Despite the overgrown lawn and the decrepit condition of the Frank Lloyd Wright home in Highland Park–a gaping hole under the eaves was visible from the street–owner Milton Robinson closed on the sale just 10 days after seeing it in 1983.
While the commodities trader was unfamiliar with some of the exacting work that goes into preserving an architectural masterpiece, he had renovated a previous home on the Gold Coast and restored old cars as a hobby.
And, “I was young, frisky and positive-thinking, and I thought I was just going to attack this monster,” a bemused Robinson recently recalled.
Hardly naive, Robinson didn’t bother to hire inspectors to tell him what he already knew: It would require hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of structural repairs and reinforcement before he could even think about such crucial details as authentic shades of paint and preserving the house’s more than 100 art glass windows.
But, he and his wife Sylvie gradually would come to realize that striving for a museum-quality renovation “requires a tremendous amount of additional time and energy,” Robinson said. “And I’m still behind.”
After several million dollars worth of investment and thousands of hours of painstaking work and research by the Robinsons, the couple has decided to allow limited public access to the Ward W. Willits house through tours by appointment and as a site for not-for-profit charity events.
They also have established the Willits-Robinson Preservation Foundation to ensure the continued preservation of the house and plan to donate all of the furnishings if they move out.
On Sept. 25, it will be the site for the national benefit dinner for the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy during its annual conference in Chicago that week.
To celebrate Wright’s fascination with Japanese art and design and the Ikebana International’s annual conference that same weekend at the Chicago Botanic Garden, Japanese cuisine will be served and Ikebana floral art will be displayed.
Named after the lawyer and businessman who commissioned Wright in 1901 to design it, the Willits house is considered by many to be the first Prairie style masterpiece by the architect.
In designing the house, Wright brought together all the Prairie style’s signature features–the centrally located fireplace, cruciform plan, use of timber framing and the broad reach of the roof–in a more fluid, integrated way than ever before.
Willits, who was closely involved in the house’s design and construction and communicated his opinions to Wright in some 50 letters, raised four children there with his wife, Cecelia, and stayed until his death in 1951.
In the following 30 years, the house fell into disrepair under several different owners. One even held a yard sale during the 1950s in which much of the furniture that Wright designed for the house–some pieces worth more than five figures in today’s dollars–was sold for pocket change, said John Eifler, a restoration architect in Chicago who has advised the Robinsons since 1983.
When Robinson bought the house, the amount of repair work required was so extensive that he didn’t move in until 1986. Even though he was aware of its original, decrepit state, there were the inevitable surprises: Enough raccoon feces to fill two large trash bins was found in the attic of one of the lower porches, and the foundation of the front porch was so decayed it had to be replaced.
But the couple, who held their wedding reception in the house in 1988, maintained their faith despite the frustrations of living in a home that was continually dusty and in disarray from renovations.
“After taking a shower, I’d take three steps and the bottoms of my feet would be black from all the dust,” Sylvie Robinson said.
Robinson stained a replica of the original oak dining room table and chairs himself and laboriously used four different stains on the same piece in order to match the original’s tint.
When his wife, who has a keen eye for color and space, became frustrated because she could not find sheets, towels, furniture cushions or pillows in the earth tones Wright favored, she decided to dye them herself.
Together, the two attended auctions and contacted dealers to find just the right Arts & Crafts furniture pieces, including Stickley and Limbert designs, sometimes waiting months or years for an appropriate piece.
Finally, several years ago, when the interior was “tied together” by fresh coats of paint in the colors matching the original yellow, brown and green tones, the Robinsons felt they had reached a turning point in the renovation.
Although Robinson could be as unyielding as any preservationist when it came to certain details, his experience in the business world brought a fresh pragmatism to the project, Eifler said.
For instance, Robinson persuaded Eifler that donating the more fragile art glass windows to the Chicago Historical Society and installing replicas in their place made more sense than continually repairing them.
“Milt is very passionate about the house,” Eifler said. But, “he has challenged me with very pragmatic questions, which has made me question some of the assumptions of preservation.”
