Parts of this article (those related to renovations of Oscar Balch House in order to make it 'net zero') need to be updated.(July 2021) |
Oscar B. Balch House | |
Location | Oak Park, Cook County, Illinois, USA |
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Nearest city | Chicago, Illinois |
Coordinates | 41°53′47″N87°47′53″W / 41.89639°N 87.79806°W |
Built | 1911 [1] |
Architect | Frank Lloyd Wright |
Architectural style | Prairie style |
Part of | Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District (ID73000699 [2] ) |
Added to NRHP | December 4, 1973 |
The Oscar B. Balch House is a home located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The Prairie style Balch House was designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1911. The home was the first house Wright designed after returning from a trip to Europe with a client's wife. The subsequent social exile cost the architect friends, clients, and his family. The house is one of the first Wright houses to employ a flat roof which gives the home a horizontal linearity. Historian Thomas O'Gorman noted that the home may provide a glimpse into the subconscious mind of Wright. The Balch house is listed as a contributing property to a U.S. federally Registered Historic District.
The Oscar Balch House was one of the first homes designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright upon his return from an extended trip to Europe, during which he designed no houses. [3] [4] Wright had traveled to Europe with Mamah Borthwick, a client’s wife. This flouting of public morality lost him friends, clients and his family. Amongst those who by contrast stood by Wright was the interior decorator Oscar Balch. Balch was one of two partners in the decorating firm Pebbles & Balch. In 1907, Wright created a building redesign for Balch's storefront on Lake Street in Oak Park; the building was later razed. [4] [5]
The Balch House is one of Wright's first flat-roofed houses and its proportions are taller compared with later flat-roofed homes he designed. [5] Wright brought new drama to his Prairie style with the addition of the flat roof. The expansive roof further refined the simplicity of Wright's Prairie style house. The house has broad, overhanging eaves, common to Prairie houses and in the case of the Balch House they further emphasize the Prairie theme. [4] The exterior is sheathed in stucco which provides a sculpting effect on the exterior. The original color of the stucco on the exterior is unknown but photographs show that the house has undergone color changes. [4] [5]
The design of the house is symbolic in its heightened terrace walls, the security walls and its hidden and obscured entryway. The house clearly shows the signs of someone who feels trapped or "under siege." [4] The events of Wright's personal life may be reflected in the design of the Balch House. [4] Regardless, the house has a remarkable linear proportion and Wright managed to raise the eyeline with the rows of windows on the home's second floor. [4] The home is part of a series of geometric, cubic homes with overhanging, flat roofs designed by Wright in the early 20th century. The first was the Laura Gale House in Oak Park, Illinois, followed by the Oscar B. Balch House, also in Oak Park, Coonley Kindergarten, the Bogh House and then the Bach House. [6]
The first floor plan is similar to the Edwin H. Cheney House; both have a three part first floor layout that includes a library, a dining room and a living room. The interior spaces are separated by "low decks set at the window heads." [5] In the living room the house is anchored by a Roman brick fireplace at its center and there are libraries on either side of two small setback pavilions. These features help the building's interior flow and symmetry. Copious use of glass brings natural light into the interior. [4]
As of 2021, the owner of the home was working with Tom Bassett-Dilley Architects (TBDA) to complete renovations in order to reduce its carbon footprint to net zero. The retrofit is expected to be completed by 2025. [7]
The Oscar Balch House represents Frank Lloyd Wright's defiant return to the streets of Oak Park and to architecture after his absence and concurrent trip to Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. [4] The house was called "forged of Wright's personal courage and cheeky moral humbridge" by historian Thomas O'Gorman. [4] O'Gorman concluded it was possible that the Balch House provides a rare glimpse into the subconscious mind of Frank Lloyd Wright. [4] The Balch House is an example of Frank Lloyd Wright's fully mature Prairie style. Its flat roof and horizontal linearity are a continuation of the ideas Wright began to manifest in the Mrs. Thomas H. Gale House in 1909. [3]
The Oscar B. Balch House is listed as a contributing property to the Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District. [8] The historic district was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1973. [2] The Balch House stands across the street from the home where Ernest Hemingway spent his boyhood years. [4]
John Lloyd Wright was an American architect and toy inventor. Born in Oak Park, Illinois, Wright was the second-oldest son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. John Lloyd Wright became estranged from his father in 1909 and subsequently left his home to join his brother on the West Coast. After unsuccessfully working a series of jobs, he decided to take up the profession of his father in 1912. Shortly afterward, he was able to reconnect with his father, who took John under his wing. Differences in opinion regarding the Imperial Hotel, Tokyo caused the pair to again become disunited.
Taliesin, sometimes known as Taliesin East, Taliesin Spring Green, or Taliesin North after 1937, is a historic property located 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of the village of Spring Green, Wisconsin, United States. It was the estate of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and an extended exemplar of the Prairie School of architecture. The expansive house-studio set on the brow of a ridge was begun in 1911; the 600-acre (240 ha) property was developed on land that previously belonged to Wright's maternal family.
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.
Martha Bouton "Mamah" Borthwick was an American translator who had a romantic relationship with architect Frank Lloyd Wright, which ended when she was murdered. She and Wright were instrumental in bringing the ideas and writings of Swedish feminist Ellen Key to American audiences. Wright built his famous settlement called Taliesin in Wisconsin for her, in part, to shield her from aggressive reporters and the negative public sentiment surrounding their non-married status. Both had left their spouses and children in 1909 in order to live together and were the subject of relentless public censure. In 1914, a disturbed member of the staff at Taliesin suddenly went on a murder-suicide spree at the estate killing Borthwick, two of her children and others. Wright was away at the time.
The Frank Lloyd Wright/Prairie School of Architecture Historic District is a residential neighborhood in the Cook County, Illinois village of Oak Park, United States. The Frank Lloyd Wright Historic District is both a federally designated historic district listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and a local historic district within the village of Oak Park. The districts have differing boundaries and contributing properties, over 20 of which were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, widely regarded as the greatest American architect.
The Isidore H. Heller House is a house located at 5132 South Woodlawn Avenue in the Hyde Park community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The design is credited as one of the turning points in Wright's shift to geometric, Prairie School architecture, which is defined by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, and an integration with the landscape, which is meant to evoke native Prairie surroundings.
The Laura Gale House, also known as the Mrs. Thomas H. Gale House, is a home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by master architect Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1909. It is located within the boundaries of the Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District and has been listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places since March 5, 1970.
The Arthur B. Heurtley House is located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed in 1902. The Heurtley House is considered one of the earliest examples of a Frank Lloyd Wright house in full Prairie style. The house was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places when it was designated a National Historic Landmark on February 16, 2000.
The Walter H. Gale House, located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed in 1893. The house was commissioned by Walter H. Gale of a prominent Oak Park family and is the first home Wright designed after leaving the firm of Adler & Sullivan. The Gale House was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on August 17, 1973.
The Peter A. Beachy House is a home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois that was entirely remodeled by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1906. The house that stands today is almost entirely different from the site's original home, a Gothic cottage. The home is listed as a contributing property to the Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District, which was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The George W. Smith House is a home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1895. It was constructed in 1898 and occupied by a Marshall Field & Company salesman. The design elements were employed a decade later when Wright designed the Unity Temple in Oak Park. The house is listed as a contributing property to the Ridgeland-Oak Park Historic District which joined the National Register of Historic Places in December 1983.
The Emil Bach House is a Prairie style house in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois, United States that was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was built in 1915 for an admirer of Wright's work, Emil Bach, the co-owner of the Bach Brick Company. The house is representative of Wright's late Prairie style and is an expression of his creativity from a period just before his work shifted stylistic focus. The Bach House was declared a Chicago Landmark on September 28, 1977, and was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on January 23, 1979.
The Robert P. Parker House is a house located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1892 and is an example of his early work. Real-estate agent Thomas H. Gale had it built and sold it to Robert P. Parker later that year. The house was designed by Wright independently while he was still employed by the firm Adler & Sullivan, run by engineer Dankmar Adler and architect, Louis Sullivan; taking outside commissions was something that Sullivan forbade. The Parker House is listed as a contributing property to a U.S. federally Registered Historic District.
The George W. Furbeck House is a house located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. The house was designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1897 and constructed for Chicago electrical contractor George W. Furbeck and his new bride Sue Allin Harrington. The home's interior is much as it appeared when the house was completed but the exterior has seen some alteration. The house is an important example of Frank Lloyd Wright's transitional period of the late 1890s which culminated with the birth of the first fully mature early modern Prairie style house. The Furbeck House was listed as a contributing property to a U.S. federal Registered Historic District in 1973 and declared a local Oak Park Landmark in 2002.
The William H. Copeland House is a home located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. In 1909 the home underwent a remodeling designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The original Italianate home was built in the 1870s. Dr. William H. Copeland commissioned Wright for the remodel and Wright's original vision of the project proposed a three-story Prairie house. That version was rejected and the result was the more subdued, less severely Prairie, William H. Copeland House. On the exterior the most significant alteration by Wright was the addition of a low-pitched hip roof. The house has been listed as a contributing property to a U.S. Registered Historic District since 1973.
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.
Edwin H. Cheney House (1903) located in Oak Park, Illinois, United States, was Frank Lloyd Wright's design of this residence for electrical engineer Edwin Cheney. The house is part of the Frank Lloyd Wright–Prairie School of Architecture Historic District. A brick house with the living and sleeping rooms all on one floor under a single hipped roof, the Cheney House has a less monumental and more intimate quality than the design for the Arthur Heurtley House. The intimacy of the Cheney house is due to the building not being a full story off the ground and being sequestered from the main street by a walled terrace. In addition, its windows are nestled between the wide eaves of the roof and the substantial stone sill that girdles the house.
The Francis J. Woolley House is located in Oak Park, Illinois, United States, a Chicago suburb. The house was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1893. The Queen Anne style home is reflective of Wright's early designs for lower-cost, more affordable housing. The Woolley House is similar to the trio of homes in Oak Park that are widely known as the "bootleg houses." The design is heavily influenced by Wright's first teacher, Joseph Silsbee, and the Arts and Crafts movement. The house is listed as a contributing property to a local and federal historic district.
The Harrison P. Young House is a home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The 1870s era building was remodeled extensively by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, early in his career, in 1895. The home's remodeling incorporated elements that would later be found in Wright's pioneering, early modern Prairie style. Some of the remodel work included setting the home back an additional 16 ft from the street and an overhanging porch over the driveway. The House is similar in some ways to Wright's other early work and was influenced by his first teacher, Joseph Silsbee. The house is considered a contributing property to both a local and federally Registered Historic District.
Loving Frank is a 2007 American novel by Nancy Horan. It tells the story of Mamah Borthwick's illicit love affair with Frank Lloyd Wright and the public shame they experienced in early twentieth century America. It is a fictionalised account told from Borthwick's perspective, based on research conducted by Horan, and it is her debut novel. It depicts Borthwick’s life as it became intertwined with Wright's between the years of 1907 through 1914. By following the artistic aspirations and travels of the two main protagonists, the novel portrays the social mores of the times in the United States and Europe.