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Suiting the Style to the Site
Discover Your Home’s History at Ridge Historical Society
Suiting the Style to the Site
By Harold T. Wolff
When we think of selecting an architectural style for a particular site, what usually comes to mind is the way in which the horizontal lines of a Prairie-style house reflect the wide-open flat plains of the Middle West, or how the successive piling up of terraces, stairs, porches and stories allows a house to fit into a hillside. But when the site to be accommodated is a grouping of lots whose borders meander in and out, giving the property varying widths and depths, not just any style of building can be erected on it. The one style that can be accommodated on almost any site is Tudor.
A case in point is the extended apartment building erected for the Englehart Construction Company on the northwest corner of Wood and 104th Streets in 1928 and 1929. Fronted on the Wood Street side by a park-like lawn with flower beds and trees, the building extends 311 feet from north to south and 104 feet from east to west.
The apartment house was designed by the firm of Lindblad & Carlson, a partnership of about a year's duration between Elmer C. Carlson and Alfred G. Lindblad. Carlson was a southsider and it is thought the design was chiefly his. He was born in Sweden on Jan. 20, 1897, and came to the United States with his parents. He studied at the Armour Institute of Technology (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, but did not earn a degree from either of these institutions. He received his professional training through employment with several architects or firms including Holabird & Root. From 1929 on he practiced in his own. Before the Depression he specialized in large apartment houses, but thereafter he became known for single-family residences in the Art Moderne style, many of them located in Beverly/Morgan Park.
The site for the Englehart Construction Company's building, besides being large, is also irregular. Aat the northwest corner of the property the building ducks behind a house on Wood Street onto a dogleg of the lot which juts back behind the neighboring house on 104th Street. For this reason the north end of the building looms like a diagonal ravine over the walks that approach the northern entrances. The entrance to the ravine-like passage is guarded by facing octagonal towers with pointed roofs, and at the far end projecting entrances and a curved wall break up the flat planes of the ravine's bluffs.
Further south, the main walls of the building are parallel to Wood Street, but these are broken up by courtyards which hold the entrance pavilions, which are highly decorated on the ground-floor level. The windows are mostly grouped in threes, often projecting on the upper stories in box bays supported both by brackets and corbelling, in which supporting layers of bricks each extend a little farther outward than the layer below. The box bays display decorative half-timbering, and sometimes are capped by gables with decorative bargeboards. The decorative scheme continues around to the 104th Street side. The ground-floor windows are often solitary rather than grouped, and this has allowed the architect to employ round or oval windows with keystones on top, bottom, and sides here and there. Others of these single windows are square with stones interrupting their brick framing. At the roof, two of the corners display little turrets called bartizans, and at some points there are crenellations. In the middle of the composition is a four-story-high chimney with chimney-pots.
It might be supposed that, with all of these disparate elements, the effect would be chaotic, but because the window groupings are kept rigidly one above the other, the overall sense is of an orderly framework within which playful elements are allowed to, well, play. The building simultaneously displays immense dignity and delightful decorations. This is the essence of Tudor's charm, as well as the aspect which allows it to harmonize with a variety of surroundings so effectively.
Discover Your Home’s History at Ridge Historical Society
By Jane Nicoll and Jennifer Kenny
Ridge Historical Society
You own a home that you're proud to call your own. But someone owned it before you. Someone built it, cared for it, and made changes through the years. Now you're interested in finding out the "who, when and what" of your property.
Researching your house can be fun and fascinating. The information found in the Architectural Resource Center of Ridge Historical Society (RHS) will help you get started, with researchers offering advice on how to identify basic information about your house and your neighborhood. Researchers can guide you through the process of unlocking the history of your home.
Using sources available through RHS and through City of Chicago and Cook County record repositories, you can determine the date your house was built, whether an architect designed it, who the builder was, and changes that may have been made to it over the years.
Research can be addictive, and sometimes frustrating. You may exhaust every source possible and still not find the answers to your questions. No matter how many questions remain unanswered, you will have unearthed some interesting information, learned more about your community, and become familiar with some important public document sources in the city. Our community contains four historic districts. Ridge Historic District (1976) is on the National Register of Historic Places. The City of Chicago has designated Longwood Drive (1981), Walter Burley Griffin Place and the Beverly Hills/ Morgan Park Railroad Stations (1995) districts. There are also five Chicago Landmark houses, and many historic bungalows. No other historic community in Chicago has the vast collection of uninterrupted blocks of well-built, architect-designed historic homes that is found in Beverly Hills/Morgan Park. Many residents have chosen to live in historic buildings because they admire the superior construction, exceptional craftsmanship and detailing, and unique history of the community. Many of the requests for information at Ridge Historical Society regard the history of individual homes. The majority of resource materials on local homes and architects is in the Architectural Resource Center. Those researching the history of their home can visit RHS during public hours, Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m., or they can call 773-881-1675 to make an appointment with a Research Associate. While basic research assistance is offered at no cost, larger research projects usually involve fees. People requesting research help are encouraged to become members of the society. Fees for basic services are lower for members. The society also charges a small fee for photocopies.
Ridge Historical Society would like to have all residents become members to support the valuable work the society does, preserving the architectural and social history of the community.
RHS Research Associates urge you to use our website to get an overview of the search process. The RHS website, www.ridgehistoricalsociety.org, offers a detailed, step-by-step, online guide to researching home histories. The brochure, “Your House Has a History,” from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks (312-744-3200) is in the reference collection at RHS, but can also be read on the Commission’s website at www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks/Ordinance.html. The Beverly Area Planning Association’s website lists information on RHS and other agencies which can help with your historic home, at www.bapa.org/historic-districts.htm.
Research associates at RHS can also direct you to the proper record repositories and city offices and what records to search for. Associates are not available during most of our public hours. The volunteer, or docent on duty will help you fill out a House History Request which will be given to a researcher. The volunteer may be able to help do a preliminary search in the Architectural Resource Center files.
RHS is currently recruiting and training volunteers, so there are different levels of familiarity with the collection. These requests can also be initiated by sending an email to ridgehistory@hotmail.com, which will be directed to the researchers. Researchers can make appointments to meet with people at mutually convenient times. RHS does encourage people to plan on doing much of the research themselves, following the steps on the website.
Resources at RHS include individual building files by address; Chicago Historic Resources Survey data and maps; historic district information; older telephone books and city directories; a file of articles which can be used to find out about earlier residents of the community -- perhaps someone who owned your home; and home tour booklets from Beverly Area Planning Association tours from past years and from walking tours RHS has conducted.
RHS also has Sanborn Insurance Maps, which show the location of each house at the time the maps were drawn, revealing a number of details on the structures and out buildings; books and files on architectural styles, architects and builders. The Doris Brown Real Estate Collection consists of listing sheets with photos for houses sold in the 1950s to 1960s. A large collection of historical photographs includes homes and places. RHS has copies of postcards made from photographs taken in Morgan Park in 1909. The originals are at the Chicago Historical Museum.
The Architectural Resource Center is being compiled by volunteers on the RHS Historic Buildings Committee. This committee was one of the first established after the society was founded in 1971. The committee believes that one of the society’s most important functions is to clearly identify historically and architecturally significant buildings and to collect and make available accurate information about them. Much of the rich heritage of the Beverly Hills/Morgan Park area lies in the many stately homes, some of which date back far into the 19th century. The committee’s main function is to document the history of houses or buildings associated with important events or outstanding residents, as well as those whose age and features make them architecturally significant. In the past, the committee recognized buildings through a plaque program and by a certificate program. This important part of the RHS mission is falling on the shoulders of a few dedicated people. Volunteers interested in learning how to document buildings or become Research Associates, or interested in learning about other volunteer opportunities at RHS should contact Jane Nicoll, Executive Director. Ridge Historical Society invites the community to see what wonders await beyond the gateposts and down the lane. |
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