The Avery Coonley House (also known as the Avery Coonley Mansion) is a mansion in Riverside, Illinois, United States. Constructed in 1908–1909, it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie style. The Coonley House, once a single residence, was divided into two residences—300 Scottswood Road and 281 Bloomingbank Road—during the 1950s. It is part of the Coonley Estate, which has two additional buildings designed by Wright: a carriage house and a gardener's cottage. The Coonley Estate is a National Historic Landmark (NHL) and is included in the Riverside Historic District, another NHL.
The estate was built for Avery Coonley and his wife Queene Ferry, both heirs to industrial fortunes, who lived there with their daughter Elizabeth for a decade. It was sold in 1921 to Peter Kroehler, a furniture manufacturer from Naperville, Illinois. In 1952, the architect Arnold Skow proposed demolishing much of the property to make way for new homes. A compromise was reached that allowed Skow to preserve the property but divide the estate, including the main house. Since then, the various residences have been resold and renovated multiple times. The main house was damaged by a fire in 1978. In the early 21st century, the carriage house and both sections of the main house were renovated.
The landscape, consisting of extensive raised and sunken gardens, was designed by the landscape architect Jens Jensen. The structure itself is two stories high and is made of frame and stucco on a flat concrete foundation. The entrance hall, playroom, and storage space are on the ground floor, which is treated as a basement. The upper story, with a U-shaped arrangement, is the first example in Wright's work of a zoned plan, with rooms grouped in zones according to function. The larger of the two residences occupies the former public–living room wing on Bloomingbank Road, while the smaller residence occupies the former bedroom wing on Scottswood Road. A servant quarters is attached to the public–living room wing. The house has been praised over the years, and Wright considered the design his most successful work of the time.
Site The Avery Coonley House is located in the village of Riverside, a suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The house is part of an estate designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Prairie style, with three buildings (see ). The estate overlooks the Des Plaines River, spanning about . It once occupied an entire city block between Scottswood Road to the south, Bloomingbank Road to the north, and Coonley Road to the east. Due to the river's serpentine route through the village, the block has an irregular shape, described as a teardrop. Nearby is the original Coonley Playhouse, which occupies an adjacent block at 350 Fairbank Road. The entire village was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux.
When the estate was built in the 1900s, the site had many trees and was nearly rural in character. The western half of the block remained undeveloped until it was sold in the 1950s. Since then, the estate has been split between five property owners. The main house is divided into two residences, with separate addresses at 300 Scottswood Road to the south and 281 Bloomingbank Road to the north. The other addresses in the complex are 290 Scottswood Road (occupied by a servant cottage), 336 Coonley Road (occupied by a carriage house and sunken gardens), and 348 Coonley Road (formerly the raised garden). The site of the raised garden has been redeveloped with another house, designed in a similar style to the Wright structures. The Coonley House is Wright's only multi-building Prairie-style estate that remains a private residence.
Grounds The grounds were landscaped by Jens Jensen. The Coonley House sits on the crest of a small hill and is surrounded by trees. Before the house was built, the center of the hill was flat, and the land sloped down gently to the southwest; it rose up to above the street at Scottswood and Coonley roads. The main house has a largely U-shaped layout surrounding an informal courtyard on three sides. Placed throughout the grounds are a series of sunken and raised gardens. A reflecting pool, abutting the main house to the west, was originally dyed black before being converted into a swimming pool. The pool is positioned directly in front of the living room but, as built, was only partly visible from that room.
There is an entrance court to the east, which is accessed from a service drive to the south, passing under the estate's garage. The estate's primary driveway is from the north, traveling under the kitchen, the entrance court's western edge, and the guest wing; it is adjoined by a walkway. This driveway is paved in gravel, and the walkway is paved in orange tile.
Jensen also oversaw the installation of hardscape features such as trellises and built-in planters. The trellises, along with low walls, are installed throughout the estate to shape its architectural features. One wall surrounds the original estate. Another wall runs through the courtyard, separating the properties. The concrete planters, installed next to the house, copy the square motif found throughout the floor plan. Other hardscape features included poured-concrete tables decorated with fern motifs, along with balcony railings.
History
Coonley use Avery Coonley (1870–1920) and his wife Queene (; 1874–1958) were both heirs to industrial fortunes. Avery was the oldest son of John Clark Coonley, who ran the Chicago Malleable Iron Company, and Lydia Avery Coonley, a writer. Queene's parents were the businessman Dexter M. Ferry—who owned shares in many firms including the Ferry Seed Company—and Adelaide Elizabeth Miller. Avery and Queene may have been introduced by Avery's sister Sarah (who attended Vassar College with Queene), or at their summer houses in Upstate New York. The Coonleys were married in 1901. The Coonleys had one daughter, Elizabeth, born 1902, who later married the architect Waldron Faulkner. The family were politically liberal and were adherents of the Christian Science religious movement.
Development In 1906, the Coonley family acquired a plot in Riverside; their decision had been influenced by Elizabeth's birth. At the time, the site was occupied by two existing residences. Queene was more involved in the house's commission than Avery, who preferred traditional architecture. It was Queene who had convinced Avery to meet the architect Frank Lloyd Wright after looking at his other houses; the Coonleys told Wright that they saw in his work "the countenances of principle".Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings, 1930–32, volume 2. Edited by Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, introduction by Kenneth Frampton (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York City, 1992), p. 218. Wright stated in his autobiography that the Coonleys' high regard of his work "was to me a great and sincere compliment. So I put my best into the Coonley House." Queene and Wright had taken a quick liking to each other. Wright biographer Meryle Secrest wrote that this was atypical of Wright, saying that "a woman who knew her own mind was the kind of client Wright empathically did not want" unless she shared Wright's outlook on design.
Barry Byrne, a draftsman in Wright's studio, drew up the detailed plans, while Harry Robinson designed details such as the art glass windows. As originally planned, the complex was to include a main house with a servant wing near the eastern end of the block. There were to be a detached stable and garage to the southeast, both served by a driveway from the north, which passed under the middle of the main house. The plans also called for a pergola extending west to a pair of tennis courts. Wright's team revised the plans at least twice to account for trees, terraces, gardens, and other landscape and hardscape features. The plans were completed in 1907, and construction began the next year.
The Coonley family gave Wright an unlimited budget for the new residence. The Wilson Brothers, a prominent local firm that Wright frequently hired, was hired to build the house. George Mann Niedecken, an architect with Wright's studio, was tasked with the interior design, and the Coonleys hired Niedecken to create a mural and custom carpets. Jens Jensen, who had designed Chicago's Humboldt Park, was hired as the landscape architect in 1908, though it is unknown how he was commissioned. The authors Charles E. and Berdeana Aguar write that, given how Jensen and Wright never recommended each other for commissions despite a decades-long relationship, the commission may have come through Queene Coonley, who may have heard of Jensen's previous work or become acquainted with him socially. Avery, who was still hesitant about the house's design, told Wright that he wanted a Georgian house with green shutters; in response, Wright put a green frieze on the new house. The main house is variously cited as having been completed in 1908 or 1909.
Usage The Coonleys lived in the main house for about a decade. When the main house was completed, the estate initially also included a servant wing, coachman's house, garage, stable, and gardens. After moving into the house, Queene Coonley—who was a spiritual healer for Christian Science—treated hundreds of patients there. Brendan Gill, one of Wright's biographers, wrote in 1987 that the family "entertained with a formal elegance that one would be unlikely to encounter in the United States in the nineteen-eighties". One picture of Elizabeth Coonley at the house as a young girl, taken in 1910, was widely circulated.
The Coonleys also created a kindergarten at the house; at first intended specifically for Elizabeth, the school was also opened for the use of local children. The Cottage School (later the Avery Coonley School) was expanded by one grade every year, and in 1910, the family bought an adjacent cottage designed by Charles Frederick Whittlesey to house Cottage School. The Coonleys soon rehired Wright for the design of the Coonley Playhouse, which was built nearby in 1912 or 1913. They were among several clients who had hired Wright multiple times, even though he had, at that point, gained a reputation for cost overruns. The Coonleys hired Wright's former associate William Eugene Drummond in 1912 to design a house at 283 Scottswood Road, across from the Coonley House, to house the teachers at the Coonley Playhouse. Drummond also designed a gardener's house next to the main house, which was built sometime between 1911 and 1913.
1920s to 1950s
The Coonley family moved to Rosedale in Washington, D.C., in 1917, after Avery Coonley accepted a position on Christian Science's publications committee. Peter Kroehler, founder of the furniture manufacturing firm Kroehler Manufacturing Company, bought the house from the Coonleys. Kroehler moved into the house with his wife Grace Hubert and their son Kenneth in 1921. He lived there for the rest of his life. During Kroehler's occupancy, the gardens were sometimes exhibited to the public.
Kroehler died in August 1950. The house was sold in 1951 or 1952 to the architect and developer Arnold Skow, who paid $250,000. Skow threatened to raze the buildings and construct ranch homes and two-story housing on the estate. Married couple Carolyn and James Howlett convinced Skow to subdivide the estate into several residences, rather than destroying the estate. Carolyn was familiar with Wright, having seen him at the Chicago Art Institute; she had once stayed over at Wright's Taliesin studio. The Howlett family subsequently agreed to buy the carriage house in 1953, paying $15,000.