Frank Lloyd Wright House Walk: Long House

The Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust's House Walk was Saturday, May 18, and this week we'll be featuring one of the homes each day. The event put the spotlight on local homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and his contemporaries. Of the 11 spots open for touring, I was able to make six. 

Today we feature the Frank E. Long house, located at 401 N. Linden Ave. It was built in 1925 by Leon E. Stanhope. A few things to know:

• The current owners have done lots of work to make new space look original. At some point in time, other owners bleached the dark wood, so the current owners have painted it. They also installed antique light fixtures and restored the fireplace to its original appearance. Even the addition's wood features pieces of varied widths, modeled after how logs were once cut.
• A second sun room features a large dining table and glass windows that can be changed to screens. 
• There appeared to be a rotisserie on the patio, but I didn't get the best look.

More from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust:

The Tudor Revival was locally popular during the 1920s, but rarely has it been executed with such panache. The Long House's dominant feature—its undulating false-thatched roof—offers a metaphorical tip of the hat to Englang's thatched cottages. 

The Stanhope-designed garage also sports a false-thatched roof. Other Tudor features include the stone and stucco exterior materials and half-timbering, along with asymmetrically grouped wall openings and a rounded, stone-capped doorway.

The L-shaped home's long axis contains the living room and sun porch, while the short axis includes the dining room and original kitchen. An entrance hall connects the wings. A 2004 addition created a new kitchen, family room and a second sun porch. The original kitchen became a powder room. 

At that time, the roof's composite shingles were replaced with cedar shingles that were steamed and bent to follow the roof's curves. The false-thatched roof was extended over the addition to unify the home's old and new portions.

Frank Long founded the Long-Critchfield Corporation, which became the largest advertising agency of its time. He also published a farming newspaper and then formed another advertising agency, Long-Costello. He retied in 1923, shortly before building this home. A Rockford-area native, he spent most of his adult life in Oak Park. 

Early in his career, Leon Stanhope worked for Burnham & Root on the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. He was an early pioneer in reinforced concrete construction and a prolific builder of Chicago-area commercial structures. Stanhope's most significant  legacy proved to be a series of Christian Science churches throughout the Midwest, including Oak Park's First Church of Christ, Scientist, now the Arts Center of Oak Park, home of the Ernest Hemingway museum.

See more homes from the tour:

Goodrich House

Cessna House