DeRhodes House is Currently For Sale

The K C and Laura DeRhodes House in South Bend is currently for sale. It's a Prairie School gem. 

The house is an outstanding example of the Prairie School aesthetic, and the product of the Oak Park Studio of Frank Lloyd Wright during his first golden years of success in creating and building a new architecture - mainly in the midwest.  As you see from the photo above, the DeRhodes House displays many of the features for which Wright became famous.  The emphasis on the horizontal line of the prairie, the grouping of windows to form a visual continuous band, light screens (that is, leaded glass casement windows drawing their inspiration from nature), broad overhanging eaves making use of the concept of the cantilever, hidden front door, a blending of interior and exterior spaces, here represented by the front (and rear) terraces, prominent chimney massing, and a use of what today we might call an autumnal color pallet, outside and inside.  The use of a pale buff tone stucco with dark brown wood trim is quite typical of one of the exterior finishes Wright preferred in this period.

The view above is of the entry hall facing toward the reception area at the center of the main living space.  You can see to the right one of the two identical entry doors, the other is to the far left outside the edge of this photo.  The other door faces toward the street, while this door faced toward the back of the property.  Both are graced by elaborate leaded glass designs.  The stairs ascend to the main level of the house.  You can see one of two pairs of leaded glass bookcases, that help to define the three main living spaces.  At the center is the reception room, and to the right between and beyond those two green floor vases is the dining room at the back of the house.  The living room is to the left, to the front of the house.  Together the living room, reception room, and dining room, created one very large continuous rectangular space, perfect for entertaining large groups, as well as serving as the focus of family daily life.

Above is a view of the main features of the living room, including the windows facing the front of the house, and the large fireplace.  Notice the banding of wood both on the walls and on the ceiling.  These serve to tie the space together, with continuous lines.  The radiators are hidden, the fireplace is huge, the windows  are also quite large, providing a sweeping view of the neighborhood, while also limiting the passer-by's view into the space, because it is raised half a story above the level of the sidewalk and street.  The house thus achieves an effect of being in a tree house or raised pavilion.  Some of the furniture in the room is of the period, by Stickley or Limbert or similar Mission Style makers. This is a good alternative for owners of Prairie School Wright houses, if they do not have the furniture Wright designed for the home; indeed, Wright often advised his clients to use Stickley and Limbert furniture for the private rooms in their homes. The original Wright-designed furniture was dispersed upon the sale of the house in the 1950's and its current whereabouts are unknown.  Note also the vintage art pottery on display.  Wright usually specified Teco Pottery for his homes.  

The living room fireplace is shown in the view above.  It has some typical Wrightian features, including bold geometric forms, Roman brick which is longer and lower than standard brick, and a prominent place in the room.  Here you can also see to the left of the fireplace one of the window light screens and discern the geometric detail.  This inverted triangular stylized flower motif is used throughout all of the windows and interior bookcase doors in the house.

The side view of the house gives some idea of the grand horizontal rectangular sweep of the floor plan.  From this angle you can see the entry hall (the one story portion of the house closest to the driveway).  At the far left is the front terrace.  Note the continuous window bands of the second floor bedrooms, sheltered beneath the low hip roof with overhanging eaves.  Most of these design ideas were developed in Wright's Oak Park Studio, and were thereafter used by other Chicagoland architects and other architects throughout the midwest and beyond.  

The K. C. DeRhodes House was built for newlyweds Laura Caskey Bowsher DeRhodes and Kersey C. DeRhodes in 1906 by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is a Prairie style home located at 715 West Washington Street in South Bend, Indiana. The home was carefully restored by its long-time owners over more than four decades and remains in private ownership. It is one of two Wright homes in South Bend, the other being the Herman T. Mossberg Residence. It is one of eight Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes in the state of Indiana.

The DeRhodes house floor plan is nearly identical to -- but a mirror image of -- the 1903-1904 Barton House in Buffalo, New York. Oriented south to north, the main floor is one large rectangular space 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) and a large dining room with Wright's customary built-in china cabinets toward the (north) rear. 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 downstairs maid's room in this house has been converted to a half bath.

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"

About the clients:

Laura Caskey Bowsher DeRhodes (November 5, 1864 – May 27, 1952)

Laura Caskey was born in Ligonier, Indiana, the daughter of Lutheran clergyman Curtis Caskey and his wife Margaret. Before her marriage to Kersey C. DeRhodes, Laura Caskey was the second wife of South Bend industrialist-millionaire Nelson Prentice Bowsher (1845-1898), also a native of Ligonier, Indiana. Bowsher rose from being an inventor and master mechanic at the Oliver Chilled Plow Works to the proprietor of his own manufacturing business, N. P. Bowsher. By his first wife, Clarissa C. Hostetter, Bowsher had two sons, Delavan Denis Bowsher and Jay C. Bowsher. Prior to her marriage to DeRhodes, Laura lived in the Bowsher family home at 805 West Washington, South Bend.

Kersey C. DeRhodes (February 7, 1862 – March 25, 1944)

Kersey C. DeRhodes was born in Fairfield, Ohio, the son of farmer David and his wife Madi DeRhodes. After coming to South Bend in 1901, DeRhodes served as the cashier of the Merchant's National Bank (later the National Bank). He also served as the treasurer of the Williams-Forrest Machine Company. From 1923 to 1935, he was president of DeRhodes-Yarrick Motor Co., a Dodge Brothers motor car dealership in South Bend. His residence before his marriage to Laura C. Bowsher was at 329 West Colfax Avenue, now the site of the First Presbyterian Church of South Bend. From a prior marriage, he had one daughter, Hazel M. DeRhodes (July 10, 1888 - January 1975), who lived with Kersey and Laura DeRhodes in their Wright designed home before moving to Detroit, Michigan, as an adult.

In early 1906, Laura C. Bowsher visited with her South Bend friend Isabel Roberts (of the Isabel Roberts House) in Berwyn, Illinois. Isabel was an architectural designer and draughtsman in Wright's Oak Park Studio and through Isabel, Laura met architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was at the peak of his acclaim with the success of his prairie houses. She commissioned Wright's Oak Park studio to design a house for her to be located at 715 West Washington Street, which was to be completed in time to move into it with her new husband. In her AIA membership application  Isabel Roberts stated that she was the designer of this house, although since it came from Wright's studio when she was an employee and architectural designer there, it has always been attributed to him.

On September 22, 1906, in Berwyn, Illinois, Laura Caskey Bowsher and Kersey C. DeRhodes were married; the officiating minister was Frank Lloyd Wright's uncle, the Rev. Jenkin Lloyd Jones.

Laura and Kersey DeRhodes lived in their Wright-designed house the rest of their lives; they were South Bend social and civic leaders. DeRhodes' later business pursuits included the Vernon Clothing Company, the DeRhodes Motor Company (selling Dodge automobiles and Graham trucks). The DeRhodes were members of the First Methodist Church of South Bend. Laura was a member of the Progress Club.

Laura DeRhodes was still living in the house in 1940 when she was interviewed by Wright researcher Grant Manson, whose notes of the interview are in the Oak Park, Illinois public library. Laura lived in the house for the rest of her life, dying there in May 1952. Both are buried in the Highland Cemetery Mausoleum, South Bend.

"Shortly after Laura Bowsher's death," the current owner says, "Frank Lloyd Wright visited South Bend to deliver a lecture at the University of Notre Dame. He tried to buy back the original items from the home." Instead, contents went to Laura's four principal heirs.

In her will, Laura DeRhodes left the Wright-designed home to the First Methodist Church of South Bend to be used as a parsonage, but it never served that function. The household goods were to be divided among First Methodist Church (who selected only the baby grand piano), the Progress Club (which took only the lawn mower and silver), the YWCA and the Camp Fire Girls (who received about half of the home's furnishings including the fire screen and andirons).

The later whereabouts of the furnishings remain unknown.

In 1954 the Methodist Church sold the house. It was used by a Masonic lodge as the Avalon Grotto clubhouse from 1954 until 1978. During that time, much of the interior was painted and the main fireplace was covered over.

In 1978, Thomas and Suzanne Miller of South Bend bought the home for $67,000, the South Bend Tribune reported, and completed a total restoration over the next several decades. Tom Miller died in 2018 and Suzanne Miller died on May 10, 2021. In the spring of 2021, shortly before Suzanne’s death, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy recognized the significant work that the Millers did to preserve and restore the DeRhodes House by honoring them with its coveted Wright Spirit Award. The award was introduced in 1991 and recognizes the efforts of extraordinary individuals and organizations that have preserved the legacy of Wright through their tireless dedication and persistent efforts.

The house remained in the Miller family in August 2021, when it was placed on the market with a asking price of $750,000.

Isabel Roberts at Greenwood Cemetery - Orlando

Yesterday there was a ceremony honoring Isabel Roberts at the historic Greenwood Cemetery in Orlando, Florida.

Civic leaders, architects, historians, and many others who have an admiration for Ms Roberts and her life's work came together to dedicate a new grave marker at the site where she was buried alongside her mother Mary Roberts and her sister Charlotte, in 1955.

As a part of the program, I shared a talk called "Remembering Isabel Roberts".  It was a brief biographical sketch about her life, education, and work, in the Oak Park Studio and as one of the two partners in the Orlando architectural firm, Ryan and Roberts.  The next photo shows me with the grave marker.

For 61 years, Isabel Roberts' final resting place has gone mostly unnoticed.  Which parallels what happened to the awareness of her contributions to the architectural environment in the Chicago area and in Central Florida.

While in Frank Lloyd Wright's employment in his Oak Park Studio throughout its creative years, Isabel Robetrs is known to have designed the prairie style windows in a number of Wright's homes.  She was one of two of his last employees who kept the Oak Park Studio open as work that was on the boards was completed, after Wright went off to Europe with Mrs. Cheney.  In her application for membership  in the AIA, Isabel Roberts listed her own home and the K C DeRhodes Residence in South Bend, Indiana, as her work.  Isabel was an architectural designer.

There is no reasons to doubt the truth of her claim, as her fellow architects from Chicago state in letters of recommendation written on her behalf.  Hermann Von Holst (who oversaw the work at the Oak Park Studio after Wright departed) and John Van Bergen (a noted Chicago architect who was the other continuing member of the original Oak Park staff, after Wright had gone), both offered clear reference to Isabel's gifts as an architect.  Most importably, so did Wright himself, in a letter that begins with a breezy "To Anyone, Anywhere" and goes on to say that Isabel is an architect.

In 1920, Isabel moved from River Forest, Illinois, to St. Cloud, Florida.  There, she entered into an architectural practice with Ida Annah Ryan, the first women in the USA to receive a masters degree in architecture (from MIT).   Throughout the 1920s, they created some of the most notable buildings in the Orlando area, in both the Prairie Style and in the Mediterranean Revival idiom.  Some are now gone, some are still there, including the partners' own home and studio, and The Matilda Fraser Residence, one of the finest homes from their hands, built for a educator and women's suffrage friend of Anna Idah Ryan's who, like Ryan, moved from Boston to Orlando in the 1920s.

There are other fine examples of their work in St Cloud, including this Prairie Style house:

Most of this was long forgotten, because no one was around to tell the story.  Some of it was forgotten because as time progressed, the accomplishments of all of the Oak Park Studio draftsmen (five men and two women) were subsumed into the celebrated genius of Wright himself.

It is still a challenge for women in the field of architecture.  Think what a challenge it was for Isabel Roberts and Idah Ryan a century and more ago.  Their work - although still there as a reminder of their creativity - became obscured over time.

The placing of the grave marker on Isabel Roberts' grave is one step in helping our collective memory.  Another would be to identify those works of Ryan and Roberts which are still standing, and gracing our communities, so that they receive the recognition they deserve.  If you know of such structures, please contact me.