The Robert P. Parker House is a house located in the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

suburb of

Oak Park, Illinois Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, adjacent to Chicago. It is the 29th-most populous municipality in Illinois with a population of 54,583 as of the 2020 U.S. Census estimate. Oak Park was first settled in 1835 and later incorporated in ...

, United States. The house was designed by American architect

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) 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 o ...

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 Dankmar Adler (July 3, 1844 – April 16, 1900) was a German-born American architect and civil engineer. He is best known for his fifteen-year partnership with Louis Sullivan, during which they designed influential skyscrapers that boldly addr ...

and architect,

Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago School, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...

; taking outside commissions was something that Sullivan forbade. The Parker House is listed as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

to a U.S. federally

Registered Historic District A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from cer ...

History

The Robert P. Parker House is one of three houses along Chicago Avenue in Oak Park which have come to be known as American architect

's "Bootleg Houses."Robert P. Parker House
" ''Oak Park Tourist'', excerpted from: Sprague, Paul E. ''Guide to Frank Lloyd Wright & Prairie School Architecture in Oak Park'' Oak Park Bicentennial Commission of the American Revolution and Oak Park Landmarks Commission, Village of Oak Park: 1986, (). Retrieved 9 June 2007. The triplet of houses includes the

Thomas H. Gale House The Thomas H. Gale House, or simply Thomas Gale House, is a house located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1892 and is an example of his early wo ...

and the

Walter Gale House 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 d ...

as well as the Parker House and they were designed by Wright independently while he was still employed by Adler and Sullivan. Architect

loaned Wright money during the construction of his own home and studio and Wright was working it off at the firm. Independent work was forbidden by Sullivan.Lockwood, Charles.
The houses Wright built
" ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', 8 June 1986. Retrieved 9 June 2007. The Parker house is especially similar to the Thomas H. Gale House. The houses were designed on a speculative basis for Wright neighbor Walter Gale in 1892. In all, Wright designed nine "bootleg houses" moonlighting while still under contract with Sullivan. When Sullivan found out about the side projects, in late 1892 or early 1893, Wright was dismissed. The Parker House is one of four that still stand. They were built later that same year, 1892, by real-estate agent Thomas Gale, who sold the Parker House to attorney Robert Parker. The three houses were part of a series of homes that had nearly identical plans with only small differences. They include the aforementioned Walter Gale House and Thomas H. Gale House, the Francis Woolley House, also located in Oak Park, and the Robert G. Emmond House in

LaGrange, Illinois ''(the barn)'' , nickname = , motto = ''Tradition & Pride – Moving Forward'' , anthem = ''My La Grange'' by Jimmy Dunne , image_map = File:Cook County Illinois Incorporated and Unincorporated areas La Grange Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 26 ...

. Parker, an attorney, bought the house from the Gales early on in the building process as his name appears on the plans.Heinz, Thomas A. ''The Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright'', Chartwell Books, Inc., Edison, New Jersey: 2006, pp. 55-56, ().

Architecture

The design for the Parker House and the Thomas Gale House, and to some extent the Walter Gale House, were derived from the more expensive Emmond House in LaGrange. The homes all feature irregular roof composition with high pitches and

polygonal In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two tog ...

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable space ...

s. The Parker House reflects the style of Wright's first teacher

Joseph Silsbee Joseph Lyman Silsbee (November 25, 1848 – January 31, 1913) was a significant American architect during the 19th and 20th centuries. He was well known for his facility of drawing and gift for designing buildings in a variety of styles. His most ...

. Sullivan's influence can also be seen in the taut masses of the house, his philosophy of "geometric simplification" is evident in the Parker House's design. While generally cast in the Queen Anne style of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

the Parker House has more ample rounded forms than the common Queen Anne homes being built at the time. The small size is deceiving as the Parker House is spacious. The

turret Turret may refer to: * Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building * Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon * Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope * Mi ...

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

s have walls that are more than half consisted of windows. The

fireplace A fireplace or hearth is a structure made of brick, stone or metal designed to contain a fire. Fireplaces are used for the relaxing ambiance they create and for heating a room. Modern fireplaces vary in heat efficiency, depending on the design. ...

is set in the center of the house which allows it to heat and service two rooms, the

parlor A parlour (or parlor) is a reception room or public space. In medieval Christian Europe, the "outer parlour" was the room where the monks or nuns conducted business with those outside the monastery and the "inner parlour" was used for necessar ...

and the

dining room A dining room is a room (architecture), room for eating, consuming food. In modern times it is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience in serving, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically ...

. The side elevations of the Parker House are

symmetrical Symmetry (from grc, συμμετρία "agreement in dimensions, due proportion, arrangement") in everyday language refers to a sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion and balance. In mathematics, "symmetry" has a more precise definiti ...

but adjacent buildings are built too close for the design to be seen clearly.

Significance

Though small in size and adorned with inexpensive detailing, the Parker House and the Gale House are of significance because of what they reveal about Frank Lloyd Wright's development as an architect. The house is listed as a

to the

Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District Frank or Franks may refer to: People * Frank (given name) * Frank (surname) * Franks (surname) * Franks, a medieval Germanic people * Frank, a term in the Muslim world for all western Europeans, particularly during the Crusades - see Farang Cur ...

.Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District
" Property Information Report-District listing, HAARGIS Database, ''Illinois Historic Preservation Agency''. Retrieved 9 June 2007. The

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

was added to the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on December 4, 1973.

Notes

References

* Storrer, William Allin. ''The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion''. University Of Chicago Press, 2006, (S.017) {{DEFAULTSORT:Parker House, Robert P. Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie School of Architecture Historic District Houses completed in 1892 Houses in Cook County, Illinois Historic district contributing properties in Illinois Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois