Harold T. Wolff was an architectural historian with Ridge Historical Society in the 1990s and early 2000s, who contributed substantially to our understanding of the architectural legacy of the Ridge. His regular columns for the BAPA Villager gave readers insights in architecture and history with his elegant prose. With permission from BAPA, these columns have been made available on the RHS website.
A Vernacular Prairie School House for a Cartoonist
November 1997 | The Villager
Although Beverly/Morgan Park has many excellent Prairie School residences designed by the masters of the style, including Frank Lloyd Wright, George Washington Maher, Spencer and Powers, and Walter Burley Griffin, there are also houses in this mode turned out by architects who made a practice of keeping abreast of current architectural fashion without confining their…
A Fledgling Architect’s Home for Himself
October 1997 | The Villager
When Paul McCurry set about building the house at 9350 S. Hamilton Ave. for himself and his wife Irene, he must have wondered whether there would be more to his career as an architect than this residence. Born in Chicago in 1903, McCurry finished his collegiate training and his professional experience serving under older architects…
A Comfortable Cottage on Prospect Avenue
February 1997 | The Villager
A residence with as attractive a street front as the house at 10849 S. Prospect Ave. seems as though it must belong to some recognizable style, and yet this building contains almost none of the decorative features that would allow it to be conveniently pigeon-holed among the fashionable modes of architecture of its day. This…
A Solid House for a Teacher
June 1997 | The Villager
Although the Craftsman movement of the 1890's and the first two decades of the 20th Century was in part an attempt to return to the simpler but more carefully executed workmanship of the era before the dawn of machines. This did not necessarily mean that the products of this era would be devoid of all…
An Early Morgan Park Bungalow
January 1997 | The Villager
Sometimes a house stands at the crossroads of so many architectural movements that it is difficult to know which aspect to discuss first. Such is the case with the bungalow at 2128 W. 109th St., built for Eugene W. and Ella L. Hanna in 1904. Although the bungalow received something of a bad name after…
Rudolph Boehm Takes Up Where Frank Lloyd Wright Left Off
August 1996 | The Villager
Although not among the things for which he is best known, Frank Lloyd Wright had a reputation for using good design to solve problems in ingenious ways. The classic example was a set of china Wright designed, embellished with a three-quarter circle of solid red just below the rim of the cups so that lipstick-wearers…
Hilltop Home Presents An Impressive View
April 1996 | The Villager
The impressively situated residence at 11322 S. Longwood Drive, rising on its own cliff above all of its neighbors, illustrates how a skilled architect can spell the difference between the success and failure of a house in a high-visibility location. The architect wants to please the owner as well as the eye of the casual…
A Conservative House by a Modern Architect
December 1996 | The Villager
Since the death of Chicago architect George Fred Keck (1895-1980), a number of exhibition catalogues and studies of his work (and the work of Keck & Keck) have appeared. All of these books have justly dwelt long and approvingly upon the high points of Keck's career: the House of Tomorrow at the Century of Progress…
A House Just as Nice as the Boss’s
October 1996 | The Villager
Legend has it that when John H. Madigan set out to have a house built in 1902, he bragged that he was going to have one just as nice as his boss’s. Since Madigan was Superintendent of Bridges for the Chicago Bridge and Iron Company, his boss was Hiram E. Horton, whose house at 10200…
An Architectural Find Best Viewed on Foot
November 1996 | The Villager
One of the advantages of writing this column is that when new owners find themselves in a home with a significant architect, the fact is likely to be reported to you. This is the case with the large residence at 2141 W. 116th Pl. The house already caught the eye of the Commission on Chicago…