-company-factory-batavia-illinois-landscape-perspective – retrieved January 22, 2025.May 2024. At the bottom of the tower of Campana Sales Company Factory the main entrance is stainless steel set into black polished marble. 7.48mb _6446.May 2024. The Congregational Church, 21 S. Batavia Avenue, 1856. 89% 7.73mb _6372. The locally quarried limestone central section dates to September 1856. The church displays the eclecticism of New England Colonial and Classical styles. Though the building’s classical detailing of capitals and pilasters is mostly missing, the precisely cut and laid stone are original. These cut ashlar blocks include neatly finished arches, sills, and entablatures. The church’s design is attributed to architect Elijah Shumway Town (1804-1890) who built Batavia’s Bellevue Place Sanitarium in 1853 where Mary Todd Lincoln was committed for 4 months in 1875. When the original steeple was knocked down in a storm in 1877 it wasn’t replaced until 97 years later in 1974 and is the tallest steeple in Kane County. There have been subsequent additions to the church in the last 60 years. Established in Thompson Paxton’s cabin in 1835 as “Church of the Big and Little Woods” and affiliated with the Presbyterians, the church relocated to Batavia Avenue in 1841. Sharing a common belief in the anti-slavery doctrine, the church was supported by church members and the community-at-large so that the church changed its name to “Congregational Church and Society of Bavaria” in 1843.May 2024. 355 First Street, 1852. 96% 7.83mb DSC_6389. This was the Methodist church built in the Greek Revival. The pilasters are Doric order that meet the main beam resting across the tops of columns (architrave), blank frieze, cornice, and classical pediment. After 1886 the building was used as a schoolhouse in the Batavia school system. Today it is law offices. In 1836 a group meeting in William Van Nortwick’s home in Batavia organized the “First Methodist Class” which marked the establishment of the Methodist church in Batavia.July 2013. West wall stone work and window of former Methodust Church built in 1852. 7.02mb _0004Born in Maine, Elijah Gammon (1819-1891) was a spiritual and business powerhouse. After he moved to Illinois he was the Methodist church’s first preacher in 1854. Having to give up preaching because of health in 1858, he changed careers to the manufacture of harvesting machinery. As he substantially contributed to the industry’s development and earned a fortune, his business responsibilities and success in no way limited his spiritual vision.https://aaregistry.org/story/elijah-gammon-supported-black-ministry/ – retrieved January 23, 2025.May 2024. United Methodist Church of Batavia, 8 N. Batavia, 1887. 87%7.91mb _6498. United Methodist Church of Batavia, 8 N. Batavia Avenue, Batavia, Illinois was built in 1887. The rugged eclectic Richardsonian Romanesque-type building was designed by Solon Spencer Beman (1853 –1914) and inspired by a church in France that its donors had admired. The structure was almost entirely the gift of abolitionist Elijah J. Gammon (1819-1891), the church’s first preacher and local businessman, and Captain Don Carlos Newton (1832-1893), another active local businessman who had a house investment property across the street. Beman was an architect of note as he designed the planned Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory complex in Chicago as well as Chicago’s Fine Arts Building (1884) on Michigan Avenue. At the top of the tower is a Palladian window under a pyramidal roof while in the back are hipped roofs. The building’s boulders were taken from the contractor’s farm about a mile from the building site. The new church building replaced the first Methodist church in Batavia built in 1853 in Greek Revival and which still stands today.Born in New York, Captain Newton was a very active businessman. He died unexpectedly at his home in Batavia after attending the Chicago World’s Fair for a week with his family in 1893. He was described as ”a persevering, self-made man.” https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16849480/don-carlos-newton – retrieved January 23, 2025.Chicago-based architect Solon Spencer Beman designed the United Methodist Church of Batavia in 1887. Beman is an architect of note as he designed the planned Pullman community and adjacent Pullman Company factory complex as well as Chicago’s Fine Arts Building (1884) on Michigan Avenue. Several of his largest commissions, including the Pullman Office Building, Pabst Building in Milwaukee (1891), and the Romanesque Revival Grand Central Station (1890) in Chicago, have since been demolished.A number of architects trained with Beman, including Prairie School architect William L. Steele (1875-1949), church architect Charles Draper Faulkner (1890-1979) and Spencer Solon Beman (1887-1952).May 2024. 415 Main Street, 1860. Eclectic Gothic Revival with Italianate features including scroll-cut square brackets tailored to the pitched roof line, segmental arches above the windows, and the heavy outlines of the door entrance. A polygonal bay and wings are informal features found in the Italianate that balances a formal façade. 89% 7.87mb. July 2011. 415 Main Street (1860). The door is larger than the windows and offset by the small ventilating window at the top in the gable. 2.54mb100_3328 (1)May 2024. 360 Main Street, 1855. 74% 7.72mb DSC_6409. The house is an example of the evolving transition from Greek Revival to Gothic Revival to Italianate. May 2024. 33 S. Lincoln Street, 1850. 73% 7.85mb DSC_6520. The lengthy 1850 Greek Revival is formal and simple. There are four pairs of windows and an architrave, frieze and cornice characteristic of the type as well as its corner pilasters. May 2024. 505 Main Street, 1858. The house is in the Swiss style and has a peacock feather spread motif above the second floor balcony. There are also trifoils set in circles in the gable. The brick sun room was added to the east around 1910. 92% 7.81mb DSC_6426 (1) July 2011. 505 Main Street’s in-vogue late 1850’s peacock feather motif was made by scroll cut boards nailed to a backing and long tubes made by a lathe. To the left under the roof extension there is incised ornamentation with a tall thistle plant motif. 1.54mb 100_3331 (1) May 2024. 356 First Street, c. 1850. 62% 7.80mb DSC_6395. Greek Revival frame clapboard house. May 2024. 637 N. Batavia Avenue, 1906. The Prairie style house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) in 1906. It is frame and stucco with massive chimneys. With its horizontals, low pitched roof, casement windows and thin eaves, it is the Prairie style fully developed. Frank Lloyd Wright in 1903, likely a self-portrait. Public Domain.July 2013. Fabyan Villa was the home of George and Nelle Fabyan from 1908 to 1939. A mid-19th century farmhouse was acquired by the Fabyans in 1905 and extensively remodeled by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1907. The house, on a hilltop looking east to the Fox River was the centerpiece of the Fabyans country estate called “Riverbank.” In 1914, the Fabyans purchased a windmill (photo below) that was located on a farm near Oakbrook, Illinois, and had it relocated opposite Riverbank on acreage that they acquired that same year.May 2024. 111 S. Lincoln Street, c. 1850 92% 7.84mb DSC_6396. Though obscured by modern adaptations, the severe cube of the structure indicates its Greek Revival roots. May 2024. 125 S. Lincoln, 1852. The Greek Revival style with the central section temple like with matching side pilaster ascending to a pediment as an incomplete entablature as one side is merely suggested by returns at the top of each pilaster. The wings include a one-story entrance and a two-story addition with cornice and dormers with window arches and tiny pitched roofs. 88% 7.78 mb DSC_6400May 2024. 432 Main Street, c. 1850. The front porch may or may not be original but befits the broad formal mid-19th century Greek Revival structure. 93% 7.82mb DSC_6431 (1)July 2011. Between Batavia and Geneva, Illinois, The Fabyan Windmill is an authentic, working Dutch windmill dating from the 1850s. It was built by a German craftsman, Louis Blackhaus, and moved to this location next to the Fox River from its original site near Oakbrook, Illinois, in July 1915. 2 mb 100_3357July 2011. 333 S. Jefferson Street, Batavia Institute, Bellevue Mental Hospital, 1853. Following the assassination of her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, Bellevue became the residence of Mary Todd Lincoln briefly in 1875. 2.87mb 100_3332 Mary Todd Lincoln in 1846. Mary Todd was 23 years old when she married 33-year-old Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois on November 4, 1842. Their four sons were all born in Springfield. In 1875 Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), her eldest son, had her institutionalized following a jury trial. She was committed to this private asylum in Batavia on May 20, 1875. Estranged from her finances and her son, she fell into a deep depression in the mental institution. Making contact with her lawyer and the press, the former First Lady got the wheels of justice and public opinion on her side. The resulting bad publicity for Robert Lincoln prompted the asylum director to pre-emptively change his opinion of Mary’s mental fitness so that in September 1875 she was released into the care of her sister Elizabeth Todd Edwards (1813-1888) with whom she was close and moved to Springfield. Following a second jury trial on June 19, 1876 that declared Mary “restored to reason,” Mary Todd Lincoln was back in charge of her money and freedom and promptly fled the country. She lived in France for the next four years. When she returned to Springfield in poor health in 1880, she lived again with her sister in Springfield. On July 16, 1882. Mary Todd Lincoln died of a stroke in Elizabeth’s home. Mary was 63 years old. Before her burial in Oak Ridge Cemetery next to her slain husband, her funeral was held at First Presbyterian Church in Springfield. Just steps from the Lincoln home, this was the church Abraham Lincoln started attending in 1850 after the death of their second son, four-year-old Eddie. The present church building was dedicated in 1868 and remains standing at 7th Street and Capitol Avenue today. see – https://www.nps.gov/features/liho/25/25.htm – retrieved January 23, 2025. Elizabeth Todd Edwards. She and Mary were long close both in Springfield in the 1830’s and, later, at the White House. In 1875 Elizabeth accommodated her sister and the 64 trunks of her possessions with two rooms in her Springfield mansion. see – https://web.archive.org/web/20171201042129/https://www.civilwarwomenblog.com/elizabeth-todd-edwards/ – retrieved January 23, 2025.July 2013. 333 S. Jefferson Street, Batavia Institute, Bellevue Mental Hospital, 1853. The monumental Italianate structure was designed by Elijah Shumway Town (1804-1890) who built Batavia’s Congregational Church. Projecting two story wings with Mansard roof containing a third story is built of slightly cruder stone and added before 1870. July 2013. details. July 2013. details. 5.11mb 0479 July 2013. 419 Union Street, 1863. The exuberance of the Italianate style is manifest in a soaring polygonal bay on the facade’s one side and a cupola on the other. Large windows are characteristic of the Italianate as are multiple curved brackets. Contrasting textures of stucco and heavy stone provide interest and work to suggest the appearance of more expensive materials and construction than actually used. This was the residence of one of the doctors at the Batavia Institute across the street. 4.77mb _0092 (1)
Sources:
A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 304-319.
FEATURE image: The massive Harold Washington Library sits on the northwest corner of State Street and Ida B. Wells (Congress) Drive. November 2017 5.02 mb.
November 2017.
In 1987, Hammond, Beeby and Babka won the competition to design the main branch of Chicago’s library. The Harold Washington Library was completed in 1991 and is one of the Chicago-based architectural firm’s most famous structures. The building recalls neo-classical institutional buildings yet whose style is creatively applied in its details.
PHOTO CREDIT: “Harold Washington (9519692588)” by City of Boston Archives from West Roxbury, United States is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
The Harold Washington Library is named for Chicago’s first Black mayor. Harold Washington (1922-1987) was elected to two terms as mayor starting in 1983. The well-read and erudite mayor died suddenly of a heart attack the day before Thanksgiving in November1987 just a few months into his second term. I was running along the lakefront in Lincoln Park on an overcast day when I heard the news on my Walkman. My fiancée and I were one of the thousands of Chicagoans (and one of the few whites) who passed by his open casket in the lobby of City Hall between November 27 and 29, 1987. I had also seen and heard Harold Washington speak a couple of times during his public appearances as mayor.
FROM THE PROGRAM: “The jury becomes the ultimate client…There are three areas of evaluation: the design of the building; how it meets technical specifications and how it fulfills the library program…•
Five competing architecture teams race to create the vision for the new Harold Washington (Chicago Public Main) Library that opened at 400 S. State Street on October 7, 1991. The Burnham-dreamed park south across Congress/Ida B. Wells from the library never materialized (Pritzker Park is to the north). The NOVA episode follows these creators as they develop and present their ideas to be judged by the city and public for the downtown building that range from postmodern to Beaux-Arts design concepts. FROM THE PROGRAM: “The jury becomes the ultimate client…There are three areas of evaluation: the design of the building; how it meets technical specifications and how it fulfills the library program…•
July 2015. Chicago. 4.84mb July 2015. 5.01mb DSC_0056 (1)July 2015. 5.52 mb DSC_0004 (2)December 2015. 3.7mb DSC_0980 (3)
This explanatory article may be periodically updated.
FEATURE Image: 1432 Forest Avenue, Evanston, IL, 1885. Stylish single family home, nearly 5,000 square feet, has 6 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. Author’s photograph. 6/2022 7.7.mb 53%
Text & Photographs John P. Walsh.
1032 and 1034 Michigan Avenue, 1899. Double house designed by Myron Hunt (1868-1952) shortly before he relocated his practice to Los Angeles, CA. Each shingled dwelling is given a distinctive design. The northern side has a projecting porch and two-story polygonal bay. The southern side has a recessed porch. The house is tied together by a single gable with a quartet of double-hung windows and a cornice part of which is integrated to the polygonal bay. 6/2022. 7.84mb 70%Myron Hunt (1868-1952) in February 1905. The American architect did numerous projects which are noted landmarks in Southern California and Evanston, Illinois. Born in Massachusetts he moved to Chicago and attended Northwestern University and later MIT where he graduated in 1893. Traveling and studying in Europe, he returned to Evanston where he worked as a draftsman in the local office of the Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge. In 1903 Hunt moved to Los Angeles, where he entered into a partnership with architect Elmer Grey (1871–1963). Opening an office in Pasadena, the firm of Hunt and Grey built houses for the wealthy. These included the summer ranch house for cereal magnate Will Keith Kellogg (1860-1951) in Pomona, CA, nearby to Los Angeles. Hunt and Grey also built hospitals, schools, churches and hotels. Public Domain.1026 Michigan Avenue, 1915. Prairie style house designed by John Van Bergen (1885-1969) in 1915. The Oak Park, IL-born American architect did numerous such stylish house projects from DeKalb, IL, to Winnetka, IL in the 1910’s. 6/2022 7.78mb 79%Architect John Van Bergen (above in c. 1927) was born and grew up in Oak Park, IL. He began his career as an apprentice draftsman working with Walter Burley Griffin (1867-1937) and for Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) at his Oak Park Studio. Van Bergen’s early projects, mostly in Oak Park, were predominantly residential and largely in the Prairie School style, which he learned in Griffin’s and Wright’s studios. See- https://highlandparkhistory.com/highland-park-legends-program/john-van-bergen/ – retrieved December 5, 2023. Public Domain.1049 Michigan Avenue, 1910. The Prairie-style house was designed and built by C.H. Thompson, a local developer. It is a basic block with a hipped roof, albeit on a grand scale and with dormers and porch projects that emphasize horizontality along with typical Prairie hoods. There is stucco façade with brick detailing of varying geometric design patterns. 6/2022 7.95 mb 88%1010 Michigan Avenue, 1911. The Tudor style brick mansion was designed by Ernest Mayo (1864-1946). Once sitting on an even more expansive corner lot, Mayo designed the house and garden together. 6/2022. 7.91mb 65%Another view of 1010 Michigan Avenue. Built in 1911, it is one of Evanston’s most formal examples of the popular Tudor Revival style whose design takes inspiration from Elizabeth I manor houses and is imposing. It is a symmetrical and complex design of porches, bows, gables, chimneys and window groupings. Architect Ernest Mayo was born in Birmingham, England in 1864 and began his career in South Africa. Mayo immigrated to Chicago in 1891 where he established the firm of Mayo and Curry. The Chicago firm designed factories, hotels, and office buildings, and Mayo worked on administrative buildings for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Mayo split with Curry and worked independently until he partnered with his 24-year-old son Peter Mayo in 1919 to form Mayo and Mayo. While Ernest Mayo received his architectural apprentice training in England, Peter received his degree from Yale University and further design education at The Art Institute of Chicago. See – https://www.winnetkahistory.org/gazette/140-sheridan-road-2/ and https://prabook.com/web/ernest.mayo/1717173 – retrieved December 5, 2023. 6/2022. 7.63mb 66%Interior room, Dawes Mansion, 225 Greenwood Street, 1894. Designed by New York architect Henry Edwards Ficken (1852-1929), the house sits on a large lot overlooking Lake Michigan. The basic square block building is met by round tourelles on each corner with conical roofs that meet the same height of the main block’s hipped roof. The Châteauesque-style house was bought by Charles Gates Dawes (1865-1951) who was vice-president under Calvin Coolidge and, with its stunning cherry paneling, is furnished much as it was during Dawes’ residency. 10/2015 4.20mb“Charles Gates Dawes House, Evanston, Illinois” by StevenM_61 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.1037 Michigan Ave, Evanston, IL, 1895. 6/2022 7.52mb 99%940-950 Michigan Avenue, 1927. Michigan-Lee apartment building was erected by N.J Lareau and associates and sits on a 20,000 square foot lot on the southwest corner of Michigan and Lee. Georgian Colonial is the style of architecture for the new structure which is made of red brick and Bedford stone. The structure was built to house 24 total apartments: three 7-room, three 6-room, fifteen 5-room, and three 4-room apartments. https://www.archinform.net/arch/202206.htm and http://www.michiganleecondoassociation.com/history.html – retrieved November 28, 2023. The swanky apartment complex was designed by Frank William Cauley (1898-1984) architect and lawyer. 6/2022. 7.68mb 66% Frank Cauley, architect of the Michigan-Lee building (above) in 1927, graduated from the Armour Institute of Technology in 1922. Before he received his license to practice architecture, he designed the $2,000,000 three-hundred room (each with its own bath) Orrington Hotel in 1923 in Evanston, Illinois, for local developer Victor Ca[r]landrie Carlson. Carlson built the Carlson Building on Church Street in downtown Evanston as well as two landmark hotels, including The Library Plaza Hotel in 1922. Cauley went into business on his own, practicing until the 1929 crash. In the depression years he went to law school in Chicago and received his L.L.B. in 1938. In April 1969, the Illinois Institute of Technology awarded him a J.D. https://undereverytombstone.blogspot.com/2015/10/he-left-his-mark-on-downtown-evanston.html – retrieved November 28, 2023“The Hotel Orrington” by Mark Blevis is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Evanston front porches. 6/2022 7.80mb 79%1210 Michigan Avenue, 1880. Started as a simple clapboard farmhouse one block from Lake Michigan. there have been several expansive additions since that time The front exterior is marked by a simple veranda with grouped struts in the lintel which is supported by turned posts.6/2022 7.68mb 75%1332 Forest Avenue Evanston, IL, 1894, is a stylish home with several additions on an expansive corner lot. 6/2022 7.32mn 90%1005 Michigan Avenue, 1913. The light-colored brick house is Colonial Revival with modifications is by Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926). The façade’s symmetry is prominently displayed in its 5 equal openings for its two main floors and topped by a shortened pitched roof with three flat-roofed dormers. A chimney protrudes at the roof line to the north. For the main mass there are aligned windows with a middle opening for both the first and second floor symmetrically displaying diverse residential functionality: a broad-arched porchway and genteel fanlight above a double door entry on the first floor and, at the second level. a wrought iron balcony providing a small, mainly decorative step landing. The great house is situated on the northeast corner lot of a leafy yet trafficked suburban residential intersection, with the main building’s symmetry broken to the south by the then-popular sun porch extension. It is a low, two-story flat-roofed projection with an enclosed porch on the first floor and an open porch originally on the upper level. 6/2022. 7.58mb 73% Howard Van Doren Shaw (1869-1926). Public Domain.Evanston fashion, c. 1918. Most Evanstonians used local dressmakers and tailors to have their clothes made. The white cotton summer dress with embroidery and lace insertions and natural waistline was typical for the era. 10.2015 4.24mb“Northwestern University Gate” by AcidFlask is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.Chicago Avenue at Clark Street. Evanston is home to Northwestern University. 6/2022 7.84mb 87%“Fortress Northwestern: University Library and Norris University Center, June 1977” by A.Davey is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Divvy bike (with basket!) to get around campus and the neighborhood. 6/2022 7.77mb 83%The longtime Chicago-Main Newsstand at 860 Chicago Avenue in Evanston is open 7 days a week from 7:00a.m. – 10:00p.m. 6/2022 7.74mb 85%Left: 1730 Chicago Ave, Evanston, IL Built in 1865, it was the home of Frances Willard (1839-1898) and her family and was the headquarters of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. 6/2022 7.73mb 88%Grosse Point Lighthouse, 1873, is a tapering column to a catwalk supported by Italianate brackets built by the U.S. Government. The lighthouse marks the approach into Chicago. The promontory on which it stands was named Grosse Point in the 17th century by French explorers and the area was mapped in 1673 by Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary. The lighthouse is topped by a polygonal glass lantern containing the light and lens. See – http://www.grossepointlighthouse.net/history.html – retrieved December 5, 2023.6/2014 4.03mb
Sources:
A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 499-530.
FEATURE image: 822 Bryant, Winnetka, 1901. A grand example of the Shingle style working its way through the Arts and Crafts movement and influenced by the recent Prairie School’s horizontality and openness. Author’s photograph. 8/2014 99% 6.92mb.
Test & Photographs John P. Walsh.
11-844 Prospect, Winnetka, 1885 with later additions. The central section with the steeply pitched roof with a prominent flare is the oldest part of the house. It is the American Queen Anne style in vogue in the 1880s and Classical Revival style that emerged following the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The sunporch abuts a two-story porch whose corner columns are the Ionic order. 8/2014 7.79mb 95% 11-844 Prospect, Winnetka, 1885 with later additions.The south-facing façade has a tall chimney that rises from the ground to above the roof peak. The main entrance is under a shouldered segmental arch held up by columns of the relatively uncommon Roman Doric order. The beige-colored metal siding is a modern addition. 8/2014 6.04mb9 – 824 Prospect Avenue, Winnetka, c. 1900. There is a prominent cornice with a garland frieze below a tiled hipped roof that has a central dormer with a Palladian window. The porch, supported by Ionic order expanded columns, wraps around the front to embrace a two-story bay facing south. Originally this offered a second -floor open sunporch. 8/2014 6.76mb8 – 800 Lloyd Place, Winnetka, 1901. A traditional cube structure which is half stucco and half shingled is covered by a hipped roof that is slightly flared at the eaves. The main roof’s central dormer as well as the main entrance have their own hipped roofs. There is a slight polygonal bay seen on the east side. 8/2014 6.15mbSheridan Road, Winnetka, Illinois. 8/2014 3.01mbSacred Heart Church, 1077 Tower Road, Winnetka. In July 2018 Sacred Heart Church in Winnetka and St. Philip the Apostle in Northfield consolidated into one (Divine Mercy Parish) as declining participation and increasing reliance on government funds and private donor largesse to operate make it impossible to sustain a presence and footprint in the local community otherwise. When this photograph was taken in 2014 Sacred Heart was still its own parish with a vestibule wall filled with photographic portraits of past pastors indicating a long and proud history. The trends in modern Catholic parish life and Catholic institutions in general are, and have been since the 1960’s, on a downward spiral. The Archdiocese itself cites these troubling statistics – less than 1 in 5 of Catholic Millennials (17%) go to weekly Mass; more than a third of the same Millennials (those born after 1986) identify with no religion at all; more than 8 in 10 (85%) of all public and private school 8th graders stop practicing the Catholic faith by early adulthood (23 years old). In the last 20 years Mass attendance has lost over 1 in 4 filling the pews. A significant number of “cradle Catholics,” that is, baptized children, do not receive 1st communion (20%) or the sacrament of confirmation (40%). See – https://www.renewmychurch.org/mission – retrieved November 21, 2023. 8/2014 4.58mbThirty-five-year old Augustus Barker Higginson, an architect located in Los Angeles, California, built the impressive Shingle style house (below) at 822 Bryant Avenue Winnetka in 1901. Public Domain. 7 – 822 Bryant, Winnetka, 1901. A grand example of the Shingle style working its way through the Arts and Crafts movement and influenced by the recent Prairie School’s horizontality and openness. The domicile was built by progressive American architect Augustus Barker Higginson (1866-1915) then with architects Myron Hunt & Elmer Grey in Los Angeles, later locating his own firm in Santa Barbara, California. See – https://pcad.lib.washington.edu/person/7142/ – retrieved November 21, 2023. The house is an L-shaped plan with broad sloping pitches roofs. The window groupings have plain surrounds that fit elegantly into shingle walls that, when they reach the ground, flare slightly. Christ Church and Garland Cemetery, 784 Sheridan Road, Winnetka, 1870’s. The church was established in 1869 and the cemetery grounds was begun in 1876. 8/2014 6.60mbChrist Church, 784 Sheridan Road, Winnetka. Gothic revival: Charles J. Connick Studio (1912-1945). Harriet Leonard, born Albany, NY, Nov. 17, 1875 – died Winnetka, Feb. 28, 1923. Connick’s work in stained glass is noted for its brilliant colors, rich symbolism and abundant use of scripture passages. 8/2014 7.66mbDedicated in 1905, Christ Church (also known as Church on the Hill) is a traditional stone church that was the gift of the William Hoyt family. It was built as a memorial to their daughter and three grandchildren who were tragically killed in the 1903 Iroquois Theater fire in Chicago and buried in the adjacent cemetery. 8/2014 7.77mbnewspaper headline, 1903.
Sources:
A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 565-74.
FEATURE image: Detail of 804 Forest Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois. The Prairie style house was built in 1906 by architect George Washington Maher (1864-1926) whose influence on the Midwest was profound and prolonged and, in its time, as great as Frank Lloyd Wright’s. Author’s photograph. 6/2014 3.95mb
5 – 1231 Forest Avenue, 1898. A two-story clapboard with a flared hipped roof with three dormers, one each in the front and on the sides. The façade-length porch also has a hipped roof. The first floor has a projecting polygonal bay window and a front door and separate square vestibule window. 6/2014 4.76mb6 – 1215 Forest Avenue, c. 1909. The two-story home is built of finely dressed (cut, worked) ashlar stone. The home has a hipped roof and steep pitched pediment with a broken cornice and a false balcony with rounded attic window. In a rigidly centralized composition, there is a slight projecting bay above the entrance that is sheltered by a large porch with a massive projecting pediment held by a masonry pier with short bulging columns. 6/2014 5.67mb 11 – 1041 Forest Avenue, 1873. Masked by later additions, this house was originally Italianate whose hooded windows and small square attic window remain on the façade. 6/2014 4.20mb12- 1020 Forest Avenue, Community Church of Wilmette, 1920, has massing of large rubble ashlar walls with broad arches and a porch. 6/2014 3.57mb12- 1020 Forest Avenue, Community Church of Wilmette, 1920, was a pioneer for a large building tucked unobtrusively onto a residential street that in terms of stance was replicated by other churches that were built later in the suburb. 6/2014 6.05mb
13 – 932 Forest Avenue, 1890s. A grand two-story Classical Revival house with a high hipped roof and ionic pilasters at the corners as well as sides and pediment of the projecting entrance. Ionic columns also support the porch. 6/2014 4.86mb14 – 922 Forest Avenue pre-1873 and c. 1900. The house was originally built in the Italianate style evident in the cornice with double brackets in the front and single brackets on the side of the house along with pedimented windows. The third-floor gables were added around 1900 as well as the broad bow façade. These changes worked to add space and mask the original style. The front porch is even more recent. 6/2014 5.61mbGeorge Washington Maher (1864-1926), born in West Virginia, was an American architect in the Prairie School style who was known for blending with the Arts& Crafts style. According to H. Allen Brooks in The Prairie School – Frank Lloyd Wright and his Midwest Contemporaries (1972) “[Maher’s] influence on the Midwest was profound and prolonged and, in its time, was certainly as great as was [Frank Lloyd] Wright’s. Compared with the conventional architecture of the day, his work showed considerable freedom and originality, and his interiors were notable for their open and flowing…space.” By the time of his death, G.W. Maher had designed over 270 projects; from houses to parks to public buildings. Public Domain. 15 – 804 Forest Avenue, 1906. The Prairie style house was built in 1906. The architect was George Washington Maher (1864-1926). 6/2014 3.95mb15 – 804 Forest Avenue, 1906, by G.W. Maher is a solid 4-square house that is modest compared to a similar-styled project the Prairie-school architect completed in 1899 in Oak Park, IL , known as Pleasant Home. 6/2014 4.85mb
Sources:
A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 534-547.
The Prairie School – Frank Lloyd Wright and his Midwest Contemporaries. Brooks, H. Allen New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1972, p. 330.
