Roscoe Harold Zook (21 May 1889 – 17 April 1949) was an American architect best known for his work in suburban

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

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. He received a degree in architecture from the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology, or IIT) in 1914. In 1916 Zook married his first wife, Mildred Barnard. They divorced in the late 1930s. They had one son, Harold Barnard Zook, who followed in his father's footsteps to become an architect in

Corona del Mar, California Corona del Mar (Spanish for "Crown of the Sea") is a seaside neighborhood in the city of Newport Beach, California. It generally consists of all the land on the seaward face of the San Joaquin Hills south of Avocado Avenue to the city limits, as ...

. In the early 1940s, Zook married his second wife, Florence (Barkey) Nissen, whom he met through mutual friends (and clients). Zook died in April 1949, just short of his 60th birthday.

Early life and career

Roscoe Harold Zook was born in Valparaiso,

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

on May 21, 1889, the sixth child of Florence and Dennis Coder Zook. His father was a builder, working as a master carpenter for the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

Fort Wayne Fort Wayne is a city in and the county seat of Allen County, Indiana, United States. Located in northeastern Indiana, the city is west of the Ohio border and south of the Michigan border. The city's population was 263,886 as of the 2020 Censu ...

. Zook's uncle, Jacob Steel Zook, was also a builder, most notably designing the

Brumback Library The Brumback Library is a historic public library in the city of Van Wert, Ohio, United States. Opened at the beginning of the twentieth century in order to serve all residents of Van Wert County, it occupies an architecturally prominent build ...

in Van Wert,

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, now recognized as a Historic Place. R. Harold Zook spent most of his childhood in Fort Wayne, attending the public schools and showing an early proficiency for art. He attended college at the Armour Institute of Technology. After graduating in 1914, Zook was named to the faculty and taught for four years. He also taught interior design at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

and apprenticed under

Howard Van Doren Shaw Howard Van Doren Shaw AIA (May 7, 1869 – May 7, 1926) was an architect in Chicago, Illinois. Shaw was a leader in the American Craftsman movement, best exemplified in his 1900 remodel of Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago. He designed ...

. In the 1910s, Zook served as President of the Architects Club of Chicago, and was a member of several local architectural clubs. In 1922, Zook made an unsuccessful entry in the ''

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for their new Chicago building. Zook built a home and studio in Hinsdale in 1924. In 1925, Zook partnered with William F. McCaughey, a fellow apprentice of Shaw, to start a new architectural firm, operating out of the Auditorium Building. Later, he opened a new office on the 17th floor of the Marquette Building. He designed thirty-four homes and buildings in Hinsdale from 1922 to 1953."Jensen House, 325 East Eighth Street, Hinsdale, Du Page County, IL"
Short biography and six drawings, from the

Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

Twenty-eight houses in the neighborhood are still occupied. He also worked in Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia."Hinsdale, IL: R. Harold Zook Home & Studio"
National Trust for Historic Preservation, June 14, 2008 He is known for the "

Cotswold The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Juras ...

style cottages" he designed which use details from

Tudor architecture The Tudor architectural style is the final development of Medieval architecture in England and Wales, during the Tudor period (1485–1603) and even beyond, and also the tentative introduction of Renaissance architecture to Britain. It fo ...

including

timber framing Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

, exposed beams, diamond-shaped window panes, and intricate brick or stonework. He developed a roofing technique that came to be known as the "Zook roof", with wood shingles laid out in an undulating pattern across the surface to recreate the appearance of a

thatched roof Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

. The roofers used "rolled eaves" at the edges of the roof to make a curved transition into the wall below. Zook designed

ornamental ironwork Ironwork is any weapon, artwork, utensil, or architectural feature made of iron, especially one used for decoration. There are two main types of ironwork: wrought iron and cast iron. While the use of iron dates as far back as 4000BC, it was th ...

for several of these houses using a trademark spider web pattern. ParkRidgePickwick

In partnership with architect William F. McCaughey, Zook designed the 1928

art deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style Pickwick Theatre in

Park Ridge, Illinois Park Ridge is a city in Cook County, Illinois, Cook County, Illinois, United States, and a Chicago suburb. Per the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 39,656. It is located northwest of downtown Chicago. It is close to O' ...

. This was their only theater design, now listed on the

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 ...

. The theater features a tower and lantern, a unique marquee and one of the original installations of a Mighty Wurlitzer theater organ.

Buildings

* 1924 - Harold Zook Home & Studio - Hinsdale, Illinois * 1928 - Jensen House (or W. W. Thompson Home), 325 East Eighth Street, Hinsdale, Du Page County, IL * 1928 -

Pickwick Theater The Pickwick Theatre is an art deco movie palace located in Park Ridge, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Designed by Roscoe Harold Zook, William F. McCaughey, and Alfonso Iannelli, the Pickwick opened in 1928 as a vaudeville stage and movie theatre ...

* 1933 - Salerno Cookie Factory, 4500 Division St., Chicago (demolished in 2015) * 1934 - Burns Field Shelter * 1940 -

St. Charles Municipal Building The St. Charles Municipal Building is a historic building and civic center in St. Charles, Illinois, United States. It was constructed in 1940 and donated to St. Charles, and has since served as its seat of local government. It has been listed on ...

St. Charles, Illinois St. Charles is a city in DuPage and Kane counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. It lies roughly west of Chicago on Illinois Route 64. Per the 2020 census, the population was 33,081. The official city slogan is "Pride of the Fox", after the F ...

* 1948 - Aichinger Residence, 371 Kent Road, Riverside, Illinois"Aichinger Residence"
Frederick Law Olmsted Society * 1927 - Private Residence Oak Street Hinsdal
2015 Luxe Magazine photo tour and articleHGTV Faces of Design Dramatic Transformation winner
with before and after photos

References

External links

Photo gallery and list of all remaining Zook houses in the area of Hinsdale, Illinois.
"Selected Bibliography on R. Harold Zook"
Hinsdale Public Library.

Slideshow showing the relocation of the Harold Zook Home and Studio. {{DEFAULTSORT:Zook, R. Harold Architects from Illinois American theatre architects Illinois Institute of Technology alumni Hinsdale, Illinois 1889 births 1949 deaths People from Valparaiso, Indiana