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The Heurtley house is
one of Wright's finest Prairie homes; it displays all the characteristics of
the fully developed Prairie style. The chimney is the distinctive prairie
shape, low and quite wide; it crowns the low pitched hipped roof, with wide
eaves protecting the house underneath. To eliminate all unnecessary
vertical lines, Wright designed the gutters without downspouts, just spigots at
each corner to let the rain fall freely into rain basins of Wright's design on
the ground. Like the Thomas house, the family living areas are on the
second level – a feature which was continued in the Robie and Coonley
houses. The first floor contains a children's playroom, guest bedrooms
and servant's quarters, the living room, dining room, kitchen and family
bedrooms are upstairs. Having the living spaces right underneath the roof
allows Wright to extend the ceilings of the living and dining rooms up into the
attic space, creating a tent-like feeling and permitting decorative wood
banding of this area.
The Forest avenue facade features a
continuous band of art glass windows spanning almost the entire second floor,
this create the impression that the roof is floating above the house.
Alternating courses of slightly recessed and projecting bricks give the
exterior an almost board and batten appearance from a distance; the mortar
between rows of bricks is left white, but that between adjacent bricks of the
same row is colored to further enhance the effect. The low wall to the
south further ties the house to the ground, and counterbalances the somewhat
off center entrance, protected by a V shaped wall. The entryway arch
looks back to Sullivan's auditorium theater, which Wright worked on with Adler
& Sullivan, and also H. H. Richardson's Glessner house. This V shape
is echoed in the breakfast nook bay at the north end of the dining room, and a
similar bay in a bedroom at the back of the house. The house sits on a
concrete water table; there is no below grade basement.
Arthur Heurtley was a banker at the Northern
Trust in Chicago. In addition to his Oak Park home, he also commissioned
Wright to remodel a Michigan cottage. He was amateur musician and enjoyed
entertaining; with its ample living and dining space the house is well suited
for large gatherings. Wright's sister and brother-in-law, Jane and Andrew
Porter, purchased the house in 1920, and commissioned E. E. Roberts to remodel
the existing garage, adding living quarters above. The Porters owned the
property until 1946, but didn't live there in the final years they owned it
— they converted it into a duplex and rented it out.
In 1997 the current owners purchased the
house and undertook a complete restoration to return the house to its original
condition. Click here for some of the
exterior restoration details. The existing garage was demolished by the
current owners in 1998, and a new garage, designed by John Thorpe, was created
in the design context of the main house design. |
