This Saturday, after a month of cancelled tours, Chicago Neighborhood Bike Tours returns with our Tour of Rogers Park.  One of our stops will be the J. Benjamin Moulton House.  This home was designed by Walter Burley Griffin, one of my favorite architects and a regular highlight in my tours when one of his works is present in a neighborhood.

Griffin was a Prairie School architect who was a one-time employee of Frank Lloyd Wright.  Griffin left Wright’s employ when Wright attempted to pay him for his work with Japanese prints instead of his wages.  Griffin would marry Marion Mahony, Wright’s favorite illustrator whose illustrations and renderings of Wright’s designs were greatly responsible for his fame and reputation.   Griffin established a new practice in Chicago and worked in conjunction with his wife on many projects.  His unique vision of Prairie School architecture gained his firm many residential commissions in Chicago and its suburbs and many of his master works have become city and national landmarks.  Griffin would go on to win the contest to design the new capital city of Australia, Canberra and would establish with Marion Mahony Griffin offices in Melbourne and Sydney.

In Rogers Park, we are lucky to have another impressive surviving work of Griffin’s in the J. Benjamin Moulton House.  One of the more noteworthy Griffin techniques was doing in wood what many others would do with lead in the windows. This created a very sturdy and thick version of the arts and crafts prairie window and this 1908 home is an excellent example of how it is both elegant and substantial.  It is just one of the many splendid homes we will visit on the Tour of Rogers Park this Saturday, October 18.

Details, location, time and tickets are available here.  I hope to see you there.