Original Owner:	H. Benton Howard
Address:	911 Chicago Ave.
Architect:	E. E. Roberts
Year Built:	1903
	The H. Benton Howard house was commissioned by Americus Melville as a wedding present for his daughter Jessie, who married H. Benton Howard.  A year later Melville again hired Roberts to build a home for him on the lot next door, we will see this next.  This house is an example of E. E. Roberts' version of Wright's Prairie style.  A number of Oak Park architects of the early 20th century borrowed elements of the Prairie style and incorporated them into their own architecture.  Here, Roberts incorporates Wright's low-pitched hipped roof, stucco exterior, geometric arrangement of the main facade and band of windows on the second floor into his design.  But the variety of materials on the exterior, front placed chimney, and irregularly shaped windows are throwbacks to more traditional Victorian architecture.  Interesting to note is the use of irregularly shaped boulders at the base of the chimney.  Wright had similarly incorporated boulders around the entrance of his Chauncey Willams house in nearby River Forest, built in 1895.   H. Benton Howard was a wool merchant.  The Howard's had three children, Katherine, John and Gale.  They appear to have left Oak Park by 1922.  They were living in Evanston at the time of A. B. Melville's death in 1944. Roberts was the most prolific of the architects practising in Oak Park around the turn of the century; he designed over 200 buildings here.  Roberts own home and studio is at 1019 Superior, less than a block away from Wright's own home.