To architects and Frank Lloyd Wright admirers, the 5,036-square-foot two-story William Herman Winslow House in River Forest holds a special significance as the first home Wright designed as an independent architect. But to Peter Walker it’s also the place he called home from the age of four.
The house, 515 Auvergne Pl., was built in 1894 and is in the style of Wright’s former boss, Louis Sullivan. For Walker though it was just a fun place to grow up, and with two older brothers it’s a wonder that it’s never had a window broken, Walker said during a tour of the four-bedroom home on Monday.
The historic home, which the Walkers purchased in 1958 for an unknown sum, will go on the market later this month for $2.4 million, according to broker Pamela Tilton of Jameson Sotheby’s International Realty.
Walker said he was a typical kid growing up — with posters on the walls and three pet snakes in his bedroom — but even as a young child he knew the house was special.
“It’s like being around an exotic animal,” he said. “Even as a kid you know it’s something different.”
Walker said that when he was growing up tourists would visit the house from all over the world. He said it was commonplace to look outside and see an architect from Denmark or Spain taking photographs. “It was fun,” he said.
Fellow Frank Lloyd Wright homeowners recently got the first public tour of the home since it was last shown for a charity event in 1979, Walker said. He said after that last public tour it became more difficult for his aging mother to accommodate guests. She died earlier this year, he said.
The home has undergone some modifications over the years, but has remained largely intact from owner to owner, according to Tilton. In 1964, the Prairie School Review, a magazine about the Prairie School design Wright inspired, credited the Walkers for their stewardship of the home.
The review notes that the porch off the living room of the house had been enclosed and enlarged, and a “powder room” added on the first floor behind the fireplace inglenook. The once-arching doorway and the interior of the home’s stables were also later altered to accommodate automobiles, according to Walker.
The article says, “The present owners, Mr. and Mrs. William Walker, deserve special mention for the thoughtful care they have given their home.” It goes on to note that Chicago planner Daniel Burnham once called the Winslow Home “a gentleman’s house from grade to coping.”
The home was built for William Herman Winslow, an ornamental bronze and ironworker and co-owner of Winslow Brothers with his brother Francis Winslow. Winslow is known for designing the rounded corner entryway at Chicago’s Carson, Pirie, Scott store and the elevator grills in the Rookery building by Wright, according to the late Leonard K. Eaton, a former architecture professor at the University of Michigan. Eaton says in an essay about Winslow that he first met Wright while both were working on a project for Louis Sullivan and David Adler.
Walker pointed out during the tour that Winslow left his own mark on the house, designing “all the metal fabrications and the sconces and the metal gate.” He said his mother updated the metal light fixtures throughout the home at some point, but only adding slender bulbs that fit inside the long fixtures, rather than bulbs that sit on the top.
Aside from its distinction as being Wright’s first independent commission, the Prairie School Review’s critique of the home says the wide eaves that would be used throughout Wright’s career is the only “real hint” of the architect’s mature Prairie House style that would come after the turn of the century. While largely praising the design, the Prairie School Review was not as kind about the rear of the residence.
“The formality of the front of the Winslow house is carried over to both side elevations, but the rear of the building is a surprising contrast,” the Review wrote. “The entire rear façade is a jumble of odd and seemingly unrelated masses. The octagonal stair tower, the curved dining room wing, a huge chimney and the tiny attic gable with its curved window each contribute to the confusion.”
During the tour of the home Caitlin Dreger, who currently resides in Wright’s Arthur B. Heurtley House in Oak Park, and her uncle, Paul Kenworthy, were all smiles as they saw the home for the first time.
“We’re happy because [the Winslow Home] is never on the tour,” Kenworthy said.
He noted that the wide front door and floral texturing on the front of the house “is unusual compared to the other homes.”
“You get curious because you live in [a Wright home] and you are always curious about what has changed or what’s different,” Dreger said, noting that the Heurtley House was built eight years after Winslow.