William Eugene Drummond - Private Practice

Private Practice

Upon parting ways with Wright, Drummond went into private practice, even though he had already undertaken his first commission in 1908, the First Congregational Church of Austin. In 1912 he went into partnership with Louis Guenzel (1860–1956), who had been a draftsman for Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. Isabel Roberts worked for Guenzel and Drummond for about a year. The partnership dissolved just after the start of World War I, in 1915.

Drummond continued his independent practice thereafter, designing churches, residences and small commercial buildings in the Prairie style, his work in the pure Prairie idiom culminating in the delightfully elegant Brookfield Kindergarten (also known as the Hilly House) of 1920 in Brookfield, Illinois.

Drummond was among those who submitted designs in the famous 1922 competition for the Chicago Tribune Building. His entry is daringly original, with a huge tri-parti rectangular crown, perforated and carved in such a way that it defies conventional architectural descriptive terms. With oversize urn forms at the base of the crown, scooped recesses and geometric ornament at its summit, the building offered a dynamic melding of Prairie and Art Moderne that, had it been chosen, would have become an immediate and vibrant landmark on the Chicago skyline, without harking back to any historic style (as did the winning entry by architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood). Drummond's design still looks innovative ninety years later and compares favorably to early 21st century skyscraper design.

The prevailing view of his later career is that, as the public taste changed during the 1920s, Drummond’s work bore less of the hallmarks of the Prairie School. Instead, his work was sometimes characterized by English cottage and Tudor elements, many in River Forest, typified by the Edward W. Scott Residence (1928) with its massive chimney, steeply pitched gables and paired multi-story bay window towers, and by the River Forest Public Library (1928–1930).

William Drummond took part in the planning commission of River Forest throughout the 1920s and 1930s, while also remodeling several of Wright's designs. Shortly before his death on September 13, 1946, Drummond published a book detailing a plan to redesign the United States Capitol. Drummond's final resting place is Forest Home Cemetery, Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois.