The Walter H. Gale House, located in the Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 suburb of Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois

Oak Park, Illinois is a suburb bordering the west side of the city of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is the twenty-fifth largest municipality in Illinois. Oak Park has easy access to downtown Chicago due to public transportation such as the Chicago 'L' Blue and Green lines,...

, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

 and constructed in 1893. The house was commissioned by Walter H. Gale of a prominent Oak Park family and is the first home Wright designed after leaving the firm of Adler

Dankmar Adler

Dankmar Adler was a celebrated German-born American architect.-Early years:...

 and Sullivan

Louis Sullivan

Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...

. The Gale House was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on August 17, 1973.

History

The house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1893 for Walter H. Gale, who was a member of one of Oak Park's "founding families" and a local hardware store operator. The house was the first design undertaken after he left Louis Sullivan's firm, Adler & Sullivan. The house followed on in the nature of Wright's own home

Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio

The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio at 951 Chicago Avenue in Oak Park, Illinois, has been restored by the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust to its appearance in 1909, the last year Frank Lloyd Wright lived there with his family. Frank Lloyd Wright purchased the property and built the home in...

 and was one of a series of modest homes designed in 1892 and 1893. Two of these homes were designed for Walter Gale on a speculative basis, the other being known as the Robert P. Parker House

Robert P. Parker House

The Robert P. Parker House is a house located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1892 and is an example of his early work. Real-estate agent Thomas H. Gale had it built and sold it to Robert P. Parker...

, which stand down Chicago Avenue from the Gale House. The Gale House, like all of the homes designed in this "series," has symmetrical sides but they are difficult to see clearly because other buildings are built too closely. The Gale House appears small but is quite roomy and it follows nearly identical plans to that of the other homes designed and built around 1893, though there are differences, most prominently in the roof profiles.

Architecture

The house is designed in a geometric Queen Anne style and demonstrates Wright's predilection for informal planning. The Queen Anne design, influenced by Wright's first teacher, Louis Sullivan, demonstrates just how far Wright had to go before his early modern style, known as Prairie style

Prairie School

Prairie School was a late 19th and early 20th century architectural style, most common to the Midwestern United States.The works of the Prairie School architects are usually marked by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands,...

, was fully mature. The Gale House is clearly a Queen Anne style home, evidence of this can be found in the complexity of the massing, the dormer

Dormer

A dormer is a structural element of a building that protrudes from the plane of a sloping roof surface. Dormers are used, either in original construction or as later additions, to create usable space in the roof of a building by adding headroom and usually also by enabling addition of windows.Often...

 details, Palladian windows in the side gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

s and the varied textures of shingles, siding and brick as well as diamond pane and leaded glass. Despite the evident Queen Anne elements, the Gale House has a geometric purity which is unconventional. It represents the beginning of Wright's move to free himself from the constraints of historic design styles.

The frame construction

Framing (construction)

Framing, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...

 home is built upon a granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 foundation with an exterior covering of mostly narrow clapboards

Clapboard (architecture)

Clapboard, also known as bevel siding or lap siding or weather-board , is a board used typically for exterior horizontal siding that has one edge thicker than the other and where the board above laps over the one below...

. The original diamond-pane, leaded glass casement window

Casement window

A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side. A casement window (or casement) is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges. Casement windows are hinged at the side. A casement window (or casement) is a...

s are intact. On the interior the home's ground floor consists of a stairway, reception room, living room, dining room, kitchen and pantry. The hall is paneled in oiled birch and has a railing with "highly attenuated baluster

Baluster

A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

s framing the stairs." The second floor features four bedrooms, one with a bathroom and fireplace. The third floor houses a large room laid out on an east-west axis.

Significance

The house is one of the earliest independent design by Frank Lloyd Wright and is especially important as a link in Wright's evolution from a more traditional style to the later designs of his early modern style. The house, listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on August 17, 1973, also shows the effect that Louis Sullivan had on the young architect and the eventual disciplined and geometric direction Wright went with his designs. The house was designated a local landmark by the village of Oak Park on the same day it was listed on the National Register.