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.
Tudor With a Reticence
February 1996 | The Villager
The hilltop residence at 10162 S. Longwood Dr., built for publisher William H. McDonnell in 1929, is probably the most prominently located Homer G. Sailor-designed house on the Ridge. William Henry McDonnell was a man who had worked his way up. Educated no further than the public schools of Chicago, McDonnell became a journeyman printer…
John Todd Hetherington Designs a Prairie Style House
June 1996 | The Villager
Although Hetherington is famous in Beverly/Morgan Park as the name of a family of distinguished local architects, the work of the father, John Todd Hetherington (1858-1936), has to some extent been eclipsed by that of his son Murray (1891-1972). It is worth seeing the sort of work the father turned out when Prairie School architecture…
A House for a Sailor Turned Missionary
July 1996 | The Villager
When the new owner of the house at 2314 W. 111th Place pulled the alterations off of his front porch, he revealed a chapter of Morgan Park history that no one even suspected existed. The wonderful dwelling he brought to light documents an almost forgotten chapter in the development of a native American architecture and…
The Sentinels of ARTESIAN AVENUE
December 1996 | BEVERLY WOODS WORDS
If you stood on Western Avenue between 116th and 117th Streets in 1929 and stared off to the west, four tall apartment buildings would have stared back at you from the west side of Artesian Avenue — and almost nothing else. Today those four apartment buildings, 11608, 11624, 11630 and 11642 S. Artesian Ave., are…