Then & Now: Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio – Oak Park

Frank Lloyd Wright moved to Chicago in 1887, and after serving two brief stints with smaller architectural firms, Wright landed an apprenticeship with the well-known firm of Adler & Sullivan.

Wright made an impression on his mentor and boss, Louis Sullivan, who soon took the young architect under his wing. Soon after signing an extended employment contract with the firm in early1889, Wright approached Sullivan for a $5,000 loan to build a home for he and his wife Catherine.

The two-story home was completed later that year, and the residence not only was an experiment for the young architect, but also was a building over which Wright had complete artistic control for the first time.

Located on the southeast corner of Chicago and Forest avenues, the house when constructed blended into its woodsy site of natural plantings, including the open prairie located directly across Chicago Avenue.

The semi-rural village of Oak Park offered a peaceful respite from the rapid pace of the growing city life of Chicago. Named "Saint's Rest" for the over abundance of churches in the area, Oak Park originally was settled in the 1930s by East Coast settler families.
The original 1889 design was a small, three-bedroom Shingle Style home with a gabled façade.

When Wright secretly launched his own architectural practice in 1893, his growing family necessitated an expansion of the house by 1895. The expansion included converting the existing kitchen into a dining room and building a new kitchen on the back of the residence. On the second floor, Wright added an ornate children’s playroom with symmetric oriel windows and a barrel ceiling.

By 1898, Wright had left Adler & Sullivan and finally branched out on his own. As most of architectural commissions were coming from clients in and around Oak Park, he decided to work form home.

In 1899, having moved his practice into the house, Wright expanded again, adding the large studio, just north of the house, whose suspended drafting balcony was one of his earliest structural innovations.

Experimenting with a multitude new design ideas, the studio addition was a radical departure from the rest of the home’s shingle style exterior. For Wright, the studio addition was a testing ground for some of his early Prairie Style ideas that he would develop in coming years.

The top photograph shows a view of the Frank Lloyd Wright home looking east from Forest Avenue. Looking at the home from this direction the various geometric shapes that Wright uses are evident, such as a triangle, rectangle, octagon and circle. Notice that the lot still includes a variety of natural plantings.

The bottom photograph shows a view of the studio entrance from Chicago Avenue. Notice the plaster stock capitals that were designed by Wright and sculpted by Richard Bock who worked for Wright in the early years. The entrance to the studio requires the visitor to change direction several times, moving from the Chicago Avenue sidewalk to the studio reception room.

Wright left Oak Park in 1909 for Europe and eventually settled in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Catherine and the six children continued to live at the home until 1925, when the property was sold.

In 1976, the Home and Studio were declared a National Historic Landmark.