Fabyan Villa was the home of George and Nelle Fabyan from c. 1908 to 1939. The house is notable because of its remodelling in 1907 by

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 ...

. It was the centerpiece of the Fabyans country estate, which they named Riverbank. The Kane County Forest Preserve District of Illinois purchased the majority of the Fabyan estate in 1939, and operated the Fabyans' home as a museum off and on beginning in 1940. In 199
Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley
was enlisted to operate the site and developed the Fabyan Villa Museum into a Fabyan historic home museum, where photographs, the Fabyans' personal artifact collections, and a limited number of original furnishings, as well as the Riverbank story are shared with the public.

Fabyan country estate, Riverbank

George Fabyan "Colonel" George Fabyan (1867 – 1936) was a millionaire businessman who founded a private research laboratory.Fox River in Geneva, Illinois spanned approximately and featured, among other things, a

Japanese Garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desi ...

, private zoo, Roman-style swimming pool, greenhouses, gardens, grottoes, a lighthouse, a Dutch-style windmill, a country club, a small farm and a scientific laboratory complex. The mid-1800s farmhouse that the Fabyans acquired in 1905 was dubbed by them, The Villa. In 1907, the farmhouse was extensively redesigned by Frank Lloyd Wright, who added a south wing, three verandas and large eaves to achieve a

cruciform Cruciform is a term for physical manifestations resembling a common cross or Christian cross. The label can be extended to architectural shapes, biology, art, and design. Cruciform architectural plan Christian churches are commonly describe ...

modestly Prairie-style country house. Other hallmarks of Wright's organic architecture found in the Fabyan Villa are geometric window motifs, 'light screens' (bands of windows), string-coursing, open floor plan and wood-spindle screening. In 1910, the Fabyans hired Taro Otsuka to design a Japanese-style garden below the villa. The one-acre garden was developed over the next several years, and from 1918 on, maintained b
Susumu Kobayashi
a Japanese immigrant gardener. Japanese gardens were popular amongst the upper class, and it was a well-known attraction throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Although neglected for decades after the Fabyans, the Fabyan Japanese Garden was renovated beginning in 1974, and today contains restored and replicated original elements including a pond, waterfall,

moon bridge A moon bridge (月桥), also known as “''sori-bashi"'' (反り橋) in Japanese, or as a drum bridge (“taiko-bashi” 太鼓橋),Liu, Yan (2020-09-01). "A full moon in another land: The Moon Bridge in the Japanese garden of the Huntington Libra ...

, oversized lantern, and

teahouse A teahouse (mainly Asia) or tearoom (also tea room) is an establishment which primarily serves tea and other light refreshments. A tea room may be a room set aside in a hotel especially for serving afternoon tea, or may be an establishment whi ...

In 1914, the Fabyans purchased a

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...

located on a farm near what is now

Elmhurst, Illinois Elmhurst is a city mostly in DuPage County and overlapping into Cook County in the U.S. state of Illinois, and a western suburb of Chicago. As of 2021, the city has an estimated population of 47,260. History Members of the Potawatomi Native ...

and had it relocated to the east bank of the Fox River across from the Villa on acreage acquired that same year. The

Fabyan Windmill The Fabyan Windmill is an authentic, working Dutch windmill dating from the 1850s located in Geneva, Kane County, Illinois, just north of Batavia, Illinois, off Illinois Route 25.Location taken from National Register of Historic Places: NRIS 79 ...

is unique due to the bakery it houses that, according to legend, was used to bake bread for the Fabyans' pet bears. During wartime rationing, the Windmill was used to grind grain for the surrounding community: a deed that was later honored by means of a U.S. postal stamp.

Riverbank Laboratories

Between 1912 and 1922, Fabyan created Riverbank Laboratories, the first privately owned research facility in the United States. In fact, the

National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collect ...

has recognized Riverbank Laboratories as the birthplace of

cryptology Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...

and has honored Fabyan for his associated services to the United States' government. Nearly all American military

World War I cryptography With the rise of easily-intercepted wireless telegraphy, codes and ciphers were used extensively in World War I. The decoding by British Naval intelligence of the Zimmermann telegram helped bring the United States into the war. Trench codes wer ...

was done at Fabyan's laboratories, where Elizabeth Wells Gallup and her staff of assistants, including

Elizebeth Friedman Elizebeth Smith Friedman (August 26, 1892 – October 31, 1980) was an American cryptanalyst and author who deciphered enemy codes in both World Wars and helped to solve international smuggling cases during Prohibition. Over the course of her ...

and

William F. Friedman William Frederick Friedman (September 24, 1891 – November 12, 1969) was a US Army cryptographer who ran the research division of the Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s, and parts of its follow-on services into the 1950s. ...

, had spent several years honing cryptology skills and methodology searching for proof of

Sir Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both n ...

's authorship of

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's plays using Bacon's own ciphers. This site also contained George's and Nelle's private library and museum. In 1918, Fabyan built the first reverberation chamber in the US for Harvard physicist

Wallace Clement Sabine Wallace Clement Sabine (June 13, 1868 – January 10, 1919) was an American physicist who founded the field of architectural acoustics. Sabine was the architectural acoustician of Boston's Symphony Hall, widely considered one of the two or thre ...

, the pioneer researcher in architectural acoustics. The acoustic laboratory is still in use today as a testing facility.

References

Bibliography

* Storrer, William Allin. ''The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion''.

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

, 2006, (S.129).

External links

Fabyan Villa and Japanese Garden
- official site, Preservation Partners of the Fox Valley
Fabyan Villa on waymarking.com
*
Photo of Fabyan VillaThe story of how George Fabyan proved in a Chicago court that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare
{{Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Historic house museums in Illinois Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Kane County, Illinois Museums in Kane County, Illinois Japanese-American culture in Illinois Japanese gardens in the United States Gardens in Illinois Houses in Kane County, Illinois Riverbank Laboratories