The Francis J. Woolley House is located in

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 ...

, United States, a

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

suburb. 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 1893. The Queen Anne style home is reflective of Wright's early designs for lower-cost, more affordable housing. The Woolley House is similar to the trio of homes in Oak Park that are widely known as the "bootleg houses." The design is heavily influenced by 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 ...

, and the Arts and Crafts movement. The house is listed as a contributing property to a

local Local may refer to: Geography and transportation * Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand * Local, Missouri, a community in the United States * Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...

and federal historic district.

History

The Francis J. Woolley House was named for the lawyer for whom architect Frank Lloyd Wright originally designed it, Francis J. Woolley.O'Gorman, Thomas J. Frank Lloyd Wright's Chicago, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego: 2004, pp. 54–5, .

Architecture

The building's design has been called a "Queen Anne splendor," a style represented by the Woolley House's massive

bay window A bay window is a window space projecting outward from the main walls of a building and forming a bay in a room. Types Bay window is a generic term for all protruding window constructions, regardless of whether they are curved or angular, or ...

s and projecting roof masses. Like other early Wright works, the design is much more conventional than later high-style examples of Wright's Prairie School such as the Heurtley House. ''

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 d ...

'' quipped in a 1996 article that the "two-story frame house with a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

that could almost pass for the

vernacular architecture Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. This category encompasses a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, bo ...

of the period."Goldberger, Paul.
Wright's old neighborhood
" ''The New York Times'', March 3, 1996. Retrieved June 25, 2007. The design of the house is reminiscent of Wright's first teacher

and typical of Wright's early, low-cost residential designs. Its high-pitched, hip roof, polygonal and rectangular dormers, polygonal bay windows and wall foundations of rough stones are all reflections of Silsbee's picturesque manner of design.Francis J. Woolley House
" ''Oak Park Tourist'', excerpted from: Sprague, Paul E. ''Guide to Frank Lloyd Wright & Prarire School Architecture in Oak Park'' Oak Park Bicentennial Commission of the American Revolution ndOak Park Landmarks Commission, Village of Oak Park: 1986, . Retrieved June 25, 2007. On the home's southeast portion are its polygonal bay windows and due to a restoration the rough stone foundation walls are more enhanced than they once were. The original horizontal wooden clapboarding has been restored as well. The house features an entry

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

whose high-pitched hip roof echoes the main roof; its deep

eave The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural styl ...

s repeats the pitch lines of the roof and gracefully frames the facade. The Woolley House sits back-to-back with the Robert P. Parker House, in turn nearby the Thomas Gale House, houses whose style the Woolley House closely reflects. The Woolley House is often considered part of the same series of homes that included the Parker and Gale Houses. Those homes, along with 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 ...

, and have become known as Frank Lloyd Wright's "bootleg houses," because he designed them in violation of his agreement with 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 ...

and

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 ...

.Heinz, Thomas A. The Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright, Chartwell Books, Inc., Edison, New Jersey: 2006, p. 55, . In this early Wright work the influence of Silsbee and the Arts and Crafts movement are heavily embedded in the design, which reflects Wright's passion for designing

affordable housing Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a household income at or below the median as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on af ...

. The home's soft earthen tones help to enhance the "comfortable house" feel of the Woolley House. Over the years the home has undergone several remodelings and renovations. Most significantly in 1995 when many of the mechanicals were upgraded. Unfortunately, many of the architectural moldings, doors and features were also removed. The current owners have brought back the exterior to its original condition. The interior is undergoing a complete restoration based on the original blueprints.

Significance

This example of Frank Lloyd Wright's early work in Oak Park is considered a contributing property 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 ...

, a

and federal historic district.Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture Historic District
" Property Information Report-District Listing, HAARGIS Database, ''Illinois Historic Preservation Agency''. Retrieved June 25, 2007. The federal historic district 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 ...

on December 4, 1973.

Notes

References

* Storrer, William Allin. ''The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion''. University Of Chicago Press, 2006, (S.023) {{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley House, Francis J. Houses completed in 1893 Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie School of Architecture Historic District Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Houses in Cook County, Illinois Historic district contributing properties in Illinois Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Cook County, Illinois

History

Architecture

Significance

See also

Notes

References