Isabel Roberts House

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Isabel Roberts House
Isabel Roberts House (7420820608).jpg
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General information
TypeHouse
Architectural style Prairie School
Location River Forest, Illinois
Coordinates 41°53′26″N87°49′37″W / 41.890418°N 87.827065°W / 41.890418; -87.827065 Coordinates: 41°53′26″N87°49′37″W / 41.890418°N 87.827065°W / 41.890418; -87.827065
Construction started1908
Design and construction
Architect Frank Lloyd Wright

Isabel Roberts House is a 1908 Prairie Style house by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, located at 603 Edgewood Place in River Forest, Illinois It was built for Isabel Roberts and her widowed mother, Mary Roberts.

Contents

Scholars suggest that the house was originally designed for Joshua Melson, the co-developer of Rock Crest-Rock Glen, in Mason City, Iowa. On that site was built one of a collection of homes designed by Wright's associate, Walter Burley Griffin. [1]

Over time, the house went through at least two renovations. The first was a renovation by Prairie school architect William Drummond in 1922. In 1958, Frank Lloyd Wright undertook a second remodeling of the house, which brought the design forward so that as it stands, it is a blending of Wright's Prairie Style and his later Usonian architecture. The Isabel Roberts House is privately owned. It is a contributing property to the River Forest Historic District. [2]

Design

ARCHITECTURAL PLAN OF ISOBEL ROBERTS HOUSE.gif

The Isabel Roberts house is sometimes credited as being the first split-level house. It also has features typical of Wright's mature Prairie style, including broad overhanging eaves, low hip roofs, continuous bands of windows which he called “light screens”, an emphatic water table, cruciform plan, large fireplace surrounded by Roman brick, built-in bookcases, stained woodwork, a tree growing through the roof, elimination of basement and attic space, and an overall emphasis on the horizontal line. Wright's Vosburgh House is similar in conception to the Isabel Roberts house.

The living room boasts groupings of windows on three of the four main walls, some 1½ stories high, and some clerestory; this provides a gracious feeling of light and airiness. Among the Isabel Roberts House's most appealing features is the balcony overlooking the tall living room, a design element Wright used here and elsewhere to create a sense of spaciousness in a small house.

The Clients: Isabel Roberts and Mary Roberts

Isabel Roberts (1871–1955) has been described by Wright scholars as Frank Lloyd Wright's secretary, bookkeeper or office manager. While Isabel fulfilled these functions, she also took an active role in the lively and creative design atmosphere of his Studio in Oak Park. She produced original designs for the leaded glass windows in the Prairie houses [3] and took part in the intramural design competitions that helped ripen the Prairie architecture described by Wright associate Barry Byrne.

As Wright's son John Lloyd Wright says, “William Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert McArthur (Albert Chase McArthur), Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and George Willis were the draftsmen. Five men, two women. They wore flowing ties, and smocks suitable to the realm. The men wore their hair like Papa, all except Albert, he didn’t have enough hair. They worshiped Papa! Papa liked them! I know that each one of them was then making valuable contributions to the pioneering of the modern American architecture for which my father gets the full glory, headaches and recognition today!” [4]

Mary Roberts (1836–1920) was born in Prince Edward Island. She married James H. Roberts in 1867. The family settled in South Bend, Indiana, where Mary lived until James' death in 1907. In South Bend they became friends with Laura C. B. DeRhodes; this friendship resulted in Laura building the K. C. DeRhodes House by Wright. Mary then moved to live with Isabel who was already working in the Oak Park Studio for Wright. [5] The Isabel Roberts House was built for mother and daughter to share.

Isabel Roberts stated that she was the designer of this house, although since it came from Wright's studio it has always been attributed to him. [6]

Isabel Roberts after Wright

Isabel Roberts and her mother did not have the chance to enjoy their prairie-style home for long. They moved from River Forest to St. Cloud, Florida, a decade after the house was completed. Mary Roberts was in failing health due to the lingering effects of influenza. Isabel's sister Charlotte and her husband were by that time established residents of St. Cloud. Mary Roberts died in Florida, in 1920. [7]

Once in Florida, Isabel Roberts went into architectural practice with Ida Annah Ryan, who was the first women in the United States to earn a master's degree in architecture, from MIT. As the firm of Ryan and Roberts, they were among no more than a dozen architecture firms active in Orlando in the 1920s. [8] Ryan and Roberts created landmark buildings in Central Florida, some of which still stand today. [9] Isabel Roberts lived and practiced in Orlando for the remainder of her life and is buried in Orlando alongside her mother and her sister. [10]

Related Research Articles

Frank Lloyd Wright Welsh American architect (1867–1959)

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing architects worldwide through his works and hundreds of apprentices in his Taliesin Fellowship. Wright believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture. This philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater (1935), which has been called "the best all-time work of American architecture".

Walter Burley Griffin American architect and landscape architect

Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect. He is known for designing Canberra, Australia's capital city and the New South Wales towns of Griffith and Leeton. He has been credited with the development of the L-shaped floor plan, the carport and an innovative use of reinforced concrete.

Marion Mahony Griffin American architect and artist

Marion Mahony Griffin was a pioneering American architect and artist. She was one of the first licensed female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School. Her work in the United States developed and expanded the American Prairie School, and her work in India and Australia reflected Prairie School ideals of indigenous landscape and materials in the newly formed democracies. The scholar Deborah Wood stated that Griffin "did the drawings people think of when they think of Frank Lloyd Wright ."

Prairie School Architectural style

Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, integration with the landscape, solid construction, craftsmanship, and discipline in the use of ornament. Horizontal lines were thought to evoke and relate to the wide, flat, treeless expanses of America's native prairie landscape.

Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Historic house in Illinois, United States

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John Shellette Van Bergen was an American architect born in Oak Park, Illinois. Van Bergen started his architectural career as an apprentice draftsman in 1907. In 1909 he went to work for Frank Lloyd Wright at his studio in Oak Park. At Wright's studio he did working drawings for and supervised the Robie House and the Mrs. Thomas Gale House. Van Bergen designed prairie style homes in the Chicago area, mostly in the suburbs of Oak Park and River Forest. His home designs are recognized as excellent examples of Prairie style architecture and several are listed as local landmarks. A few of his homes are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Charles E. Roberts Stable United States historic place

The Charles E. Roberts Stable is a renovated former barn in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The building has a long history of remodeling work including an 1896 transformation by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The stable remodel was commissioned by Charles E. Roberts, a patron of Wright's work, the same year Wright worked on an interior remodel of Roberts' House. The building was eventually converted into a residence by Charles E. White, Jr., a Wright-associated architect, sources vary as to when this occurred but the house was moved from its original location to its present site in 1929. The home is cast in the Tudor Revival style but still displays the architectural thumbprint of Wright's later work. The building is listed as a contributing property to a federally designated U.S. Registered Historic District.

Barry Byrne American architect

Francis Barry Byrne was a member of the group of architects known as the Prairie School. After the demise of the Prairie School, about 1914 to 1916, Byrne continued as a successful architect by developing his own style.

K. C. DeRhodes House Frank Lloyd Wright house in Indian

The K. C. DeRhodes House was built for newlyweds Laura Caskey Bowsher DeRhodes and Kersey C. DeRhodes in 1906 by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is a Prairie style home located at 715 West Washington Street in South Bend, Indiana. The home was carefully restored by Tom and Suzanne Miller over more than four decades and remains in private ownership. It is one of two Wright homes in South Bend, the other being the Herman T. Mossberg Residence. It is one of eight Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes in Indiana, of which seven remain. It was also the first home Frank Lloyd Wright built in Indiana.

Ida Annah Ryan American architect

Ida Annah Ryan (1873–1950) was a pioneering United States architect known for her work in Massachusetts and Florida. She was the first woman to receive a Master of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the first woman to receive a Master's degree in architecture anywhere in the United States. She was the eighth woman to be admitted to the American Institute of Architects.

Isabel Roberts was a Prairie School figure, member of the architectural design team in the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and partner with Ida Annah Ryan in the Orlando, Florida architecture firm, "Ryan and Roberts".

William Eugene Drummond was a Chicago Prairie School architect.

George Rodney Willis, was an American architect associated with the Prairie School and the Oak Park, Illinois studio of Frank Lloyd Wright who thereafter had a successful career in California and in Texas.

Howard Montalbert Reynolds, Sr. was an American architect practicing in Orlando, Florida in the 1920s. He designed gracefully proportioned, notable public buildings in the prevailing fashionable styles of the 1920s, including Mediterranean Revival, Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial, Egyptian Revival, Art Deco and Art Moderne.

Frederick H. Trimble was an American architect in Central Florida from the early 1900s through the 1920s. He worked in the Colonial Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival and Prairie Style.

Hermann V. von Holst (1874–1955) was an American architect practicing in Chicago, Illinois, and Boca Raton, Florida, from the 1890s to the 1940s. He is best remembered for agreeing to take on the responsibility of heading up Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural practice when Wright went off to Europe with Mamah Cheney in 1909.

Harvey P. Sutton House United States historic place

The Harvey P. Sutton House, also known as the H.P. Sutton House, is a six-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot (370 m2) Frank Lloyd Wright designed Prairie School home at 602 Norris Avenue in McCook, Nebraska. Although the house is known by her husband's name, Eliza Sutton was the driving force behind the commissioning of Wright for the design in 1905-1907 and the construction of the house in 1907–1908.

Murry S. King American architect

Murry S. King (1870–1927) was Florida's first registered architect, a noted American architect with a successful practice in Orlando, Florida, in the 1910s and 1920s.

Charles E. White Jr. (1876–1936) was a noted Chicago area architect who for a time worked in the Oak Park studio of Frank Lloyd Wright and who, both before and after that time, had a successful and influential career as an architect and a writer on architectural subjects. It is fair to say that White is an under-appreciated member of Wright’s Oak Park studio staff.

Rock Crest–Rock Glen Historic District United States historic place

The Rock Crest–Rock Glen Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Mason City, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. At the time of its nomination it contained 10 resources, which included eight contributing buildings, one contributing site, and one non-contributing building. All of the buildings are houses designed in the Prairie School style, and are a part of a planned development. Joshua Melson, a local developer, bought the property along Willow Creek between 1902 and 1908. Initially, there were only going to be 10 houses built, but the number grew to 16. While only half the houses planned were actually constructed, it is still the largest cluster of Prairie School houses in the country. The one non-contributing house is the 1959 McNider House, a Modern movement structure that was built where one of the planned houses was to be built, but never was. The architects who contributed to the district include Walter Burley Griffin, who provided the initial plan for the development; Barry Byrne, who took over from Griffin; Marion Mahony Griffin, Walter Griffin's wife and an architect in her own right; and Einar Broaten. Frank Lloyd Wright had a design that was never built here. The plans were used to build the Isabel Roberts House in River Forest, Illinois instead.

References

  1. Architecture – Melson House
  2. "National Register Districts Report". Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.[ permanent dead link ]
  3. “Miss Roberts works most of the time on ornamental glass…” Charles E. White, Jr. Letters, 1903–1906, by Charles E. White, Jr. from the Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright
  4. My Father: Frank Lloyd Wright by John Lloyd Wright; 1992; page 35
  5. Roberts, Mary, Obituary; August 19, 1920 – St Cloud (FL) “Tribune”
  6. Allaback, Sara, "The First Women Architects" 2008
  7. St. Cloud “Tribune”, August 19, 1920
  8. Their business is listed under the heading “Architects” as Ryan and Roberts in the 1926 and in the 1927 Orlando City Directories, at the Kenilworth Terrace address. One of only 10 so listed in 1926, and 12 firms so listed in Orlando in 1927
  9. For example, see the following works by Ryan and Roberts: Tourist Club House, 700 Indiana Avenue, St. Cloud, FL; The Veterans Memorial Library, 810 13th Street St. Cloud, FL 34769 and the Ryan/Roberts House, 834 Kenilworth Terrace, Orlando, FL
  10. Dalles, John, "The Pathbreaking Legacy of Ryan and Roberts", in "Reflections", the journal of the Historical Society of Central Florida, Summer 2009; pages 8 and 9.