Heurtley, Arthur, House National Register of Historic Places Listing

Frank Lloyd Wright changed everything in 1902. He built a house for banker Arthur Heurtley in Oak Park that shattered traditional Victorian design. It looked weird to neighbors. Instead of building up, Wright went wide. He used variegated, long Roman bricks in alternating projecting courses to create deep, horizontal shadow lines across the facade. A massive, low-pitched roof with enormous overhanging eaves caps the structure. The chimney is huge. It sits right in the middle, anchoring the whole composition to the Illinois soil.

Actually, the real shock was inside. Wright flipped the standard residential blueprint completely upside down. He shoved the bedrooms and utility spaces down to the dark ground floor. Then he elevated the living and dining rooms to the second level. Why do this To capture the natural sunlight and get above the dusty street level. Upstairs, wood-ribbed ceilings arch overhead, and bands of leaded glass windows wrap around the corners to dissolve the sense of being enclosed. It feels like a treehouse. This design proved that Wright's radical theories on organic architecture actually worked in real life, long before his more famous works took shape.