Oak Park, Illinois, is a mecca for Frank Lloyd Wright aficionados. The tiny Chicago suburb boasts more than two dozen homes designed by the renowned American architect, more than any other location in the world. That number includes Wright’s first home and studio, a two-story cedar-sided-and-shingled abode built in 1889 that served as his residence and workplace for the next 20 years.
Thanks to the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust, which operates the site as a museum, the place looks much like it did in 1909, the last year that Wright occupied it. Highlights include the dining room, furnished with the original quarter-sawn oak table and eight tall-back chairs (the prototype for his Prairie-style dining room ensembles), and the second-floor playroom with its grand piano, the back of which is suspended over the staircase by a bracket. The adjacent studio, added in 1898, is an octagonal space that features a balcony-like second floor suspended by chains.
The museum also offers independent audio and guided walking tours of the immediate neighborhood that include a stroll past several Wright-designed private homes. The tens of thousands who visit the home and studio every year usually make the 18-mile trip to the Frederick C. Robie House, located on the University of Chicago campus. The house, designed in Wright’s Oak Park studio and completed in 1910, is considered an icon of American architecture — its sweeping horizontal lines, deep overhangs, banks of art-glass windows and open floor plan are not only a lesson in architectural history, but also an example of truly breathtaking art.