The Wright Stuff

Last weekend my husband and I headed to Oak Park, IL to attend the annual Wright Plus housewalk, held by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust. My husband purchased tickets for the event last winter when he learned that the Heurtley House would on the tour. The house recently underwent a highly publicized restoration. This was one of the rare opporuntities for the public to see the house's interiors. Not all the homes featured on the housewalk were designed by Wright; there were a few houses in the Queen Anne Style which was the most popular style for residential architecture at the turn of the last century. There were also examples Prarie houses designed by other architects like E. E. Roberts and William G Barfield.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Heurtley House, the "star" of the 2007 Wright Plus housewalk.




To prove that we are real "archtitecture geeks" Friday evening we attended a lecture given by preservation expert Vincent Michael on preserving Prairie architecture. The talk was followed by a reception at a privately owned home designed by one of Wright's comtemporaries, George Washington Maher. Earlier in the day we visited Mahar's masterpiece, the Farson House, also known as Pleasant Home and were given a tour by Laura Thompson, the house foundation's executive director. She was extremely friendly and shared with us much useful information about the house. If you visit the Chicago area, I would highly recommend a visit to Pleasant Home.

In case you're thinking that this trip was all "work and no play" we found, or rather Bill found a neighborhood wine bar, The Oak Park Abbey. We were treated to wonderful wines and micro brews along with warm and attentive service from Ellen and Stephanie. For breakfast the morning of the housewalk, we stopped at Great Harvest Bread Company for a slab o' triple berry bread and my first hot steamy cup of Peet's coffee. Yum! R was right -- that coffee rocks!

Lastly a few more photos:

Here I am standing in front of a Wright-designed light fixture in Unity Temple.



This is Wright's Gale House. It wasn't part of Wright Plus, but it is my favorite Wright Prarie House.