The Arts and Crafts Movement had a pervasive influence in the late 19th- and early 20th-century American building trade. It helped define various competing yet complementary styles of the period including Stick, Shingle, Eastlake, and American Foursquare.
As these styles sorted themselves out, Midwestern architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, William Drummond, George W. Maher and others drew upon these influences to produce the uniquely American style known as Prairie.
The resurgence of interest in Prairie architecture has coincided with a renewed interest in the American bungalow, which is the purest form of Arts and Crafts influence in home design.
Along with Gustav Stickley’s work in furniture design and Jens Jensen’s landscape artistry, a cohesive harmony of interior and exterior dwelling space celebrates hearth and home.
Arts and Crafts originated in Europe and migrated to America in the immediate post-Civil War era, an era which witnessed an explosion in the building trades. It was, in part, a revulsion against the extreme ornamentalism of High Victorian and the eclecticism of Queen Anne style.
It is characterized by cohesion, simplicity, uniformity and a return to nature. An Arts and Crafts home is well built with an abundant use of natural material, often featuring built-in cabinetry, leaded- and stained-glass windows, beamed ceilings and an abundance of woodwork in natural hues.
Complementary to its environment and in harmony with nature, it offers a sanctuary for tranquility. Elements of Arts and Crafts style remained influential alongside the rise of revivalist styles such as Tudor and Egyptian after World War 1 and persisted until the massed produced ranches of the 1950’s.
Frederick Law Olmsted’s Riverside, with its emphasis on the soothing effect of nature on the psyche, presents a particularly attractive and conducive setting to explore Arts and Crafts.
The Olmsted Society, celebrating its 40th anniversary, presents this marriage of the Arts and Crafts Movement with Riverside in its biennial housewalk, which is scheduled for Sunday, May 18.
John F. Palmer Residence
Joseph Lyman Silsbee, inventor of the movable sidewalk, employer and mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright and George W. Maher, and designer of the Lincoln Park Conservatory, authored the design of this iconic Riverside residence for John F. Palmer in 1895.
Palmer invented the pneumatic tube and cordless tire and was a consultant to the Indy 500 for many years. The three-story structure has elements of Victorian, Tudor and Shingle styles and represents a transition from the ornate High Victorian to the simpler bungalow and Prairie styles of the early 20th century.
In 1919 the home was sold to Frank Story of the Story and Clark piano company, who expanded the structure to include a “wedding room” in anticipation of his children’s weddings.
Story made numerous other changes to the original design, including the installation of piano-grade black walnut paneling in the living room. The entire reception area of the home has undergone a recent restoration of the highest quality, earning an Olmsted Society award in 2006.
The home is listed as a local landmark and also appears on the Illinois Historic Structures Survey.
Aichinger Residence
This 1948 residence by renowned architect R. Harold Zook illustrates the persistence of the Arts and Crafts motif well into the middle of the 20th century. It was Zook’s last commission and was the last of his homes to be occupied by its original owner.
The unique structure of horizontal fieldstone is the work of Italian stonemasons. As the Aichinger family grew, those same stonemasons returned to work on the home’s northerly addition, maintaining a visual continuity with the original structure.
The upstairs bathroom contains original Italian cobalt blue tile and exudes an Art Deco influence. Living room windows have a horizontal effect, highly unusual for a Zook design.
Zook’s signature spider web pattern appears on the living room fireplace and his favorite chevron design is employed liberally on the walls of the den, the garage door and the entryway.
This home has local landmark status and is featured on the Illinois Historic Structures Survey.
Youngman Residence
Typifying the ubiquitous bungalow style of the Midwest, the Youngman residence is a finely restored 1922 home for Arts and Crafts aficionados Yvonne Lucero and James Harrington.
It can be said that this home brought them together, for they met at Home Depot while the home was undergoing renovation. And while their romance blossomed beforehand, the discovery of love letters and pornographic slides hidden in the home’s ductwork from a previous owner couldn’t have hurt.
Together, they have filled this warm abode with period antiques and Stickley reproductions. The antique fireplace mantel, salvaged from a home in Blackpool, England dates from 1885 and is a fine example of English Arts and Crafts.
This structure shows influence of the Prairie School of architecture in its design, with a band of windows in the front and wide overhangs of the roof eaves. The house is sited to allow light to flow into the interior, uniting the space with the outdoors.
Salsbury/Altmayer Residence
Appearing at first glance to be an original, impressive Arts and Crafts bungalow, this home was originally built in 1915 as an income-producing duplex by Albert L. Salsbury.
Each unit had a living room, dining room, three bedrooms, one bath, a fireplace and a kitchen. In 1994 Frank and Susan Altmayer, already having acquired the east unit, seized on the opportunity to purchase the west unit when it became available three months later and united them into a single family home.
As the project progressed, little was done on the exterior as efforts were necessarily focused on an interior reconfiguration. The outstanding result is a virtually new 1994 home surrounded by the walls of a 1915 Arts and Crafts bungalow.
The massive hearth with three openings separating the living and dining rooms pays homage to the original exterior design while serving the thoroughly contemporary interior. The meticulous conversion and adaptive reuse of the structure to a single family home received an Olmsted Society award in 1999.
Denniston Residence
This 1887 home was built as a replacement for a Calvert Vaux [partner of Frederick Law Olmsted]-designed home that was built as part of the original village development in the early 1870s and subsequently destroyed by fire.
The style of the house exhibits a Second Empire influence with its strong cornice above the second floor and mansard roof with casement window dormers. The double entry doors with side windows are original and complementary to the prominent large porch which affords a splendid vista of Scottswood Common and the Presbyterian Church, which once owned the home.
The extension of the porch into a “porte cochere” is a design that would later influence the Arts and Crafts American Foursquare of the early twentieth century.
Thorncroft
William E. Drummond, hired by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1899, served as Wright’s draftsman and project manager for many of Wright’s commissions, including the 1908 Avery Coonley estate in Riverside.
After Wright suddenly left the country in 1909, Drummond was called upon to finish much of the work in progress, after which he established his own architectural practice.
With Wright’s absence, Queene Ferry Coonley called upon Drummond to design additions to the estate in the form of the Gardeners’ Cottage and Thorncroft, the latter intended as a residence for the teachers who toiled in the Coonley’s nearby private school.
Designed in 1910 and completed in 1912, Thorncroft is a classic prairie structure featuring a low-pitched roof with flat edges, stucco walls with wooden banding emphasizing horizontal lines, and banded windows. Each bedroom’s seamlessly designed balcony is virtually undetectable from the street.
The one-story addition on the side of the home was added as a guest house in the 1950s. The veranda was originally windowless and was enclosed in 1968.
The current owner, an architect himself, has completed a recent four-year restoration and renovation of Thorncroft, and is the recipient of an Olmsted Society award for his and his wife’s outstanding efforts.
Coonley Estate Gardens
In 1913 famed landscape architect Jens Jensen created the gardens for Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1908 Avery Coonley estate using Wright’s hardscape plan.
A sampling of Jensen’s trademark features were employed throughout his design: hawthorns, red bud, sumac, blackberries, flowers, ferns and grasses. Oaks which predate the estate are still extant, and a grove of birch trees and ferns has been recreated on the front grounds of the house.
The living room and its walled garden are the focal point of the house. The garden features a terrace with 10 planters, a pergola and a reflecting pool, recently restored after having served for some time as a swimming pool. Nasturtiums grow in the planters and native water lilies bloom in the pool in summer.
Wright created a walled, sunken garden to unify the main house with the stable. This garden was restored in 2007. Wright’s original sidewalk garden plan and concrete hotbeds were recovered by removal of extensive invasive species of trees and shrubs, construction debris and incorrect patio tile and dirt. The original sidewalk system was restored or recreated where necessary.
Jensen’s design for a pool surrounded by eight iris beds was implemented. Other beds in the sunken garden and the stable yard have been tastefully planted with native species.
The Prairie School work of both Wright and Jensen serves as a significant component of the Arts and Crafts movement.