| Map of East Wilmette Historic Area | |
| 1226 Ashland Avenue – The Ralph S. Baker House | Local Landmark |
| View the Historical Survey Document For This Structure | |
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The Ralph S. Baker house at 1226 Ashland Avenue, built in 1914 and designed by the firm of Guenzel and Drummond, exemplifies the Prairie School of architecture which was founded by Frank Lloyd Wright. Longtime Wilmette resident Ralph S. Baker worked as an auditor for the Chicago Tool Company. The Backer house …represents the most sophisticated use of space in the Prairie style houses of (William) Drummond –the culmination of the interest in and experimentation with space that was first seen in his own home of 1909. The clerestory concept has been refined and the living area has dissolved completely into a play of space ad light. [1] The interior is open and bright; the trim is painted and the plaster is light in tone – very different from (Frank Lloyd) Wright’s interiors of the period. A balcony surrounds three sides of the two-story living room. The fourth side is dominated by a clerestory glass wall, below which ornamented glazed doors open into the sun porch. Similar doors to the left of the fireplace screen the dining room; balancing this latter room is the reception room and entry. [2] |
| The plan is symmetrical: the living room is in the center, flanked on one side by an entrance vestibule and on the other by the dining room, and extended frontally by a porch. Behind the fireplace (located in the center of the house) is the kitchen, and to the left a small study and powder room (probably originally the maid’s room). The living room is two stories high with a balcony around the upper part, which serves as a second floor corridor. The second floor bedrooms are small and secondary when compared with the design emphasis of the first floor. There is a third story penthouse contained between the chimney flues. The fireplace in the living room is not only the psychological but the physical center of the house. The brick work which opens in a Richardsonian arch is massive yet refined, providing a sense of intimacy under the cantilevered edges of the balcony, and forming a balance to the light, airy quality of the rest of the space. The three areas – the dining room, vestibule, and porch, separated physically by leaded glass doors and windows, form a part of the space yet remain distinct. The wood trim was originally painted, contrary to typical Prairie style – and thus the contrast becomes largely one of texture. Drummond also designed the furniture and fixtures. A dining room buffet and the leaded glass doors of the book cases are still intact. Many of the original light fixtures also remain. In the living room, fixtures extend down from the ceiling and contain very delicate tints of color, creating a very subtle lighting effect when the sun filters through. Painted wood beams continue across theceiling from the clerestory tying the space together and creating a complex inter-relationship of space. [3] The Baker House, with its long rectangular forms clearly expresses “Drummond’s square-shaped house with its slab roof, rows of casement window, and plaster walls tinted and trimmed with wooden strips. The sharp, angular quality is characteristic of Drummond’s work.” [4] The subtlety of the projections of the slabs on the façade of the house is noted by H. Allen Brooks: “…the roofs over the porch and house are of equal thickness, but the slab over the two-story living room windows is as this as the trim board, thereby setting up a greater illusion that it merely floats between the dominant slabs.” The areas enclosed by wood trim were at one time darker in color than the remaining stucco. Outdoor terraces tend to relate the house closely with nature – a refinement of Drummond’s concern with the relation of the indoors to the outdoors. [5] Architect’s Biography: William Eugene Drummond was born in Newark, New Jersey on March 28th, 1876. He was the oldest of eight children born to Eugene Drummond, a cabinet maker and carpenter, and his wife, Ida Lozier. In 1886, when Drummond was ten years old, the family moved to Chicago and settled on the west side of the city, at that time the suburb of Austin, at 813 Central Avenue. Drummond grew up in Austin, attending the Austin public schools. He began working quite young as an apprentice carpenter both to help support this family and to further his education. In many respects, Drummond was a self-made man. Born with a native ability and feeling for building and building materials and techniques, he extended these abilities into the profession of architecture. Later in life, Drummond helped his father to break away from the limitations of carpentry when he obtained for him the position of contractor for (Frank Lloyd) Wright’s Larkin Building. Drummond’s early preference for a clear, uncluttered façade, the feeling for texture in the Richardsonian arches, the feeling for geometrical arrangement of roof and windows as well as relation of house to site all foreshadow his choosing, a few years later, Wright as his mentor. He was virtually self-taught. Drummond’s desire to become an architects was great, and in 1896, at the age of twenty, he returned to school and attended the University of Illinois Preparatory School. The following year, Drummond entered the University of Illinois School of Engineering. He was one of nine special students to enrolled in the architectural curriculum, but did not graduate with his class in 1901. The financial burdens imposed upon him were too great, and Drummond was forced to leave school after only one year. Drummond came to the Wright studio with little formal training and great desire to work with the principles that Wright, at this highly creative time in his career, represented. Wright’s inability to pay his apprentices with any regularity added increasing financial pressures on Drummond and forced him to seek work in other architectural firms. Drummond joined the Wright Studio in 1899 and remained until 1909 except for periods between 1901 and 1903-04. During these periods he worked for Richard E. Schmidt *later Schmidt, Garden and Martin) as chief draftsman, and also for D.H. Burnham during the period 1903 to 1904. However, during this period he also continued to work part-time for Wright. In 1905 he returned to full-time work at Wright’s Studio. Wright drew up a list of his assistants in 1908 listing Drummond as having been at the studio for seven years. He was chief draftsman and project manager for many of Wright’s jobs. The basic procedure was for Wright to see the clients and to do the basic design, while Drummond would do the detailing and the working drawings. The Wright thought highly of Drummond is attested to be a quote from an undated letter written to Drummond: “…there is only the difference in ability which is far on the side of William in my opinion-over the whole field.” Surrounded by very talented people in the Studio in the nurturing phase of his career and overshadowed by Wright, it is possible that Drummond did not fully realize the great amount of talent and sensitivity that he possessed. Wright’s flight to Europe in 1909 with Mrs. Edwin Cheney and abdication of the Studio proved a blow from which Drummond never fully recovered. Wright left the Studio largely in the charge of German born architect Hermann von Holst, and most of the projects were carried to completion by John van Bergen and William Drummond. In 1907 Drummond married Clara McCulloch Christian, a woman several years his senior whose first husband died of tuberculosis. Their union produced three sons: Robert, William and Alan. Shortly after the Studio disbanded, Drummond went into practice for himself; the next few years from 1909 to 1912 were to prove among the most imaginative and the most fruitful of his career. A close examination shows that the designs of this early period embody most of the characteristics of is “Prairie style” – his later work shows a refinement of this style rather than a development. Most of Drummond’s commissions throughout his career were small, mainly churches and residences. Drummond interpreted the Prairie style in the use of hard, crisp, rectangular design. The exterior textures of his houses were stuccoed plaster painted a buff color and emphasized by contrasting wood trim. [6] Drummond acknowledged he was not interested in the business activities of private practice and it was probably for this reason that he sought a partner. (Louis) Guenzel was the business manager. (Both Guenzel and Drummond worked for Frank Lloyd Wright.) Guenzel was a logical choice for Drummond, for he was solid citizen, had a good business sense, and had the necessary contacts for a flourishing practice. Drummond did not have much business ability, and thus was relieved of the financial end of the practice. This lack was more than compensated for in Drummond’s design ability. Louis Guenzel was born in Caeslin, Germany on January 28, 1869. He was educated in Germany and trained as a draftsman in Berlin. In 1890, he made the acquaintance of a Chicago family named Green who were vacationing in Europe. It was through the Greens, personal friends of Louis Sullivan, that Guenzel came to the United Stat4es in 1892 to work in the office of Adler and Sullivan. According to one account, Guenzel left the Sullivan firm to join Frank Lloyd Wright in 1894. Two events of 1914 following close upon one another were to herald the end of the Guenzel-Drummond partnership: the outbreak of World War I with the ensuing anti-German sentiment in the United States, and less than two weeks later, the murder of Mrs. Cheney and six others plus the burning of Taliesin by a berserk servant, headlined in the press and creating more unfavorable publicity for Frank Lloyd Wright. Drummond, closely identified with Wright and with Guenzel, felt it necessary to break these bonds for survival. Determined “not to be run out of Chicago,” Drummond stubbornly stayed on after breaking with Guenzel, and after most of the reminder of the Prairie School, including Wright, left the city. After the dissolution of his partnership with Drummond, Guenzel continued in private practice and died at age 96 in 1956. The United States became involved in World War I shortly after the dissolution of the Guenzel-Drummond partnership, and Drummond did not have many commissions during the period from 1915 to 1923. During the war years he worked as a draftsman. In the 1920’s Drummond’s work became primarily residential, and his style changed from that of the Prairie style to what can be loosely described as “English Cottage” [7] His trail after 1920 became so obscure that one architectural historian declared that he had left Chicago. Drummond did not leave Chicago, but remained until his death in 1948. [8] [1]Susan Ganschinietz, “Partnership and Obscurity,”
The Prairie School Review, Vol. VI, no. 2, Second Quarter 1969,
p 9. |
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