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Here's Your Chance To Live in a Frank Lloyd Wright House For the Weekend

Here's Your Chance To Live in a Frank Lloyd Wright House For the Weekend

A recently restored Frank Lloyd Wright house on Chicago’s far North Side will be open for weekly tours this summer, starting May 7. The Emil Bach House, 7415 North Sheridan Road, is a Chicago Landmark and an entry on the National Register of Historic Places. As a vacation rental, the carefully crafted private dwelling invites Wright enthusiasts to stay a while.

Its fortress-like street frontage conveys a verticality unusual to Wright’s work, offering deep, inset windows and brick columns on the lower floors instead of the more typically expansive Prairie-style planes that protrude from the upper bedroom level. Built in 1915 when its location set back from the eastern edge of Sheridan Road would have given it uninterrupted views of Lake Michigan, the house was first a private home for Bach, a brick company president whose brother had a Wright-designed house just a few blocks north. That building was demolished in the 1960s.

The house was open to the public briefly during last year’s Open House Chicago, while it was still undergoing restoration work by Harboe Architects, but May 7 marks the start of the rehabilitated building’s weekly guided tours.

Wright’s custom built-in furniture, which divides the common floor into intimate areas around a central fireplace, was replicated based on original plans. Previous owners had removed most of the wooden benches and even a dining table budding off the hearth that runs parallel to the bevy of front windows. To enter the building, visitors take eight turns along a rising, winding approach leading to a front door that actually faces toward the back yard—a somewhat forceful division of public and private space that is classic Wright.

Natural light abounds throughout the upper floor, which houses two bedrooms, a guest room / study, and two bathrooms. Wright specified “sunshine yellow” paint for the walls—a detail that was restored along with built-in desks proportioned to Wright’s diminutive frame. Evanston-based Morgante Wilson Architects furnished the interiors with space modern furniture to update the vibe without corrupting its historical significance.

Now a vacation rental, the Emil Bach house is managed by the owners of the Lang House—a 1919 bed-and-breakfast next door.

Guided tours of Bach House will be offered on Wednesdays, May 7 through September 24. Tickets are $12 general public, $10 students/seniors/military, and free for members of the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. Tickets and information are available at www.flwright.org and 312-994-4000. For rental information and further inquiries on the historic Emil Bach House, please visit www.emilbachhouse.com or email stay@emilbachhouse.com

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