Two Prairie Homes Go Green—and One Is for Sale – Chicago Magazine

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River Forest house
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Highland Park house
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In River Forest, the Coffeys’ solar panels are visible only from the backyard—as stipulated by landmarks groups that sanctioned the work. The panels heat water and provide some indoor climate control. Most of that comes from the geothermal system, whose seven wells are buried beneath the back lawn.
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The main room is a two-story former auditorium restored to its original condition. While the crumbling plaster ceiling was being replaced, a thick layer of insulation was laid above it.
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New insulation also lies beneath the restored pine floor of the auditorium and its stage, now used as a formal dining area. The table and chairs are original to the building.
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The next few photos show architectural details of the club, restored by a team that included many of Coffey’s colleagues at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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A window in the River Forest home
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Another window in the River Forest home
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Informal living spaces and a kitchen the Coffeys created in the raised basement level are more intimate than the auditorium.
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The new living spaces flow out to a large sunken terrace that keeps the lower level from feeling like a basement.
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In 2004, the Coffeys paid $425,000 for the building. Their total investment is much more than the $1.575 million they’re asking now, Daniel Coffey says, but he wouldn’t specify an amount. “This wasn’t done as a money-making venture,” he insists. “It was done to save the building.”
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Bill Levy and Patrick Schwartz paid $438,000 for the Mary W. Adams House in Highland Park in late 2010. The rehab has cost at least twice that, they say. “The investment goes well beyond dollars,” Levy adds.
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The house got a metal-shingle roof made of recycled materials. The architect John Eifler used the same long-lasting material in the restoration of his own Wright house in Glencoe.
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Eight geothermal wells are buried below the backyard, which has not yet been replanted.
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The 21st-century geothermal heat system will pump conditioned air through the home’s early 20th-century registers.
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All light fixtures in the house, including this reproduction, use energy-saving LED bulbs.
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Operable storm windows have been placed inside all the home’s original windows, so that there are now three layers of glass holding in the heat. They will be covered with insulating shades, and the walls and roof also have new, thick insulation.
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The next few photos show details that have been restored—not necessarily green touches.
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Inside the Highland Park house
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Inside the Highland Park house
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“Wright was very green in his own time,” Levy says. “He did forward-thinking, environmentally conscious things in his buildings.”

Two Prairie Homes Go Green—and One Is for Sale

Two Prairie-style homes about 25 miles apart have undergone significant green upgrades in the past few years. This month, the owners of the Highland Park house, a Frank Lloyd Wright design from 1905, moved in after a year of renovations…

By Dennis Rodkin

May 9, 2012, 9:35 am

A River Forest home and a Highland Park home
See more photos in the gallery below.

Two Prairie-style homes about 25 miles apart have undergone significant green upgrades in the past few years. This month, the owners of the Highland Park house, a Frank Lloyd Wright design from 1905, moved in after a year of renovations. And in River Forest, the owners of a house designed as a women’s club in 1913 by William Drummond, Wright’s former chief draftsman, put their residence on the market priced at $1.575 million.

Both structures needed rescuing before their most recent purchases. The Highland Park house was in foreclosure, and the River Forest building had been in limbo as the club’s membership shrank. Along with salvation, both homes also got geothermal conditioning systems and other eco-friendly technology. The green upgrades are “in the spirit of the original,” says Paul Coffey, who, with his wife, Ellen, restored and is now selling the River Forest house. Like Wright, Drummond used window placement and large overhanging eaves to work with the sun’s position in different seasons; in the women’s club, he also used a then-innovative heating system.

Click through the photos below for more on both homes.

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