`Every great architect is–necessarily–a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age,” wrote Frank Lloyd Wright in his London lectures of 1939.
Although Wright is renowned for his seemingly poetic use of materials to create harmony between structure and environment, the originality expressed in his building designs can only be fully appreciated by those privileged to live in one of his works of arts.
The Isabel Roberts House, at 603 Edgewood Place in west suburban River Forest, is one such architecturally unique Wright home. With its varied spaces flowing into one another, the current owners consider this Wright house to be a work of art that they can proudly call home. Due to the couple’s plans to relocate, it is now being sold, with an asking price of $1,275,000.
The home was named after Isabel Roberts, Wright’s studio office manager. Wright built it for Roberts and her mother in 1908, during the height of the Prairie period. Roberts moved out only a few years later, however, after Wright left his Oak Park studio. Roberts’ mother remained in the house until it was sold in 1923.
In the mid-1950s, Wright agreed to revisit the Roberts home and build upon its original design. In his renovation, Wright left the basic architecture unchanged but made changes to meet the contemporary needs of the day and also to refurbish and strengthen the structure.
“The home really represents Wright’s two great periods, which were his Prairie period in the early part of the century and his Usonian period in the 1950s,” said Donna Schwan Jackson of Urban Search Corp. of Chicago. “It is unique in that it does represent both of those periods.”
During the 1950s renovation, Wright enlarged the entry area to accommodate a large coat closet. The original leaded-glass skylight window in the entry, however, was left untouched. Except in the kitchen, Tennessee crab apple orchard flagstone floors were installed throughout the main level. Light-colored Philippine mahogany ceilings were also added.
In the dining room, to the left of the entry, cabinets were built in with individually designed interiors and top surfaces inlaid with travertine marble. Measuring about 19 by 13 feet, the dining room features a layered, stepped ceiling of the Philippine mahogany. The most dramatic part of this ceiling, however, is a built-in Frank Lloyd Wright light fixture with geometric patterns.
Similar carved designs are echoed in the bas relief of the room’s mahogany table and chairs. The dining room set, including the table, four chairs and two side chairs, was designed by Wright and commercially produced by Heritage-Henredon. The current owners would like to see the furniture stay within the home when it is sold.
“The dining room is an example of Frank Lloyd Wright deciding that all you need is a table, and he would supply any other storage that was required for the home,” said Schwan Jackson. “If one wanted to have a piece of furniture, they could, but basically Wright has supplied enough built-in storage in this dining room, no matter how much of a collector you are of china or glassware.”
In his architecture, Wright always celebrated continuous space. This concept is evident as one stands in the dining room and looks out into the open, airy layout of the living room and garden room.
“While Wright creates this cove-like setting to have you sweetly sit over your dinner, he then takes you into the living room, where he opens up the ceiling with two-story windows that bring your attention out into the yard and into the front of the house,” said Schwan Jackson.
From the living room as well as the dining room, one can appreciate Wright’s skillful use of varying ceiling heights that define each room.
“Wherever you go, you see a different vista,” Schwan Jackson said. “It’s almost like having a landscape within your house.”
The living room measures about 15 by 25 feet. Like the dining room furniture, the sectional sofa and two ottomans here were designed for the house during the 1950s renovation. The current owners have recovered and refurbished the furniture, which will also stay with the home after it is sold.
When one is not gazing out the two-story living-room windows, admiring the magnificent red and bur oaks that serve as the focus of the front yard, a beautiful wood-burning fireplace with a wide, open hearth provides hours of peaceful tranquility.
“The living room is wonderful,” said one of the current owners, who, along with her husband, has lived in the home for 9 1/2 years. “In the summer, you sit out towards the window end of the sofa, and you feel almost like you’re on the outside. Although it seems that the fireplace is a little out of the room, in the winter when you have a fire going, it is so much a part of the room, and it makes the living room so cozy.
“When we have company, they’ll talk about the house, and there’s one word that many people have used to describe the house. It’s not a common word, so it must have been something that we felt and that is inherent in the house. The word they used is serenity.”
“The house has a very peaceful feel to it as well as being beautiful,” her husband added. “We’d never thought of a house this way before. We’d always just thought of a house as providing a place to live, a place to keep the rain off you.
“Relatively few houses have characteristics where the spaces themselves become a powerful thing. That was surprising. I don’t think we really understood, until we moved into this house, the power of a well-configured plan.”
Next to the living room is the garden room, which measures about 19 by 19 feet. During the restoration, this room was heated and made suitable for year-round use.
Typical of Wright’s designs to bring the outside in, a stately English elm tree extends all the way through the garden room, with its majestic branches reaching out to the great outdoors.
There are more than 70 original art glass windows and door panels throughout the home. Most of the windows have a horizontal diamond pattern. In the garden room, however, the windows and doors are plain glass with a room-height glass-to-glass window in the southeast corner, offering an unobstructed view.
“Wright was an architect who changed the way people lived in America,” said Schwan Jackson. “He changed very complicated Victorian housing into streamlined, easy living, bringing light back into people’s lives and into their homes. This house was innovative for the beginning of his work in 1908, but it was also innovative in the 1950s when Wright once again changed and continued to work on his work. Every step of the way, no one caught up with him.”
The back yard is believed to have been designed by another famous Prairie-style architect, Jens Jensen, who used native plant materials to recreate the feeling of the prairie in his landscape work, which includes such parks as Columbus Park.
Many of Jensen’s design elements are apparent here, including stratified stonework, a council ring (a low, flat stone circular bench), a waterfall, pond and a bird pool. Native bushes and trees border the yard.
Also on the main level is the kitchen. During the 1950s renovation, the kitchen, which measures about 18 by 8 feet, was enlarged and modernized. In 1989, the kitchen was again renovated with every effort made to preserve the spirit and materials of the 1950s restoration.
The existing cabinets were refinished; a new ceiling and under-cabinet lights were fitted; new countertops were installed; and the existing sink, dishwasher, stove and refrigerator were replaced with new appliances. A table matching the mahogany trim in the house was designed for and built into the kitchen for informal meals. A new hardwood floor was installed in 1997.
All of the windows except for those in the basement study/bedroom are exposed and uncovered by drapes, curtains or blinds. Windows in the basement study have curtains. The basement study/bedroom has wood paneling. Also in the basement is a half bath, laundry room, storage room and furnace room. In 1989, two forced-air heating and air-conditioning units with electrostatic air-cleaning units were installed.
Wright’s ability to combine the grandness of space in the public areas of the home with the more intimate and warm private areas is also evident upstairs on the second-floor level. Here, a balcony overlooks the grand living room and provides an abundance of practical storage space in numerous built-in cabinets installed during the restoration.
The homes’ three bedrooms are also on the second floor. The first bedroom measures 14 by 13 feet and has a wood-burning fireplace with Roman brick surround and built-in bureaus and shelves. A file cabinet was integrated into a built-in desk in this room. Also, the tree seen downstairs in the garden room continues through this upstairs bedroom. A connecting full bathroom has a door that leads out into the hallway.
The master bedroom, measuring 23 by 13 feet, has a peaked ceiling and built-ins throughout, including the bed headboard and dresser with layered drawers. The master bath was totally renovated in 1997 with new floor and wall tile and a new bathtub, toilet and sink. An art glass window that had been covered over was uncovered, providing more light, and wood trim was designed to match detail throughout the rest of the house. A nursery room, measuring 7 by 11 feet, features cedar walls.
The Roberts House is in the River Forest National Historic District and is opposite Thatcher Woods Forest Preserve. Property taxes for 1996 were $8,751. The home is easily accessible via the Eisenhower Expressway.
