Prairie School kindergarten-turned-home hits the market

In the early 1900’s the near-west suburbs of Chicago were a hotbed of architectural innovation. Young Frank Lloyd Wright was designing homes in and around his Home and Studio in Oak Park and his studio nurtured the talents of many prominent architects and designers.

One of Wright’s grandest designs, the Avery Coonley House in Riverside, sparked more Prairie Style buildings in the suburbs.  Built between 1908 and 1912, the estate is just one of three multi-building complexes built by Wright.

Avery Coonley’s wife Queene Ferry Coonley was a proponent of early childhood education, and she had Wright design a playhouse for her young daughter on the grounds of their estate. That playhouse later became a functioning school. After bringing early childhood education to Riverside, Coonley set her sights on other locales.

In 1911, she hired Prairie School architect, William Drummond to design another schoolhouse at 3601 Forest Avenue in Brookfield. Drummond, who grew up on Central Avenue in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood, worked for Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. He later had his own architecture practice and built his family home in River Forest.

In Brookfield, the T-shaped school building Drummond designed included a large, central playroom, a small balcony on the west side of the main room and a brick fireplace on the east wall flanked by doors leading to a terrace overlooking a yard and Salt Creek. 

The private kindergarten operated off and on until 1929 when Coonley donated the building to District 95.

The building served as a recreation center until the 1940s but was condemned. Residents joined forces to maintain the building. In 1949, it was sold at auction to a Mr. and Mrs. O.J. Nichol from Oak Park, who paid $6,900 for the building and turned it into a private residence.

The house recently hit the market for $675,000 and realtor Jim Ongena of @properties Christies International said that his clients put in a lot of elbow grease to maintain the historic property and bring back much of its historical essence while also making it into a family home.

Ongena’s clients bought the house out of foreclosure, and their love of architecture led them to undertake a meticulous restoration of the home. Over time, it had been converted to a four-bedroom home with a small galley kitchen and bedrooms carved out of the central room.

Armed with Drummond’s floor plans, the couple restored the grand central room, and relocated the kitchen, creating an open kitchen at the base of the balcony. 

Ongena said that they paid attention to every detail, replicating the original millwork and having the wood shipped in to recreate the look of the original wood trim. The design of the concrete floor with gold inlay was pulled from historic photos of the space.

Every window that they could save, they did, including the original windows on the front of the home.

 “What they could save, they did, and what they had to match, they did,” Ongena said.

Throughout the restoration, they relied on historically appropriate materials from soapstone counters to light fixtures to paint colors, as well as the oak, pine and walnut woods used throughout the home.

“This was their passion,” Ongena pointed out. “They didn’t gut rehab this because they wanted to save as much as possible, but they did so much to this house.”

For their efforts, the couple was rewarded with the Kristin Visser Historical Preservation Award that is given every other year to honor the renovation of a Frank Lloyd Wright or Prairie School Building.

Previous owners had added a basement garage, which the current owners use as storage. The house sits on a double lot and has access to a kayak pull-in on Salt Creek.

After all of their work, Ongena said his clients’ family has outgrown the home, but they are ready to pass it on to the next caretaker.

While the home has many of the benefits of a traditional ranch house, including an open floor plan and first-floor bedrooms and bathrooms, Ongena said that the home’s history makes it unique in the best way. 

“It’s super cool to show and super cool to be here.”