The Glore House was constructed of pink Chicago common brick overlooking a dramatic ravine on almost two acres of land (O'Gorman, p. 365). The roof size might lead one to believe that this is a large house, but in fact the rooms are small. The two-story, in-line Usonian does include five bedrooms, four and a half baths, and four fireplaces. The bedrooms are on the second floor with a children's room opening to the two-story living room. Unlike the typical Usonian, the Glore House had a separate dining room and workspace, with servant's quarters at the entrance.
Charles Glore was an investment banker and in 1956 became the patron (and likely developer) for the Golden Beacon, an apartment tower that Wright designed, but was never built on Chicago’s lakefront . The house has had a difficult history with many owners, one for every three years of its existence. After falling into severe disrepair, the building was partially renovated in the 1970s, then fell vacant. Following a parade of seven owners over the next decade, Larry A. Smith and Vicki Mondae took up the cause again in the late 1980s. They removed a greenhouse and added a terrace around a hexagonal deck where a swimming pool was originally intended by Wright. A copper roof was installed replacing the shingles.
Richard Katz, who with his wife, Beth, lived in the house from 1999 until this year added a three-car garage and expanded a hallway to create a family room, carefully mimicking the original banded mahogany trim. In January 2007, planning a move to Seattle, the Katzes listed the house.
In late July, a young man, who grew up a few blocks away from the house, was in town from Los Angeles with his fiancée, an architect and a fan of Wright’s work, to visit his parents. The couple was planning to move to Chicago in the fall and on a whim they requested a showing of the house. “We really just wanted to see what it was like inside, but about midway through, we started looking at each other realizing, ‘Oh my gosh, this is quite a house. We could do this.’” On August 28th, they closed on the house and its 1.9-acre site. “We feel like we’re the luckiest people alive,” he says.
References
Rodkin, D., 2007, Sale of the Week—Frank Lloyd Wright’s Only Lake Forest House, (
visit link)