The Oscar and Nonie Balch House on Kenilworth Avenue in Oak Park was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1911. Its architectural provenance landed it a spot in this year’s Wright Plus line-up. Wright Plus researcher and Frank Lloyd Wright Trust volunteer Ken Simpson says there’s more than architectural history to the home.
Oak Park’s first Village Manager, Mark Keane, owned the home and lived there with his family from 1957 to 1962. Simpson notes that Keane made village history at the time with his hiring, as the village had never had a manager before.
When Mark Keane’s tenure in the village ended, the Keane family moved away, but they have returned more than once to the house in Oak Park where many of the family’s early memories were made.
Simpson interviewed many members of the Keane family, among them Dennis Keane. Dennis was nine years old when his family moved from Milwaukee to Oak Park. Mark and his wife Carolyn were the parents of five boys at the time.
Soon after they moved in, Carolyn gave birth to the lone Keane daughter. During their ensuing years in Oak Park, two more sons joined the family bringing the total number of children living in the home to eight. Dennis Keane recalls, “We moved in with four-and-a-half siblings, and we left with eight.”
Mark Keane’s mother had recently passed away when the family moved to Oak Park, so they brought his father to live with them as well and created a separate “apartment” for him out of what is now the home’s primary bedroom.
Although the home still occupied its original footprint — owners in 2003 added a large kitchen and family room — to the eight Keane kids, the home lived large.
Dennis recalls, “We were coming from a smaller home, so this was a very big house for us.”
During the 1957 Sputnik launch, the kids remember taking advantage of Wright’s flat-roofed design to sit on the roof and watch for the Russian satellite in the night sky. The kids also recall their mother using a wringer to hand-wash all of the family’s laundry.
Dennis Keane and his brothers were paper boys for the Oak Leaves, and Simpson discovered a lot of information about their dad from old Oak Leaves articles. Mark Keane was quoted as saying one of his greatest accomplishments as village manager was saving the village trees when Dutch Elm disease hit the village. He instituted a parking sticker fee to pay for the forestry department.
In 2003, Mark Keane was invited back to Oak Park to be the grand marshal of the Fourth of July parade. He brought along three sons and his daughter to see the former family home, at the time under renovation. Dennis recalls, “There were major changes going on with the kitchen and family room addition. We got to meet the owners.”
This year, the three brothers and sister returned for Wright Plus, bringing along some of their kids and grandkids. Altogether, 12 of them made the trip from around the country.
Simpson says families like the Keanes make his research for Wright Plus enjoyable.
He heard plenty of stories from them, from the grandchildren of the second owners, and one previous owner sent him a photo of the back of the house — a rare find.
More recent inhabitants also feel a draw to the home. The son of Tim and Charlene Pearson, who lived in the home from 1999 to 2016, came back to the home to volunteer in the house during this year’s Wright Plus.
Last year, Simpson researched Wright’s George Smith House, and was able to meet the grandchildren of the first owner of the house when they came to tour it on Wright Plus.
“The thing I’ve found in contacting former residents and their surviving family members is that they’re so happy to hear from someone about the house,” he says.
Simpson says talking to the families and seeing the vintage photos they often share is a highlight of his time volunteering for the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. “All of these things make the house a living history. It’s not just a piece of architecture that’s been preserved.”