Tag: Oak Park

Dream House Alert

One of my favorite houses in Oak Park’s Frank Lloyd Wright historic district is up for sale! It’s ‘favorite’ status is based solely on the exterior, and I’m not alone. It’s a popular dream house here in town. Listing price is $2.25 million.

The next owner should have to promise to hang ferns along the porch every year. They always look so perfect.

A peek inside!

It’s decorated inside in a sort of 90s/modern style and I can guess that the owners’ favorite color is lime green, but aside from the modernized kitchen, the bones of the house are largely intact. (And in the study, is that… is that a skeleton? Can it convey with the house?)

It has a #*$&ing conservatory, and an attic expansive enough for a game of basketball.

There’s also a coach house ready to be fixed up.

The property taxes alone are $50K/year, but it’s one of Oak Park’s largest and prettiest (and yes, most expensive) homes. Built in 1896 by EE Roberts, it boasts six bedrooms and five baths, sits in a great location, and has a whopping 7,325 square feet. You can find the listing right here.

February 21, 2017
The Oscar B. Balch House is For Sale

The question comes up occasionally. “Balch? Oak Park? Any relation to Oscar Balch?” Nope, no relation.

Frank Lloyd Wright left his family in 1909 and skipped off to Europe with Mama Borthwick, the wife of a client who had done the same to be with him. Scandalous! Upon their return, not many people were willing to work with Wright, but Oscar Balch hired him to build his home here in Oak Park on Kenilworth (a really lovely street in town). Balch was a decorator who had worked with him previously to build a storefront, and the new home was built in 1911 in the Prairie style that we now associate with Wright.

Brandon’s family is not related to him, and I had to convince him when we were kicking around baby names that Oscar was off the table for us because of the connection (or lack thereof). If we lived somewhere else, sure, but another Oak Park Oscar Balch of no relation? That’s weird, right? (He didn’t agree, but obviously we didn’t choose the name for either of our boys).

The first photo was one that I took last spring while walking in the neighborhood, and below, I’m including several photos from the real estate listing. The seller’s asking price is $1,250,000.

The right side of the floor plan above is the side that faces the street. The main entrance is hidden along the side of the house (a typical Wright design) — you walk along the driveway to get to it.

The kitchen is part of a new remodel and expansion, but done to mimic the FLW style. Many Wright homes in the area (and nationwide, I’m guessing) had been poorly remodeled in the past, and there are a lot of historic houses with cheap mid-century kitchens that look completely out of place and are now falling apart. The trend now that these homes are desirable (and expensive) again is to go with quality custom cabinets and finishes with natural wood finishes and earth tones.

Would you want to live in a house like this? The layout and details are so interesting, but the color scheme (which is period-appropriate) wouldn’t make me happy. I can appreciate it, but it’s not the kind of home you can put too much of yourself into. Or maybe you can? I suppose paint colors and furniture are non-permanent ways to customize any space, but it seems like one buys a Wright home to live with that style.

The real estate listing has more photos of the home, and you can read more about the history of the Oscar B. Balch house.

March 28, 2016
The Wright Plus Housewalk, 2015

The Wright Plus Housewalk took place this past Saturday, featuring historic homes here in Oak Park and also in nearby Riverside, IL. The three Frank Lloyd Wright homes on the tour have been maintained and decorated in the Wright style, which is probably as it should be, and the other homes were a mix of modern and traditional.

The Avery Coonley House and Avery Coonley Stables/Coach House

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1908 and 1911, Riverside, IL

The estate has several properties on it, and it’s the grand house with the lily pond that is currently for sale with a listing price of $2.1 million. Wright said that at the time the Coonley estate was built (supposedly with a nearly unlimited budget), that it was the finest house he was capable of creating. The stable is nothing to turn your nose up though — those horses were living large, and of course there were renovations undertaken to turn it into a home fit for humans.

The Oscar B. Balch House

Frank Lloyd Wright, 1911, Oak Park, IL

Balch (no relation!) was a decorator, and one of the only people to hire Wright upon his return to the States after having ran off with a client’s wife. He collected and helped popularize Teco pottery, and it seems fitting that the current owners display their own extensive collection of it throughout the house.

The Mary Walker Herron House

Tallmadge & Watson, 1924, Oak Park, IL

This house started its life as a Victorian in the 1880s, was completely remodeled and reworked as a Tudor by Tallmadge & Watson in 1924 (who won out over a competing remodeling bid by Wright), and has gone through another transformation inside by the current owners with modern stark white walls and trim, dark flooring, and mid-century modern furniture. Very now.

The Hemingway House

Fiddelke, 1906, Oak Park, IL
Hemingway’s birth house is in town too, but this was his boyhood home, where he likely formed the opinion that “Oak Park is a neighborhood of wide lawns and narrow minds.” I’d like to think that the latter characteristic has changed some in the years since he lived here. The home was designed with great input from Hemmingway’s mother, and has recently been brought back to a single-family dwelling after having been split into a three-flat since the 1930s. We got to head all the way to the third floor to see Hemingway’s old bedroom.

The Paul Blatchford House I

Architect Unknown, 1887, Oak Park, IL

The porch features a keyhole opening which is not original, but was recreated based on photographs of the original design. The bones of the home were very similar to my own — same unpainted oak trim throughout, tall windows with wooden shutters, Victorian hardware, and so on. The owners kept it to a traditional Victorian look though (as opposed to what I’ve been doing with my 1891 home), choosing historical paint colors, wall treatments, and furnishings.

* Interior photography was not allowed. All exterior photos in this post were from the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust.

May 18, 2015
Independent Shopping in Oak Park, IL
Oak Park has some great restaurants and well-known chain stores, but it also has a huge variety of independent shops. Below, I’ve highlighted some of the best from here in town, as well as a handful from nearby Forest Park. I’ve also created a Pinterest board with their locations marked (though there were a few that I was unable to add to the map). This isn’t an exhaustive list of stores, but it does include all of my favorites!

↑ Update Interiors

Home
- Update Interiors
  Furniture and amazing lighting, along with smaller decorative details for your home.
- Refind Home
  Mid-century vintage finds, plus new eco-friendly and indie goods.
- Moss
  A great selection of flowers, plus interesting gifts and home decor.
- Yearbook
  A careful selection of vintage and new goods with a masculine, old collegiate feel.
- CarefulPeach
  A French-inspired boutique with beautiful items for tabletop, bath, and kitchen.
↑ CarefulPeach

Women’s Clothing & Accessories
- Gem
  A mix of edgy modern and pretty vintage-inspired jewelry.
- Nora’s Shoe Shop
  Awesome shoes from harder to find brands.
- Lively Running
  Running shoes for women (they’ll help you choose the right pair), and cute workout clothes.
- Muse
  Feminine tops and dresses in a range of prices.
↑ Gem

For Kids
- Pumpkin Moon
  Kooky toys kids will love, and a geek’s paradise too.
- The Magic Tree Bookstore
  A great children’s bookstore.
- Sugarcup Trading
  New and gently used stylish kids’ clothes.
- Gepetto’s Toy Box
  Wooden toys, dress-up clothes, and imaginative play, plus all the Legos, Playmobil, puzzles, games, and craft kits you could ask for.
↑ Pumpkin Moon

Books
- The Book Table
  An indie bookstore for a town that loves its books.
- The Magic Tree Bookstore
  A great children’s bookstore.
↑ The Book Table
November 18, 2014
The Crazy House

Our moving timeline just got condensed. I figured we’d take a few weeks to stage our home and paint a couple of rooms to prepare for it for sale. We would have time to get everything ready without making ourselves too crazy, and without losing much sleep. Then we fell in love with a house. I’m not going to share it here yet, because we can’t make a serious offer on it until our house has been listed. Meanwhile, I’m nervous that we’re going to lose it!

Our listing agent is familiar with our house from the blog (isn’t that a funny thing?), and she has given us some advice for selling the place. She’ll be coming out assess it in person this week, and then we’ll try to get it on the market as soon as possible.

Here’s one house that we looked at, and have passed on. It’s a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with 2500 sq. ft. in the Ridgeland Historic District. (It’s adjacent to the Frank Lloyd Wright district, but we’d be happy with either area.) We’ve been referring to it affectionately as “the crazy house.”

If you live in town, you’ve probably spotted it. It’s a large Victorian — rambling, and distinctive. You might wonder, with a house that looks like that on the outside, if the inside matches. Oh, it surpasses the exterior. The people who lived here obviously loved their home very much. They just had a unique design aesthetic.

There are asbestos pipes running throughout the place though, and it needs all new plumbing and electrical work. The basement looks like it takes on water (though we can’t be sure). The kitchen needs to be redone, in addition to all of the other cosmetic work throughout the entire house, and it probably gets pretty warm inside during the summer. We’d also need to add a fence, and likely tear down the more dilapidated of the two garages on the property. The house is being sold as-is.

Despite its flaws, Brandon and I both really like the place! It has a lot of potential to be an amazing house. It would be expensive though. I love a good DIY project, but much of the work to be done there needs to be done by professionals. It would also be time consuming, and we can’t take on a renovation of that scale right now. Not with two little kids underfoot. And that’s why we passed on the crazy house.

All right, I’m off to make the basement more presentable. Gotta make sure we don’t earn any unfortunate monikers of our own.

May 27, 2013
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Home and Studio in Oak Park

Brandon’s aunt and uncle were in town this weekend. His sister mentioned that they were going to tour the Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio, and we were invited on short notice to tag along. Revisiting it was on my Lovely Life List, so I said yes. I took Eleanor with while Brandon stayed home with a napping August.

I’d taken the tour before in high school, but I’d been meaning to go again. It only takes an hour and we live 10 minutes away, so there’s no good reason for me not to have gone already. $15 buys you a ticket. $20 gets you a ticket and a permit for photography (personal use only). Eleanor, being 3, was free.

She loves it when I drag her along to these things. Culture, kid! (She was well-behaved, I promise. And contrary to my photographic evidence, she did enjoy herself at least somewhat.)

There are more than two dozen homes and buildings designed by Wright in Oak Park, at least three of which are for sale right now. For a little under $1 million, you could buy the George Furbeck house. The Thomas Gale house is listed at $849,000, or for rent at $4500/month. Spend a little more ($1,248,500) and you can buy the Martin house. And outside of Oak Park, there are plenty of Frank Lloyd Wright homes for sale.

If you want to see the private residences (without bothering real estate agents when you have no intent to buy, ahem), there is an annual Wright Plus Housewalk in Oak Park with tours inside many of the homes. It falls on May 18 this year, and I’ll be going. Only photos of the exteriors will be allowed, but there will be spring greenery and I won’t be bringing my kids along, so I should be able to get at least a couple of decent shots. I plan to visit the Robie House that day too, leaving only Taliesin East and Fallingwater on my list to see, while crossing off extras I hadn’t even thought to add.

Have you been in any of Wright’s houses? I don’t think I could live in one (budget aside, living in a time capsule would be too limiting), but they’re inspiring.

March 18, 2013