K. C. de Rhodes House - The House

The House

In plan, the DeRhodes house is a mirror image twin of the 1904 Barton House in Buffalo, New York. The main floor of the house is one large, rectangular space oriented south to north, that is subdivided by piers and low bookcases with light screens into three spaces, a reception area, a large living room with fireplace toward the south (front) of the house and a large dining room with Wright's customary built in china cabinets toward the (north) rear of the house. An entry/foyer to the east and the stairway and kitchen wing to the west extend the plan into a cruciform shape. Terraces protected by low walls at the north and south ends of the house extend the living space into the surrounding landscape.

The exterior of the DeRhodes house exhibits many of the features associated with Wright's Prairie School architecture. The stucco exterior with wood trim, the strong water table, the pronounced horizontal lines of the continuous window sills and terrace parapets, the leaded glass "light screens" of the windows, the grouping of the windows into continuous bands and the low-profile hip roof.

The celebrated rendering of the DeRhodes house by Wright's assistant Marion Mahony Griffin is considered by scholars to be among the best to emerge from the Oak Park Studio, and was thought so by Wright himself, who inscribed it "Drawn by Mahony after FLLW and Hiroshige".