The 1905 Mary W. Adams House, is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed

Prairie School Prairie School is a late 19th- and early 20th-century architectural style, most common in the Midwestern United States. The style is usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in ...

home that was constructed in

Highland Park, Illinois Highland Park is a suburban city located in the southeastern part of Lake County, Illinois, United States, about north of downtown Chicago. Per the 2020 census, the population was 30,176. Highland Park is one of several municipalities located o ...

. The Adams House is a two-story home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a light stucco exterior and wooden trim that emphasizes the horizontal. The National Park Service recognized the house with a listing on the National Register of Historic Places on September 29, 1982, as part of the Highland Park Multiple Resource Area. The Highland Park Historic Preservation Commission named it a local landmark in 2011. The current owners received the Highland Park 2012 Historic Preservation Award for Restoration.

History

Widowed Mary W. Adams, who was a teacher in the

Christian Science Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes informally know ...

movement, hired architect Frank Lloyd Wright to design her a house in 1905. Adams was 70 years old, making her Wright's oldest client. Disciples of the Christian Science movement wanted to be seen as innovative, therefore Mrs. Adams chose an innovative architect, 38-year-old Wright. Wright submitted an initial plan which had porches at the extremities, but Adams rejected it as too costly. Adams approved of a second draft, which removed the south porch and made the dining room an open view and the house reflects this design. An interesting feature of the building is its diagonal corner buttresses which are not structural, but serve to dramatically emphasize the extension of the roof. The exterior is stucco with cypress wood trim and the interior wood is southern yellow pine with quarter-sawn white oak floors. The original tan Roman brick fireplace has been restored. Wright designed a small storage building for the house which has also been restored. The house had rooms for a maid and servant. It was designed with a call system so that Adams could request help from anywhere in the house, even the porch. (Storrer, 108) The building sits on a corner lot, four houses from Lake Michigan. It is reminiscent of what would become Wright's

A Fireproof House for $5000 "A Fireproof House for $5000" is an article and house design by Frank Lloyd Wright published in the ''Ladies' Home Journal'' in April 1907. It is Wright's third and final publication in the journal following " A Home in a Prairie Town" and "A Sm ...

design. Adams lived in the house for only three years before her death and is buried with her husband in Lowell, Massachusetts.Highland Park names Frank Lloyd Wright Home as a local landmark
triblocal.com The house was listed as a short sale in the 2000s and its fate was uncertain. It needed extensive restoration work. New owners purchased the home in December 2010 and embarked upon an 18-month restoration using the original plans of Frank Lloyd Wright.

References

* Storrer, William Allin. ''The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion''. University of Chicago Press, 2006, (S.108) {{DEFAULTSORT:Adams, Mary W. House National Register of Historic Places in Lake County, Illinois Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Highland Park, Illinois Houses in Lake County, Illinois Houses completed in 1905 1905 establishments in Illinois

History

See also

References