Isadore H. Heller House Constructed

The Isidore H. Heller House is a house located at 5132 South Woodlawn Avenue in the Hyde Park community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, USA. The house was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The design is credited as one of the turning points in Wright's shift to geometric, Prairie School architecture, which is defined by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, and an integration with the landscape, which is meant to evoke native Prairie surroundings.

The work demonstrates Wright's shift away from emulating the style of his mentor, Louis Sullivan. Richard Bock, a Wright collaborator and sculptor, provided some of the ornamentation, including a plaster frieze. The ownership history of this building demonstrates the property's evolution and development in the framework of surrounding Hyde Park buildings, and the building's location in the current community—near other Prairie School architecture—includes this building into the overall body of Lloyd Wright's work. The Heller House was designated a Chicago Landmark on September 15, 1971, and added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 16, 1972. On 18 August 2004, the U.S. Department of the Interior designated the house a National Historic Landmark.

When Lloyd Wright designed the Heller House in 1896, it marked his move away from styles that were popular into an era of geometric and highly modern designs. Wright's design exhibits the influence of Wright's mentor, Louis Sullivan, and demonstrates Wright's move towards Prairie School homes which would epitomize much of his early work. Sullivan's influence can also be seen in the floral pattern of the Richard Bock plaster frieze on the home's third floor, although during the 1970s, restoration work—which utilized sandblasting—destroyed much of the detail on the frieze.
The 26 feet by 98 feet (7.9 meters by 29.9 meters) rectangular house stands 41 feet (12 meter...

The primary axis of the Heller house is east-west, with its entry on the south side rather than on the street facade. The living room occupies the front quarter of the house. The main hallway runs from the center of the living room past the entry and reception room, with stairs on the opposite side, to the fireplace end of the dining room. To the rear are a kitchen and a servants' dining room. Yellow roman brick is complemented by white stone outside, waxed white oak inside, with plaster "saturated with pure color" in a rough sand finish.

This is among the earliest of Wright's explorations of three-story residence designs. Though there are occasional "finished attics" in some earlier houses, here Wright provides servants' quarters and a large play room. The third story is decorated in sculpted figures by Richard Bock.

Wright also designed alterations at the second level that would have provided for a new bedroom for Mrs. Heller with more windows to both south and north, over the kitchen and servants' dining area. An elevator, rising from ground to attic floor, was installed. No coherent plans of a single date seem to exist, and the available attic plan does not show the house as it was constructed.