Re-Building.com
Re:BUILDING
A Preservation Newsletter
Volume 25 - June, 2005
Published by Martin Hackl, River Forest, Illinois
Frank Lloyd Wright's Davenport House Desecrated
photo courtesy of Jeanette Fields
One of Frank Lloyd Wright's earliest and most important Prairie School designs, the 1901 Arthur Davenport House in River Forest, Illinois, is undergoing major renovations. In violent understatement, the changes are not in keeping with all the ethical practices of preservation, conservation, restoration, renovation or rehabilitation. A new word may have to be added to the "preservation" lexicon to cover this case: Desecration.
This rehabilitation work clearly violates the Secretary of the Interior's Standards -- which are the most respected guidelines for the rehabilitation of historic buildings and landmarks -- and all other preservation standards in so many fundamental ways, that this writer will not attempt to list them here.
Here is a link to those guidelines from the National Park Service: http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/tps/tax/rhb/guide.htm
Further, this rehabilitation is an egregious assault on the work, the care and the efforts of the previous owners of the house, Jeanette and Ellis Fields. The Fields who owned the home for more than 25 years, were religious stewards of the property for all that time. Jeanette and Ellis considered it a great privilege and responsibility to own such and important architectural landmark. The Fields went to great pains to preserve the structure and retain as much of its historic fabric as possible.
Jeanette is a highly respected architectural historian, writer, community organizer and Frank Lloyd Wright aficionado. She has written numerous articles about architecture and coauthored an important guidebook to the architecture of River Forest.
Ellis who died about two years ago, was a noted chemist and passionate amateur violinist. His death initiated the sale of the house last year by Jeanette.
Undoubtedly the current "pseudo restoration" of the Davenport House will receive many awards, achieve much recognition and be lauded as a success by many of the established preservation organizations, such as the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, and the National Trust. Those organizations have lauded other bungled restorations of Wright designed homes in the past -- such as the internationally famous Robie House in Chicago and the Heurtley House in Oak Park Illinois, another well known Wright design -- though neither "restorations" were nearly as outrageous as this. (The Heurtley House was even awarded the highest honor, and given status as a national historical landmark, after its bungling several years ago.)
The photo at the top of this page is of the Davenport House while under the protection of the Fields. Below are photos taken recently after demolition of the interior and front first floor facade. The photos show the front ripped off the building (the living room).
The current owner's plans are to rebuild the facade to its configuration in 1901 before an early remodeling, probably less than ten years later, and probably designed by Wright himself.
photo courtesy of Jeanette Fields
The earlier configuration was probably one of Wright many failed design ideas, and probably had to be reconfigured to let more daylight into the space as well as make the space more practical and livable. The living room, in the earlier configuration was probably very dark, as was the case in many Wright designed homes. The later configuration let in much more sunlight and added extra space to the room in the form of a floor-to-ceiling bay. Also, it seems that the old roof might have had difficulty shedding water and ice properly, and with the undersized gutter shown in the photo, directly down onto the small first floor front balcony and over the front entry to the side..
The new owner has made claims that the alterations were made in the 1930s. There are several reasons to discount that seemingly arbitrary claim. The first is that, based on a visual observation of the old wood removed from the front of the building, the dimensions of the lumber and level of oxidation of the cypress, pine and cedar boards show a high level of oxidation, consistent with wood of the approximate age of 80 to 100 years (since the time of construction).
Second, it is extremely unlikely that in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, anyone would have undertaken such a sensitive and period-appropriate alteration on a then working class home, to a somewhat earlier era, that was not yet considered historically or architecturally significant.
Today's current alteration and "restoration" of the original facade is a grievous error and again, violates all the accepted standards of historic preservation, because those earlier changes are themselves historic and have been part of the fabric of the building for most of its 104 year life.
A further insult to the preservation community is that it is standard practice in major rehabilitations of these kinds of historic homes, for the owners to apply for, and receive, substantial tax benefits, including property tax freezes, and federal income tax deductions. It is unfortunate that other taxpayers have to help foot the bill for this kind of desecration of our landmarks.
As a footnote, all the tax benefits usually associated with historic preservation and single family homes, for the most part, benefit only the wealthy. Further, such tax benefits actually often encourage over-zealous, and in cases like this, tragic renovations.
Many believe it is time to either eliminate tax breaks for rehabilitation and preservation of historic buildings and sites, or expand the benefits to property owners of all income levels.
This writer believes that tax incentives are a useful and necessary tool towards encouraging preservation, but also agrees that tax, or other benefits need to be distributed more evenly among owners of historic landmarks in all income levels.
Note: The Arthur Davenport House is just down the street from the River Forest Women's Club building, which is also about to undergo an unfortunate and fateful rehabilitation.
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