Landmark Hinsdale home preserves R. Harold Zook design

HINSDALE – From the outside, it looks like what one would expect from a landmark home designation in the historic area of Fullersburg.

Brick is the weapon of choice for this R. Harold Zook home as the brick driveway with walls separating it from the yard lead straight to the large 1949 landmark, and a single step inside yields a contemporary style.

Beamed ceilings, large windows with endless light and a limestone fireplace with Zook’s signature spider web design highlight a home that looks like it sprouted up in the middle of a forest at 820 N. Washington St.

“We had lived in the neighborhood actually for 19 years and had always loved this house,” said Jean Follett, who moved in with her husband, Doug Thompson, in August 2012. “We saw it and just fell in love with it instantly.”

The Hinsdale Village Board also apparently had an appreciation for the house, which was recently approved for landmark status in the village. Hinsdale Village Planner Sean Gascoigne said the zoning code and the historic preservation code have standards that are applied when someone submits an application, one of which is that the home is at least 50 years old.

However, Gascoigne said just because a home is old doesn’t make it historic, and just because someone famous lived in a house doesn’t deem it a landmark either.

“That was the case with 820 N. Washington, it was a R. Harold Zook home,” Gascoigne said. “It’s one of the few left up in the Fullersburg area and one of the last ones he designed before he passed away.”

Zook isn’t a household name in comparison to architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, but his trademark designs in Hinsdale are evident in a town filled with historic charm.

He was known for having a prairie-style type home like Wright, but Gascoigne said most of Zook’s noticeable architectural features are interior.

“The one big thing that he’s more noticed for than anything else is a spider web design somewhere in the architecture,” he said.

Thompson said what he enjoyed most was just how much light could enter into the house, and how when looking into the backyard it looks like “you’re in the woods.”

“Certainly for a Zook it’s very forward looking,” he said. “It’s so open to the back that people are always so surprised when they look out the back windows.”

Despite the home looking large from the outside, the couple said they’ve always been drawn to the cozier homes.

“Even though we have a lot of space we never feel like we’re living in a really big house, which is nice,” Follett said.

Now that the home has been approved for landmark status, Gascoigne said if someone were to come back later with the desire to do an addition or any type of remodeling that affects the appearance of the building from curbside view, they would need to get a certificate of appropriateness through the Hinsdale Historic Preservation Commission.

It also protects the structure from demolition.

“The benefit that a homeowner gets, and not everybody will take advantage of this because some are just preservationists at heart and want to see the building maintained, but there is a tax freeze through the state of Illinois that you can apply for and you have to meet certain criteria,” Gascoigne said. “Of all the homes locally landmarked most people just do it because they want to see it preserved and they’re not interested in the tax freeze.”

Follett by profession is a preservationist so for her the process was nothing new and something she looked forward to seeing played out.

“I do this for a living so it’s kind of been fun,” she said.

“And I live with her for a living,” her husband said with a laugh.

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Know more

• R. Harold Zook was involved in choosing Edwin H. Clark as the architect for the Memorial Building and in 1932 was chairman of the Hinsdale Plan Commission. Zook ultimately built 31 houses and six commercial buildings in Hinsdale, according to the village's website.

• In the Fullersburg area, there were once five Zook-designed homes. Four still remain: two on Washington Street and two on The Pines Street.