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%
Test & 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%First Presbyterian Church, 1427 Chicago Ave, Evanston, IL One of the historic church’s dramatic wall-filling stained-glass windows.10/2015 7.79mb 80%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: Detail of wood, stone and brick used by architect Joseph Emil Hosek for his 1951 Prairie-style house at 8958 S. Hamilton Avenue in Northern Beverly. See a fuller description and another photograph of the house in this post.
Text & photographs by John P. Walsh.
INTRODUCTION.
The Beverly/Morgan Park community owes its charm and uniqueness to the variety of architecture styles and the plan for residential areas that were laid out in the late 19th century. Historic districts were established to help preserve that ambience.
Prairie School founder Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) designed a handful of houses in Beverly/Morgan Park (4) between 1900 and 1917 as did Walter Burley Griffin who boasts an historic district on 104th Place. Today there are four historic districts – (1) the Ridge Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places, and Chicago Landmark Districts (2) covering historic homes and churches on sections of Longwood Drive and Seeley Avenue, (3) Prairie-style houses designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin, and (4) the train stations along the old Rock Island line.
The architect Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) has one of the historic districts in Beverly/Morgan Park named after him for his work designing Prairie-style houses. Griffin went on to become internationally famous as the designer of the new Australian capital city of Canberra in 1913. Public Domain.
The Ridge Historic District is an extensive area and one of the largest urban historic districts in the U.S. Boundaries include a substantial amount of historic Beverly and Morgan Park with architectural styles from the 1870s to the 1930s. More homes of historic value that are not in the historic district find designation and protection in the Chicago Landmark Districts.
The Beverly-Morgan Park area is a former homeland of the Potawatomi peoples. In 1833, the Native Americans ceded their land rights to this area to the U.S. government. In 1839, John Blackstone purchased 300 acres encompassing land known as the Ridge, a heavily wooded highland. Chicago and Fort Dearborn were accessible by an indigenous trail, also called the Vincennes Trail.
The area has mature trees, long, winding streets and old houses set back and nestled into hilly green plots. Morgan Park is the older community started in 1844 and later annexed to Chicago in 1914. Its original land tract was bought from John Blackstone by Englishman Thomas Morgan, between 91st and 119th street along the west side of Longwood Drive (the Blue Island Ridge). The area was a farming community until, after the Civil War, Morgan’s children sold the land to the Blue Island Building and Land Company, and, in 1869, Thomas F. Nichols planned a picturesque subdivision with winding streets, small parks, and roundabouts that evoke images of an English country town. Although the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad laid tracks through the area in 1852, commuter service to downtown was established over 35 years later, in 1888, which was six years after Morgan Park incorporated as a suburban village.
Map of Morgan Park, IL, as laid out by Thomas F. Nichols for the Blue Island Land and Building Company, 1870. Public Domain.
Following the Chicago fire, Morgan Park developed quickly in the 1870s including Morgan Park Military Academy (1873), Baptist Union Theological Seminary (1877), and Chicago Female College (1875). The seminary was run by Thomas Wakefield Goodspeed (1842-1927) and William Rainey Harper (1856-1906) who established The University of Chicago in Hyde Park in 1890. The seminary left Morgan Park at that time to become the University’s Divinity School. The political battle for Morgan Park’s annexation to Chicago resulted in its suburban women voting overwhelmingly for annexation in 1914 because it meant better city services and schools.
The Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific railroad had opened a station at 91st Street in 1889 and called it Beverly Hills which became the name for the whole area north of 107th along the Ridge. Beverly’s churches and schools reflected the community’s growth from east to west. Beverly (or Beverly Hills) developed along similar lines as adjacent Morgan Park though annexed to Chicago a quarter of century earlier in 1890. Beverly was originally part of the village of Washington Heights to the east which was also annexed to Chicago in 1890.
Notable Buildings in Beverly/Morgan Park.
J.T. Blake House, 2023 W. 108th Place, 1894, H.H. Waterman.
H.H. Waterman (1869-1948), a Wisconsin native, was a Wright contemporary. Waterman was known as Morgan Park’s “Village Architect” because he designed so many buildings in the community (no less than 15) even as Waterman also built houses out-of-state. Waterman’s architecture is vibrantly creative yet stately and recognizable by their charming and irregular designs. The J.T.Blake House is from the early mid 1890’s, a fecund building period for Waterman. It has a steeply pitched and swooping gabled roof that is asymmetrical and a jutting angled stairway bay. The house materials are stone, wood, and stucco.
Another H.H. Waterman confection is the so-called “Honeymoon Cottage” (above) nestled onto a broad, hilly corner Ridge lot, built in 1892. Waterman built this house for his young wife, Ida May Vierling (1872-1896), who died at 24 years old in 1896, leaving the talented architect alone to raise their baby daughter, Louise Hale Waterman (1895-1953). The house has a pretty terraced entrance with an exaggerated gabled entry porch. There is a high hipped roof that adds to the English cottage style whimsy and disproportion that is the architect’s own home. The Harry H. Waterman House, at 10838 S. Longwood Dr., built in 1892, is part of both the Ridge Historic District and the Longwood Drive District.
Morgan Park Methodist Episcopal, 11000 S. Longwood Drive, 1913, H.H. Waterman and addition, 1926, Perkins, Fellows & Hamilton.Dwight H. Perkins (1867-1941) was Prairie School architect and contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright.Public Domain.
The original office of Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton who designed Morgan Park Methodist Episcopal church’s 1926 addition, was on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue and briefly shared with Frank Lloyd Wright. Perkins, Fellows and Hamilton became known for designing schools and civic buildings with prolific output in the Chicagoland area. Project designs included the Bowen High School, Carl Shurz High School—considered one of the most beautiful high schools in the area—as well as Evanston Township and Winnetka’s New Trier high schools. The firm also designed park facilities such as the Lincoln Park Boat House and the Lincoln Park Zoo’s famed Lion House.
Chicago Public Library, George C. Walker Branch, 11071 S Hoyne Avenue, 1890, Charles S Frost. Additions in 1933 and 1995.
George C. Walker was president of the Blue Island Land and Building Company. The original portion of the library building was designed by Charles Sumner Frost (1856-1931), cost $12,000, and opened on April 22, 1890. In 1929 its space was quadrupled and, in 1995, it received a major renovation. When Chicago Public Library, George C. Walker Branch, was built, Frost was 34 years old and at the beginning of a new stage in his early mid-career. The low-rise stone building is greatly influenced by the Richardsonian-Romanesque style which was prevalent among young architects in the 1880’s and 1890’s before the onset of the Beaux-Arts revival.
Charles Sumner Frost (1856-1931) was born in Maine and trained as an architect in Boston, Frost moved to Chicago in 1882. The partnership of Cobb and Frost designed and began construction of the Potter Palmer mansion (1882-1885) at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive (demolished in 1951). Public Domain. Entrance towers, Chicago Public Library, George C. Walker Branch, 1892.
Adapted to a residential-commercial street in a middleclass neighborhood outside downtown Chicago, the building shows the characteristics associated with the Richardsonian Romanesque style, including strong picturesque massing, round-headed arches, clusters of short squat columns, recessed entrances, richly varied rustication, blank stretches of walling contrasting with bands of windows, and cylindrical towers with conical caps embedded in the walling.
Bryson B. Hill House, 9800 S. Longwood Drive, 1909, Albert G. Ferree.
Bryson B. Hill House (above) is a classically-inspired mansion with two-story tall Doric columns helping form the front entrance. While Prairie style of architecture was new and modern, the Chicago “Great House” did not go out of style, at least until the onset of the Great Depression in 1929 which necessitated downsizing of many house plans. Albert G. Ferree (1848-1919/1924) also built two and three flats in Chicago in the same period.
Beverly Unitarian Church (Robert C. Givins House), 10244 S. Longwood Drive, 1886, architect unknown.
Part of the Longwood Drive Historic District, the Robert S. Givins House, at 103rd Street and Longwood Drive, is also known as the Givins Beverly Castle (above). Built by an early developer, the castle-like keep is built of Joliet limestone that attracts attention for its crenellated battlement and towers with arrow-slit windows. The gatehouse entrance is a traditional Richardsonian Romanesque rounded arch. This late 19th century castle on its hill is probably the community’s best-known landmark.
Robert W. Evans House, 9914 S Longwood Drive, 1908, Frank Lloyd Wright.Frank Lloyd Wright. Public Domain.
The Evans House (above) with a low hipped roof is built atop the Blue Island Ridge and not into it. There is a central fireplace around which the expansive house pinwheels. The original stucco exterior was later covered with flagstone. The earliest Wright house in the area is the Jessie Mae and William Adams House (9326 South Pleasant) completed in 1901. Robert and Alberta Evans had been married for 12 years when Wright built this home. Robert Evans was a sales manager and treasurer for the Picher Lead Company and Alberta Wetzel Evans was an award-winning botanist.
Headmaster’s House, 2203 W 111th Street, 1872, architect unknown.
The T-stem Victorian Gothic with stone foundation has a front porch on brick supports with thick square doric columns. There is a steeply pitched roof with brackets under the roof line.
The Berry House, 9750 S. Walden Parkway, 1922. Regular commuter service from Beverly/Morgan Park to Downtown Chicago has been in place since 1888. Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad – Morgan Park Station (111th St. Metra Station), 1891, John T. Long.
The first floor of the station (above) is faced entirely in wood advertising the woodsy ambience of its then-suburban setting. A waiting room fireplace survives.
Hiland A. Parker House, 10340 S Longwood Drive, 1894, Harry Hale Waterman.
The H.A. Parker House sits on a dramatic hill site met by a base of Richardsonian huge rusticated brownstone stone blocks to form a large semicircular porch and tower at the back. The tall roof with steeply pitched gabled dormers on this helps exaggerate the house’s height.
Setting and landscape are an integral aspect of residences in curvaceous and hilly Beverly and Morgan Park. Normand Smith Patton (1852– 1915) whose firm designed the Morgan Parak Congregational Church began practicing architecture in Chicago in 1874. He left for for Washington DC two years later where he remained until 1883. Patton returned to Chicagoand opened a practice with another architect, C.E. Randall. Randall died in 1885 but Patton’s firm survived under various forms as Patton & Fisher, Patton, Fisher and Miller, Patton & Miller, and Patton, Holmes & Flinn until his death in 1915.Patton & Miller designed scores of Carnegie libraries.Morgan Park Congregational Church, 11153 S. Hoyne, Chicago, 1916, Patton, Holmes & Flinn.Morgan Park Congregational Church, 11153 S. Hoyne, Chicago, 1916, Patton, Holmes & Flinn.
Blended with Mission style, Morgan Park Congregational Church is a handsome red brick Craftsman building that has been identified as the best preserved in Chicago. The church was designed by Patton, Holmes & Flinn. Normand Smith Patton (1852– 1915) was an American architect based in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Patton’s firm specialized in public buildings, particularly Chicago public schools as well as libraries and chapels.
Clarke House, 11156 S. Longwood Drive, 1892, John Gavin.
The Sarah D. Clarke House (or W.S. Kiskaddon House) is a miniature Queen Anne-style house with an Italianate corner tower.
James R. McKee House, 10415 S Seeley, 1908, John M. Schroeder.
The simple front entrance of the J.R. McKee House is on the side hidden by an oblong triangular brick wall. A projecting sunroom that faces the street is encased by a broken arch.
Frederick C. Sawyer House, 9822 S Longwood Drive, 1908, Horatio R. Wilson.
The Sawyer House is a mansion with many windows, three floors of solid red brick from 1908. The fashionable traditional Beaux-Arts style was built in a time of new Prairie style architecture in ascendance.
Horatio R. Wilson started as a draftsman in 1877. In 1889 he was in partnership with another Chicago architect and, in the 1900’s established an independent office. In this early 20th century period Wilson planned and built many important buildings, including the Illinois Theatre in Chicago, the L. C. Case Office Building in Racine, Wisconsin (1905), the Sharp Office Building in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Railroad Station at Wheaton, Illinois, for the Aurora, Elgin & Chicago Railroad. After 1910 he was associated with John A. Armstrong in organizing the firm of H. R. Wilson & Company of which he remained the head until his death. During this later period important examples of his firm’s works were the Macmillan Publishing Company’s Office Building and Warehouse (1911) in Chicago, erected at Prairie Avenue and 20th Street, including its addition in 1916. Wilson also designed the Raymond Apartment House on North Michigan Avenue, and the Surf and Sisson Hotels in Chicago. Architect Horatio R. Wilson also designed the South Michigan Avenue building that would later house Chess Records and the Milwaukee mansion that holds today’s Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.
Howard Hyde House, 10410 S Hoyne Avenue, 1917, Frank Lloyd Wright.
The Howard Hyde House is an American System Built home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1917. The client was a cashier at International Harvester. Like the era’s popular Sears Catalog homes. Wright designs were prepackaged and ready to build. Wright had a long-term concern for affordable housing and he worked in short term partnerships with builders such as Milwaukee-based Richard Bros. and Burhans-Ellinwood & Co. The Hyde House was built as a model for a proposed subdivision that the U.S. entry into World War One halted. The only other house Wright built under this plan was 10521 S. Hoyne across the street.
Frank Lloyd Wright in 1926. Public Domain. 10541 S Hoyne, 1917, Frank Lloyd Wright.Horace Horton House, 10200 S Longwood, 1890, J.T. Long.
The H. Horton House (above) is Colonial Revival style.
Chicago State University, President’s House/Frank Anderson House, 10400 S. Longwood Drive, 1924, Oscar L. McMurry.
The CSU President’s House is Italian Renaissance Revival with Classical pediments.
Russell L Blount House (2), 1950 W 102nd Street, Chicago, 1912, William Burley Griffin.
The Russell L. Blount House (2) was designed by architect Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) in 1912. The house has the same floor plan as the Blount House (1) also built by Griffin in 1911 at 1724 W. Griffin Place. The 1912 house has a cathedral ceiling which is intimated in the façade trim. Russell L. Blount, a real estate manager for a bank, and lived with his family in and out of Griffin houses as Blount built and sold them for considerable profit.
Walter Burley Griffin, 1912. Public domain. Born in Maywood, Illinois, Griffin grew up in Oak Park and Elmhurst, Illinois. Graduating as an architect from University of Illinois, Griffin was influenced by the Chicago-based Prairie School in ascendency at the turn of the 20th century. Griffin began working in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studios and oversaw the construction of several noted houses by Wright and supplied landscape plans for Wright’s buildings. Griffin’s own architectural designs began in these years. Griffin developed his own modern style and, working in partnership with Marion Griffith (née Mahony) after 1911, they designed over 350 buildings, landscape and urban-design projects as well as designing construction materials, interiors, furniture and other household items. Marion Mahony was the first woman to be licensed to practice architecture in Illinois as well as Frank Lloyd Wright’s first employee in the mid 1890’s in Chicago. In 1913, upon winning the competition to design Canberra, Australia, Walter Burley Griffin, relocated there with his wife for the next 20 years. Griffin is credited with being the first architect to use reinforced concrete, originating the carport, and developing the L-shaped floor plan.9332 South Damen Avenue, Chicago, 1894, is the childhood home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (1920-2019).
The childhood home of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens (1920-2019) who used to sleep and spend time on this front porch is at 9332 S. Damen Avenue (above). The Waid-Coleman home was built in 1894 and retains its original stained glass, hardwood floors, pocket doors, and beamed ceilings. The exterior was stripped and painted in 2003 which Justice Stevens later commented made the house look now than he remembered.
On September 12, 1992, MAE JEMISON, engineer, physician and astronaut, made history as the first African American woman to travel in space when she took off as part of a NASA crew on the Space Shuttle Endeavor for 8 days in space.
“You’re the Inspiration” was written by PETER CETERA and David Foster. Cetera sang lead vocals for the 1984 album, Chicago 17. The song reached no.3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985. Peter Cetera, bassist and founding member of Chicago, is from Morgan Park and grew up on Vincennes Avenue.
AJA EVANS, Olympic bobsled bronze medalist in 2014 and World Championships Bobsled Bronze medalist in 2017, is from Morgan Park.
BRIAN PICCOLO played for the Bears for four years before his death from cancer at age 26 on June 16, 1970. The Piccolo family lived in two homes in Beverly in that time. In 1964 Piccolo led the nation in rushing at Wake Forest in North Carolina and was named Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year. Signed by the Bears in 1965, the Piccolo family moved into a home in the 9200 block of Vanderpoel Street and later to a home in the 2000 block of West Hunt Avenue. Brian Piccolo was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Florida, while his wife, Joy, came from Georgia. Though Piccolo was bypassed in the 1965 draft, the Bears did pick up running back Gale Sayers and linebacker, Dick Butkus. It was during a Bears-Falcons football game in Atlanta in November 1969 that Piccolo took himself out of the game because of chest pain and a persistent cough. A couple of days later the X-ray revealed a tumor in his lungs, and Piccolo was diagnosed with embryonal cell carcinoma, an aggressive form of testicular cancer that had metastasized. Piccolo began chemotherapy and while, in 2023, the cure rate for this form of cancer is upwards of 90%, in 1970 was virtually incurable.Visiting the gravesite of Brian Piccolo, St. Mary’s Cemetery, Evergreen Park, Illinois, July 2017. Chambers House, 10330 S. Seeley, Chicago, 1874.
The Chambers House (above) has a well-preserved French Tower. The architect is unknown who built this suburban villa from the 1870s and which boasts plenty of style and details.
Louis A. Tanner House, 9640 S. Longwood drive, 1909, Tallmadge & Watson.Ignatius Chap House, 8831 S. Pleasant Avenue, 1928, Homer G. Sailor.
This modest late 1920’s home dressed in a Spanish Revival (or southern California hacienda) style has a central miniature tower and blind arches. Its colorful decorative tiles embedded into the stucco are original. The architect of the Ignatius Chap House (above) was Homer Grant Sailor (1887-1968) who was one of the last draftsmen for Louis Sullivan. In 1917 Sailor established his private practice, designing small Prairie School residences, low-rise commercial buildings and churches in the Chicago area. His work drew upon Sullivan’s simple massing and exhibits a program of applied terra cotta ornament more restrained than that of Sullivan.
Along with small parks and winding streets, roundabouts were part of the original plats of Beverly and Morgan Park. Along Longwood Drive. George W. Reed House, 2122 W. Hopkins Place, 1929, James Roy Allen.
The G.W. Reed House (above) is a massive building with irregular massing and that has 4 wings which pinwheel around a central core. With its assortment of beams, arches, and crenellations, the style is an amalgam of medieval, late medieval/early Renaissance, and with some Classical details. Built in 1929, the brick and limestone mansion on a Beverly hillside suggests a Tudor mansion added onto over different time periods. The house is one of two known extant works in Chicagoland of its architect, James Roy Allen (the other is the main gate of the Lake Forest cemetery at Lake Road). Allen designed the home for an executive of the Peabody Coal Company. The house has 19 rooms—plus a servants’ residence with three more rooms—and stands on one acre in the Dan Ryan Woods section of north Beverly. The interior is carved oak and walnut moldings set off by leaded glass windows, with four fireplaces and the original sterling silver andirons, as well as sterling silver sconces.
Magdalen H. Phillips House and Studio, 8910 S. Pleasant Avenue, 1954, William G. Carnegie.
The M.H. Phillips House (above) is a sprawling Late Prairie style single-story house on a northern Beverly hillside. It is by architect and engineer William G, Carnegie (1888-1969) who reiterates in the house design the popular idiom of Walter Burley Griffin with its deep eaves and patterned wooden muntins on the windows.
Everett Robert Brewer House, 2078 W. Hopkins Place, 1924, Murray D. Hetherington.
Beverly/Morgan Park displays work by generations of Hetherington family architects. This family’s architectural legacy began with John Todd (J.T.) Hetherington (1858-1936) who designed residences, churches, banks, and parks in Chicagoland. His son, Murray D. Hetherington (1891-1972) designed the Brewer House (above). He was the most prolific of the Hetherington architects to design in Beverly/Morgan Park and worked in the English Manor style, which is Tudor Revival sans half timbering. The Brewer House is a prime example of his work, many of these elegant residences designed in the booming 1920s into the 1930s. Hetherington paid close attention to the landscape settings of his houses as the Brewer House also conveys set atop hills and nestled by the Dan Ryan Woods. Using materials such as clinker brick and limestone the architect added texture and contrast to his designs and gave each house an individual character. The Brewer House’s irregular roofline with its variegated slate and random sized slabs are a case in point for this well-designed and constructed individuality. Hetherington interiors are also well designed and appointed with the modern design of large windows.
Murray D. Hetherington House, 8919 S. Hamilton Avenue, 1924, Murray D. Hetherington.This is the second generation Beverly/Morgan Park architect’s house. James Alex Brough House, 8929 S. Hamilton Avenue, 1927, Murray D. Hetherington.
J.A Brough House (above) is a stucco Spanish Revival house on a corner lot by Murray D. Hetherington in 1927. It sits across from the architect’s own home built in 1924.
8958 S. Hamilton Avenue, 1951, Joseph Emil Hosek.
Joseph E. Hosek (1907-1993) was based in the Chicago area who did buildings for various clients, primarily in southwestern Chicago and suburbs. This large Prairie-style multi-level home at 8958 S. Hamilton Avenue has 5-feet wide eaves and, in a nod to a popular post-war style, variegated facing stones.
Wood, stone and brick used by Joseph Emil Hosek for his house at 8958 S. Hamilton Avenue in Northern Beverly.S.P. Balzekas House, 9000 S. Bell Avenue, 1935, William Sevic.
S.P. Balzekas House (above) is a stylish Prairie and Modernist mid1930’s house. William Sevic was an American architect, active in Illinois.
Garden, Beverly/Morgan Park. William G. Ferguson House, 10934 S. Prospect Avenue, 1873, architect unknown.Ingersoll-Blackwelder House, 10910 S. Prospect Avenue, 1874; and addition, 1887. Architect (s) unknown.Luther S. Dickey, Jr. House, 10990 S. Prospect Avenue, 1912, Chatten & Hammond.
The L.S. Dickey, Jr. House is a successful example of the eclectic Arts & Crafts style. Seen here is its half-timbered double gable. Chatten & Hammond were a prolific architectural partnership. In 1907, Charles (C.) Herrick Hammond (1882–1969) formed a partnership with Melville Clarke Chatten, a firm that expanded to become Perkins, Chatten & Hammond in 1933. The partnership lasted until the early 1950s.
Dr. William H. German House, 10924 S. Prospect Avenue, 1884, Frederick G. German.
The Dr. W.H. German house is a catalog of the decorative power of wood sheathing, clapboards, patterned shingles, fretwood, and half timbers. Frederick G. German (1836-1937) was a Canadian-American architect with offices in the 1880s in Duluth, Minnesota.
Montague, M.L. (1901). Biographical Record of the Alumni and Non-Graduates of Amherst College (’72-’96) – The Third Quarter-Century. Amherst: Carpenter and Morehouse, Printers. p. 26.
Montague, M.L. (1901). Biographical Record of the Alumni and Non-Graduates of Amherst College (’72-’96) – The Third Quarter-Century. Amherst: Carpenter and Morehouse, Printers. p. 458.
FEATURE image: 562 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1909. It is an excellent example of Wright’s mature Prairie style including its original Prairie-style glass.
River Forest, Illinois is a suburb of Chicago in Cook County. River Forest is perhaps best known for its diversity of 19th and early 20th century American residential architecture. House designs and styles include those by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) and others in the Prairie School. Nestled near the Des Plaines River to the west, along heritage lands of the Menominee, Chippewa and, later, Potowatomi Native American tribes, today River Forest is an affluent residential suburb closely tied to its adjacent neighbor to the east, the suburb of Oak Park, Illinois. These communities share several affinities including its high school, namely, Oak Park and River Forest High School that is in Oak Park and was founded in 1871. River Forest’s population today approaches 12,000 residents and the suburb is home of two universities, including Dominican University founded in 1848 and Concordia University Chicago founded in 1864. River Forest’s train station is on Metra’s Union Pacific/West Line with service into nearby downtown Chicago, about 12 miles away.
These are my photographs of some of the residential architectural highlights to be seen in River Forest and were taken in June 2022.
603 Edgewood Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1908, Frank Lloyd Wright. Known as the Isabel Roberts House, it was remodeled in the 1950s. 69% 7.99 mbFrank Lloyd Wright in 1903, likely a self-portrait. Public Domain.559 Edgewood Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1911, William Drummond (1876-1948). Drummond began his career working for architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924). Working for Frank Lloyd Wright, Drummond became the chief draftsman for many of Wright’s well-known commissions. 89% 7.92mb559 Edgewood Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1911, William Drummond. 560 Edgewood Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1910, William Drummond. 98% 7.89 mbWilliam Drummond about 1901. Drummond was born in New Jersey into a family in the building trades. He moved to Chicago as a boy and later studied architecture at the University of Illinois but didn’t finish. At 23 years old he joined Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio and became his chief draftsman. Drummond obtained his architect’s license in 1901 and, while working part time for Wright, worked full time for Richard E. Schmidt (1865-1958) in 1901 and 1902 and for Daniel H. Burnham (1846-1912) in 1903 to 1905. In 1905 Drummond returned to working full-time for Wright until 1909 when Drummond went into private practice. Public Domain. 511 Edgewood Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1858, architect unknown. This early Italianate house was moved to its present location in1880 from a few blocks away. 77% 7.86 mb515 Auvergne Place, River Forest, Illinois, 1893, Frank Lloyd Wright. Known as the William H. Winslow House, this residence for an important industrialist is one of Wright’s earliest mature expressions of the Prairie style. 66% 7.90 mb344 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, 1870, architect unknown. Fine and grandiose example of the Italianate style. 95% 7.85 mb517 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, 1915, William Drummond. A simplified version of the expansive basic square house with a pitched roof and elaborated in the Prairie style.530 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, 1915, Robert Spencer (1864-1953). Robert Spencer was born in Milwaukee, studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin and architecture at M.I.T. He practiced in Boston, married, and studied in Europe. At his return he relocated to Chicago through Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge. In 1895 Spencer established his own firm and located in the Schiller Building next to Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1905 Spencer partnered with Chicagoan Horace S. Powers, who studied at today’s I.I.T. The partnership built this house in River Forest which is a fine brick example of the Prairie School within a traditional framework. 97% 7.85 mbRobert Spencer (1864-1953). Unlike his slightly younger competitor, Frank Lloyd Wright, Spencer was a trained mechanical engineer and architect. Public Domain.
INTERLUDE: OTHER PERIOD HOMES in RIVER FOREST, ILLINOIS.
306 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois. A smaller second floor porch is fitted above the main ground entrance. 70% 7.90 mb.236 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois. Corner tower, multi-level wrap-around front porch. 73% 7.92 mb Row of late 19th/early 20th century houses, River Forest, Illinois. 78% 7.78 mb136 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois. The facade’s design elements are complex with intricate details. 90% 7.80 mb146 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois. Two big chimneys and a front porch swing makes for a timeless scene on a nice day. 90% 7.83 mb558 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, 1860, architect unknown, This is an excellent example of a large Victorian Gothic cottage. 82% 7.62 mbFrank Lloyd Wright. Public Domain. 562 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright. The house’s projecting second-floor balcony and Prairie glass in a stucco surface is in evidence. 83% 7.93 mb.562 Keystone Avenue, River Forest, Illinois, 1909, Frank Lloyd Wright. The house’s prominent hipped roof with its simple fascia and stuccoed soffits are evident. Wright’s house design is characterized by the early, mature restraint and discipline of the Prairie School. 75% 7.91 mb.
SOURCES:
A Guide to Chicago’s Historic Suburbs on Wheels and on Foot, Ira J. Bach, Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 1981, pp. 605-622.
