The Arthur Heurtley House is a Prairie-style residence at 318 Forest Avenue in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago in Illinois, United States. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and constructed in 1902, the Heurtley House is one of the earliest examples of a Wright-designed house in full Prairie style. Its decorative features, such as horizontal design details, low roof, and pinwheel motifs, were reused in Wright's later Prairie-style works. The house is designated as a National Historic Landmark and is part of the Frank Lloyd Wright–Prairie School of Architecture Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district.
The house was constructed for the family of the banker Arthur Heurtley. In 1920, the house was purchased by Wright's sister Jane Porter and her husband Andrew, who lived there for 26 years. The house was split into two residences in the mid-20th century. It was resold in 1946 before the biology professor Jack Prost acquired it in the early 1970s. The Baehrend family bought the house in 1997 and restored it as a single residence, selling the house to the Hunt family in 2007. The house remains a private residence in the 21st century.
The Heurtley House occupies the northern section of its land lot, recessed from the street. It has a Roman brick facade that slopes slightly inward. Wright sought to emphasize the house's horizontal design details, in part by laying horizontal courses of protruding and recessed bricks in different tones. The first floor has a round-arched entrance, and the second floor has horizontal bands of windows below a low-pitched roof with protruding eaves. Terraces and balconies are located throughout the house. Inside, the house has private spaces such as a playroom, laundry, and storage space on the ground (first) floor, and communal spaces such as living and dining rooms on the second floor. Bedrooms are spread across both floors.
Site The Heurtley House is located at 318 Forest Avenue (sometimes described as 312 Forest Avenue) in the town of Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago in Illinois, United States. The house occupies a parcel measuring across and was created from the combination of three smaller land lots. There is a large front lawn in front of the house. The lawn creates a setback from Forest Avenue's eastern sidewalk, slightly farther than other houses on the same block.
The house is located near the northern portion of its parcel. The house's architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, had deliberately pushed the house northward to provide open space to the south, as well as to save several existing trees on the site. Running alongside the house is a driveway at the parcel's northern boundary, which connects with a Prairie style garage. The eastern section of the site has a backyard, which originally contained an old growth tree. Though the Chicago Daily Tribune described the backyard tree in 1920 as being a millennium old, the Oak Park Wednesday Journal wrote in 2014 that the oldest trees in the town were no more than 280 years old. The southern and eastern edges of the houses are surrounded by brick parapets, which are decorated with protruding and recessed bricks, similar to those found on the house's facade (see ). Other parapets extend throughout the site, and rectangular planting boxes are placed along the northern and southern perimeters.
On the same city block to the north is the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Just east of the Wright Home and Studio is a house that belonged to Wright's mother. Several of Wright's other houses are located on Forest Avenue, such as the William H. Copeland House, between the Heurtley House and Wright Studio. The Walter Gale House, Francis J. Woolley House, and Robert P. Parker House are located on the block to the west. The Nathan G. Moore House and Edward R. Hills House are on the west side of Forest Avenue. The Frank W. Thomas House is one block to the south. Many of these houses, plus the Fricke House on Fair Oaks Avenue, have south-facing porches, patterned after similar verandas in the Victorian style. The Heurtley House's driveway directly faces the Moore House's porch, and the garden south of the Heurtley House faces the living space of the Gray House immediately across Forest Avenue.
History The Heurtley House was built for the family of the banker Arthur Heurtley. Born in 1860, Heurtley was the only child of the doctors Richard Walter Heurtley and Cornelia Brown. After Cornelia died in 1866, Richard and Arthur moved to the Chicago area, where Arthur joined the Northern Trust Company in 1889. Arthur had been promoted as the company's assistant secretary by 1891. He married Grace Elizabeth Crampton in 1890, and they had two children, Richard Walter and Katherine. They occupied three houses in twelve years, moving to Oak Park from the nearby town of River Forest in 1894.
Heurtley ownership Heurtley was typical of Frank Lloyd Wright's early clients, who tended to be wealthy, and who were open-minded enough to accept Wright's then-unconventional designs despite the ridicule targeted at them. Heurtley was socially outgoing, and he likely came to know Wright through personal acquaintance. Both men were active in various local organizations, and they also liked music, and Wright's firm and the Northern Trust Company both had offices at the Rookery Building in Downtown Chicago in the late 1890s. Wright biographer Lisa Schrenk wrote that it was also possible that they met on the train or in Downtown Chicago.
In March 1902, Heurtley paid $9,250 () for a site on Forest Avenue in Oak Park. He then commissioned two houses from Wright: a primary house on the Forest Avenue site, and a cottage in Michigan. The contractor Pellinger Bros. began erecting the Oak Park house in June 1902, upon which it was scheduled to cost $8,000 (). The house's construction attracted large numbers of passersby on weekends; at one point, Heurtley wrote to 11-year-old Richard, saying his son would laugh at the crowds who looked at the house. Heurtley ultimately spent $11,000 () on his Oak Park residence. Wright's son John subsequently recalled that no bank was willing to lend money to fund his father's early designs.
The Heurtleys were living in the house by late 1902. Shortly afterward, the businessman Darwin D. Martin visited the Heurtley House while deciding whether to hire Wright to design his own mansion in Buffalo, New York. The local engineer Edwin Cheney and his wife Mamah Borthwick Cheney, upon seeing the Heurtleys' residence, also hired Wright to design their own house in Oak Park. As built, the Heurtley House and neighboring buildings received heat from the Yaryan system, a series of underground pipes that circulated hot water. The Heurtleys hosted numerous parties at the house—most of them hosted by Arthur, since cooking and needlework were the only two things Grace is known to have liked. Heurtley was still excited about the house in 1908, when he called Wright "one of the most remarkable men he had ever met" in a letter to a friend. By 1912, Wright's affair with Mamah Cheney had alienated Heurtley and many other clients.
During the Heurtley family's ownership, the Heurtley House underwent several major changes. On the second story, they added screens to the loggia separating the living room and the porch. A breakfast room was added on the second floor, and a "wood room" on the first floor was converted into a pantry or food storage area; Wright's office likely designed both these modifications, although it is unknown when they occurred. Another deviation from Wright's plan was the addition of a dining table and chairs from the Heurtleys' previous house, which the couple had acquired when they became married.
Mid-20th century In 1920, Heurtley retired from his position as the Northern Trust Company's secretary. At the time, Wright's sister Jane Porter and her husband Andrew had canceled plans to expand their own nearby house, after a neighbor built a house that obstructed views from their proposed annex. The Porters became the second owners of the Heurtley House, paying $50,000 () for it. Heurtley moved to Iowa where he lived until his death in 1934. The Porters lived there with their son Franklin Porter, who later became an airline executive. The family stayed in the Heurtley House until 1946. After the Porters moved out, two subsequent owners modified the Heurtley House over the next half-century.
In the mid-20th century, the house was divided into a two-family home. The subdivision is cited as having occurred during the Porters' occupancy, and a 1942 legal notice in the Oak Park Oak Leaves indicated that the Porters were requesting zoning permission to convert the building to a two-family home. The modifications did not take place until 1947. Each level became a separate apartment; the modifications required adding four bedrooms and two kitchens. Windows were built around the porch on the first floor's western elevation, creating another indoor space. After the porch was enclosed, an eave was built to shield that room from the sun. The kitchens and bathrooms were modernized; a black iron gate was added to the entryway; the living room inglenook and dining room breakfront were removed; and a second chimney and furnace were added. A section of the second-floor porch was enclosed, becoming another bathroom.
By 1947, the family of Otto D. Plank was listed as living at the Heurtley House. The Yaryan heating system was deactivated in 1955, and part of the ground-floor space was converted into a furnace room at that time.
Prost ownership
The fourth owner was the biology professor Jack Prost, who acquired the house in 1972 or 1973. Prost had wanted to buy a Wright-designed house in Oak Park after moving there in 1970, and his existing house was deteriorated, prompting him to seek a structure with low maintenance requirements. Prost finally bought the Heurtley House for about $90,000 () after placing a written offer in the mailbox. After buying the house, Prost furnished the interiors with his own furniture, saying he could not "live with Wright totally", and he added a new roof and repaired the walls and brickwork. Prost also acquired replicas of a table and four chairs designed by Wright (which may have been copies of furniture at Chicago's Robie House), but Prost sold the replica furnishings after finding them incompatible with the Heurtley House's design. At first, Prost could afford to maintain the house and pay the property taxes, but his taxes gradually increased all while he supported his children financially, thus straining his finances.
During the late 20th century, the house attracted visitors from around the world. It was included on walking tours, and it hosted events such as parties for the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation. Prost retrospectively expressed appreciation for various aspects of the design, including its floor plan and decorations. Conversely, Prost told the Chicago Tribune that he disliked how reporters and architects felt entitled to enter the house. By 1994, Prost had placed the home for sale, as he could no longer afford the tax payments of $18,000 a year (). The taxes, over a third of his annual salary, had increased ninefold over the two preceding decades, forcing him to withdraw from his retirement savings. The house was also in poor condition. Prost had hired an appraiser, who had concluded that the house would need $401,700 () just to bring it into a state of good repair.
Baehrend and Hunt ownership