When it was built in 1916, the Curtis B. Camp house at 701 Columbian set the tone for a street that would soon be lined with gracious mansions. Fronting Augusta Street, the house is nestled in a sweeping lawn of mature landscaping. When it was built, the original owners spared no expense, hiring architect Charles E. White to design the house and landscape designer Jens Jensen to design the grounds. More than a century later, much of the original design and style remains.
Born in 1876 in Massachusetts, Charles E. White Jr. practiced architecture for eight years in Burlington, Vermont before moving to Chicago in 1903 to work for Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio alongside Walter Burley Griffin, Marion Mahony and Isabel Roberts. In 1905, White founded his own studio in Oak Park and in 1906 collaborated with Wright and architect Vernon Watson to design the River Forest Tennis Club. In the years leading up to World War I, White worked steadily and in 1909, had 15 different projects listed in the Chicago Architectural Catalogue. During this time in Oak Park, White designed many sizeable homes including the Cheney Mansion in 1913, the Colonel W.C. Hunter House at 700 Columbian in 1909, and the James F. Skinner and J. Fletcher Skinner Homes on the 600 north block of Linden.
During the World War, White served in the quartermaster corps. In 1922, he partnered with architect Bertram A. Weber, who had worked in the Chicago office of Howard Van Doren Shaw. The firm of White and Weber practiced in the Chicago area until White’s death in 1936. In Oak Park, the firm designed the United States Post Office on Lake Street in 1933, the Rectory of Grace Episcopal Church and the Oak Park and River Forest Day Nursery, as well as many private residences.
White’s influence was broader than his architectural practice. He helped institute Oak Park’s first zoning laws and was the first chairman of Oak Park’s zoning board. For 10 years, he served on the staff of Ladies Home Journal, which published many of his designs. He also authored two architecture textbooks: Successful Houses and How to Build Them and The Bungalow Book.
At the time the Camp home was designed, landscape designer Jens Jensen was becoming well-known for his native landscape design skills. Born in Denmark in 1860, Jensen immigrated to the United States, landing in Chicago after stints in Florida and Iowa. He took a job as a laborer with the West Park Commission, and was promoted to foreman. After a planned garden of exotic blooms died, he went out into the prairie and found native plants to replace them in Union Park, establishing the American Garden and a lifelong love of the prairie style. He went on to work in the designs of Garfield Park, Humboldt Park and Douglas Park in Chicago and was also instrumental in preserving the Indiana Dunes ecosystem.
In 1920, Jensen retired from the park system and devoted his career to planning private gardens, including work on the Ford family estates in Michigan and Maine. A 1925 real estate listing for the Camp House credits Jensen with the design of the grounds, which included beautiful plantings, a fish pond, rockery and bird houses.
1925 and Today
In 1925, the Camp family listed their home for sale for $65,000 and garnered a full page in the March 14 edition of the Oak Leaves. Titled “An Oak Park Home of the Better Class,” the advertisement lists the home’s many attributes, not least of which is that it was “surrounded by other equally attractive homes, in the exclusive Fair Oaks residential district.”
The bones of the house and many original details remain preserved today. Laura Maychruk of Gullo & Associates, who is listing the house for $1,299,000, notes that she researched the house with the Historical Society before listing it for her clients, and came upon the 1925 article, with its detailed description of the house.
“The architect also designed the Cheney Mansion, and I’ve had the opportunity to cook there several times. The two homes have the same, original silver sink. I’m in love with that sink,” she said.
Noting that the original kitchen, butler’s pantry, refrigerator room and informal breakfast room have been changed over the last 100 years, Maychruk states that a new kitchen could be planned around the original sink and the description of the large white cabinets in the 1925 listing.
“If you’re a purist like I am, you could go back to a traditional design that would fit in with the home. I really feel like there’s an opportunity to do that here.”
She also notes that such a project could qualify the home for an historic tax freeze. Throughout the first floor, many original details remain that provide style clues for the house. Original English oak flooring graces many of the rooms, and the dining room still sports its original American Walnut paneling and Victor Perlman chandelier from 1916. The sunroom’s English tile is original, as are its brick walls and fireplace.
As befitting an estate of this size from the turn of an earlier century, a heated green house with running water is attached to the brick garage. The garage includes original chauffer’s quarters above.
On the second floor, four original bedrooms and two original bathrooms have been reorganized to create a master suite with a separate sitting room and en suite bath, a library and two additional bedrooms which share a fully updated bathroom. The third floor, once home to maid’s quarters and a billiards room now features a full bath, bedroom and family room.
The professionally landscaped grounds are surrounded by a wrought iron fence, and a spacious screened in porch on the west side of the house offers a private respite in the outdoors.
Maychruk laughs at the outdated language used to appeal to home buyers in the 1920’s, noting that designating some buyers the “better class” is clearly not an acceptable practice today. Today, she thinks that any lover of historic homes would be happy to call 701 Columbian home. “It’s really a great house.”