15 Old Green Bay Rd
Winnetka, IL 60093, USA

John Rogerson Montgomery House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The John Rogerson Montgomery House, built in 1909, meets Criterion C for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. It is locally significant as an excellent example of the blending of Georgian Revival architecture with influences from the Arts and Crafts movement, as interpreted by Howard Van Doren Shaw, one of the Midwest's foremost architects of country houses. In no way doctrinaire nor specifically derivative, the Montgomery House displays Shaw's personal and highly inventive vision of Georgian architecture, while absorbing and expressing elements of the Arts & Crafts movement. He was described by architectural historian Mark Allen Hewitt as "Chicago's leading eclectic domestic architect at the tum of the century", 1 developing work that reflected the historicism that permeated architecture during the first three decades of the Twentieth Century. At the same time, he created highly original designs, like the Montgomery House, with a sense of simplicity, carefully-thought-out proportions and attention to detail that betrays his indebtedness to Arts & Crafts architecture. The John Rogerson Montgomery House reflects not only these influences, but a high level of artistic value, craftsmanship and integrity. The garage, designed in 1929 by the firm of Granger and Bollenbacher, is a contributing resource to the nomination. It represents the desire of Montgomery family to have a larger structure than was there before, with more storage and servants' quarters on the second floor. The garage was designed to complement the house's architectural style and reflects the functional and architectural evolution of the property. The period of significance for the John Rogerson Montgomery House dates from 1909, when the house was built, to 1929, when the garage was constructed.

HISTORY:
The history of the John Rogerson Montgomery House dates back to 1902, when John Rogerson Montgomery purchased two parcels of land. Although he owned the property for several years before construction began, original plans with revisions are dated 1908 and a mortgage was drawn up in 1909. It seems likely that construction began that year. The location in the Hubbard Woods section of Glencoe where Rogerson purchased land was prime. Curving roads follow the area's ravine-cut setting, and the house designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw was prominently sited to take best advantage of the topography and the roadways. It is slightly elevated, facing south where Old Green Bay Road travels east-west, so there is a vista to the south. Location was important to Shaw. Peter B. Wight pointed out in an article he wrote in 1917 for The Architectural Record on "Recent Country House Work of Howard Shaw" that Shaw adapted his plans "naturally to the circumstances of the site.

In the article Wight wrote on Shaw's residential work, he noted that Shaw also adapted his plans to the circumstances of the household. 3 According to the 1931 Who's Who in Chicago, Montgomery was born in Chicago, March 8, 1866. He graduated from Beloit (Wisconsin) College in 1887 and received his law degree two years later. In 1896 he married Marion Howard of Beloit. In 1910, just after completion of their new house, she died. He remarried in 1912, to Marion Hunter of New York City. The Montgomerys raised four children in their commodious six-bedroom Old Green Bay Road home. The house also was designed to accommodate household help. The 1930 Census figures showed that Montgomery lived at 15 Old Green Bay Road, which had two servants' rooms, with his (second) wife Marion, a maid and a cook. The handsome, but not grand or pretentious, design of the house perfectly suited a client with Montgomery's family needs.

Montgomery's house met more than his family's basic functional requirements. Its Hubbard Woods location, prominent setting and handsome design by a prestigious architect suited his position. Montgomery was a highly successful attorney, a partner in Montgomery, Hart, Pritchard & Herriott. He also served as president of several professional, religious and social organizations. The Marquis Company's 1931 Who 's Who in Chicago and Vicinity: The Book of Chicagoans indicates that he served as president of the Chicago Bar Association (1920- 21), the Illinois Bar Association (1925-26) and as a charter member of the American Law.

Institute. He was chairman of the Congregational Foundation for Education and on the board of the Chicago Theological Seminary. Montgomery was a member of the University Club and the Indian Hill Country Club and, in 1930, was president of the Union League Club4 -all prestigious social clubs.

When choosing an architect for his house, Montgomery selected Howard Van Doren Shaw. Shaw's practice consisted largely of country houses for prosperous residents of Chicago's North Shore. He designed at least 64 houses in Evanston, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest and Lake Bluff between 1896 and his death in 1926. This number is based on the published list in Virginia A. Greene's book, The Architecture of Howard Van Doren Shaw plus other residences known by Susan Benjamin to have been designed by Shaw. 5 In an article published in the April, 1913, Architectural Record, "The Recent Work of Howard Shaw: Country Houses of the Middle West,"Herbert D. Croly and C. Matlack Price commented that "Mr. Shaw is extraordinarily popular. The number of houses which he designs would be astounding to the architect of any European country, and it is sufficiently rare in this country." He attributed this to Shaw's ability to "give to his clients what they want, while at the same time designing houses that are always individual and often charming and distinguished. " 6 Shaw's houses were described by Croly and Price as "livable" and "attractive to live in" He lauded Shaw's ability to please his clients.

Leonard K. Eaton, in his 1969 book, Two Chicago Architects and Their Clients: Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Van Doren Shaw," noted that Shaw's clients desired houses which reflected their own good manners and culture."8 They were usually successful business and professional men who took an interest in the appearance of their homes. Eaton's thesis is that Shaw, unlike Frank Lloyd Wright, built a practice of clients who were part of Chicago's establishment, many of whom were members of the city's commercial and industrial aristocracy-including the Ryersons (steel), the Donnelleys (publishing) and the Swifts (meatpacking).9 Most of Shaw's clients were businessmen; lawyers, like Montgomery, were in the minority. Montgomery did, however, in many ways meet the profile of a Shaw client that Eaton painted. He was Republican, was involved in club life and served on numerous Boards. Eaton summed up a Shaw client's relationship to his house, noting " ... the house should be a proper setting for the upper-class life of its owners. It is a symbol of achieved status and a badge of membership in the North Shore Establishment." 10 This usually meant a house that was inspired by English architecture and, at least superficially, regarded as conservative, a house such as that Shaw designed for John Rogerson Montgomery.

Howard Van Doren Shaw came from a relatively conservative background and had traditional-and superb-training, attending highly-regarded schools and apprenticing with one of Chicago's finest, most creative architects. Shaw was born in Chicago in 1869, the son of a successful dry goods merchant and a talented mother, who was a painter. He attended Harvard School for Boys, then Yale University. His formal architectural schooling began at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received an academic education. Graduating in 1892, he made his first trip to Europe, where he filled notebooks with sketches and photographs of architectural details, making copious notes on proportions and materials. 11 Part of an architect's formal education was the European tour, where he was exposed first hand to European architectural styles. Shaw's European sketches and notes were to serve as an important reference to him throughout his career. Upon his return in 1893, Shaw apprenticed to a prestigious firm, Jenney and Mundie, while William Le Baron Jenney was completing the Second Leiter Building, recognized for the simplicity of its Chicago School design. After a year of working for Jenney's firm, he set up his own office, drafting designs for residences out of the attic of his father's home on Calumet Avenue in Chicago. He had one draftsman, Robert G. Work, who was later to partner with Shaw's successor in prominence as an architect of country houses, David Adler. During the mid to late 1890s, Shaw designed a number of houses in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, including one, in 1894, for himself and his wife Frances. The Shaw's home, which they named "Dorencote", was half of a double house they shared with her sister' family. It was a stately residence, built of Bedford limestone and Tudor in its detailing. All of the houses Shaw designed in Hyde Park during the 1890s were tall and urban in scale. Their exteriors tended to be simple, with clearly articulated wall planes, foreshadowing his later work. But their detailing, whether Tudor or Georgian was a more literal interpretation of historic precedents than is to be found in the Montgomery House.

Shaw's earliest country house, the Alfred L. Baker House, known as "Little Orchard", was built in 1897. It is a Colonial Revival residence, sheathed in clapboards, with many trappings of a traditional colonial house: shuttered double-hung windows with multiple panes, a broken pediment over the front entrance bay, a classical cornice, dormers with arched window openings and a central hall plan. Its massing, roof treatment and classical references betray the Georgian sources of colonial architecture. Shaw rarely strayed from the English architecture he was so fond of. He was, however, far more experimental at "Ragdale", his 1898 Lake Forest Country House, which was designed in the spirit of the English Arts & Crafts movement.

Shaw was a devoted Anglophile, who traveled frequently to England. He also recognized the significance of a personal library, and valued published information on English architecture. An architect's reference library was considered so important that The Architectural Record, in 1924, published a series on "The Library of the Architect" in which the architect was asked to select his own ideal list of books for the student of architecture. Shaw's list included a wide range of books on the history of architecture from Egyptian and classical styles to Italian Renaissance buildings to books on Sir Christopher Wren and Inigo Jones and John Nash's Mansions of England in the Olden Times. The majority of books were on English architecture, more than any other style except on Greek and Roman architecture combined. It is known that Shaw's own library was made up of many beautiful volumes he brought back from his first European tour and that he subscribed to Country Life, 12 which was first published in England in 1897. Country Life in America, copied from the highly successful British publication, was brought out by Doubleday in 1901.

English architecture seemed the most popular source of inspiration for the American country house. Those seeking ancestral and historical pedigrees were immediately attracted to the image of leisure and wealth associated with England's landed aristocracy. It is also likely that, with their common language and common heritage, Americans would feel more comfortable living with English than with other European influences. 13 Eaton has pointed out that Shaw was happiest when he was working with clients who wanted an American adaptation of the English country house. Eaton however, wasn't necessarily referring to the elaborate 181 h Century Georgian country houses of England. He noted that Shaw "liked the soundness and livability of the English domestic tradition as interpreted by (Sir Edwin) Lutyens, 14 the noted Arts & Crafts architect. This notion of domesticity is particularly relevant to the design of a house the Montgomery House, which was an adaptation of a larger country estate but more suited to a North Shore site closer to Chicago than gentleman's farms surrounded by tens of acres. The house was designed with the dignity and presence of a grander place, but with the comforts of a family home.