303 Sheridan Rd
Kenilworth, IL 60043, USA

Dr. Robert Hohf House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

The Dr. Robert Hohf House is being nominated for listing on the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C for its significance as an outstanding example of Kenilworth's post World War H residential architecture of the 1950's. Designed by Chicago architects George Fred and William Keck in 1957, in collaboration with Dr. Hohf, the single- story residence is derived from International style architecture exhibiting geometric massing, fiat walls and roof, large expanses of glass, and minimal ornamentation. It is relatively unchanged since its' construction, except for air conditioning, installed in the early 1960's, as well as a screened- in porch, added ten years later. The integrity of the residence remains intact in terms of its design, materials, and feeling. The home was designed for the Hohf family. Dr. Hohf, who collaborated with the Keck brothers on the project, had a keen interest and aptitude for design. A surgeon at Evanston Hospital, Dr. Hohf helped to design hospital operating rooms, contributed to the design of the Cos Building, a medical building associated with the Hospital, and experimented with designs for pacemakers and aortic shunts. Dr. Hohf configured the basic house plan for the home in which the various living areas radiated of the atrium. According to Mrs. Hohf, George Keck accepted the atrium idea with the stipulation that the center area be open with floor to ceiling windows on all sides. Mrs. Hohf rejected Keek's plan in favor of the present treatment'.

KENILWORTH HISTORY
During the 1950s, Chicago's suburbs experienced enormous growth as people sought property outside the congested city to raise their families. The North Shore suburbs were particularly attractive because of their proximity to Chicago, quality schools, and beautiful manicured communities. The nine towns that comprise the North Shore grew up along the rail line established in 1866". Historically, the North Shore has been home to some of Chicago's wealthiest businessmen and professionals who built well-designed homes on spacious, tree-lined streets.

The village of Kenilworth, Illinois was the newest of the North Shore communities and has always been the smallest. Today, there are approximately 2900 residents and 815 houses. It was established in 1889 by Joseph Sears, who purchased the 224 undeveloped acres, envisioning a homogeneous, family-focused community with large lots, and high standards of construction- no alleys"'. The tract of land was sited between the Milwaukee Branch of the North-Western railway on the west and the Lake on the east and by the Mahoney farm to the south and Winnetka Avenue on the north. The property included an existing farmhouse, now the oldest building in the village, located at 329 Sheridan Rd. The Kenilworth name is taken from a town in the Midlands section of England, and its street names are similarly of English origin.

Sears hired Franklin Biunham as Kenilworth's architect and Jens Jensen as its landscape designer. Kenilworth's earliest architecture of the early 1890s and early Twentieth Century was designed by prominent architects who used a variety of Revival styles for the residences. During the same period, George Maher, a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright and a Kenilworth resident, designed 40 Prairie style homes in the Village. In the early 1920s, Kenilworth aimed two areas west of Green Bay Road and created the Community Development, and the Brier Street neighborhood situated north of Kenilworth Avenue. Many of the houses built in these newer areas favored variations of modem styles based on historical precedent. And because this section of Kenilworth, commonly referred to as "West Kenilworth," did not have the same deed restrictions as the original Kenilworth tract, the lots and houses tended to be smaller than those properties located east of Green Bay Road. '

Kenilworth is one of the most exclusive enclaves in the Midwest. The average resident's median income is estimated at nearly one million dollars, and the median home value is one and one half million dollars. Kenilworth has been listed as one of the most affluent communities in America by Forbes magazine in 2005 and 2006'^. And in 2007, Forbes listed Kenilworth as the 19 most expensive zip code m the United States*. But Kenilworth gained notoriety recently, not for its wealth, but for its mismanagement of historic resources. In 2006, the National Trust placed Kenilworth on its' "Eleven Most Endangered Places" list- for the high number of demolitions of historic residences.

EARLY WORK OF KECK AND KECK
The Keck and Keck team that designed the Hohfs house were brothers. They were born in Watertown, Wisconsin. George Frederick, the eldest of five boys, was born in 1895. He studied engineering for one year at the University of Wisconsin after which he enrolled in an architecture engineering program at the University of Illinois. During the building boom of the 1920s, he moved to Chicago and worked as a draftsman for a number of architects including Burnham and Root, and Schmidt, Garden, and Erickson*". Keck opened his own practice in 1926 and was joined in 1931 by his younger brother, William, who had recently completed architecture training. George Keck was strongly influenced by the European modernist design philosophy that began with the Deutscher Werkbund movement, founded in 1905 by Herman Muthesius, Peter Behrens, and other German architects**". Other influences included the Bauhaus school and a variety of progressive architects including, Corbusier, Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Buckminster Fuller.

In the early 1920s, various types of European modernism, including expressionism, futurism, and functionalism merged to become known as the "International style". The name was derived from the 1932 exhibit at the Museum of Modem Art entitled "International Style Architecture Since 1922" which showed the works of 50 artists from 16 different countries. Henry Russell Hitchcock and Phillip Johnson, the creators of the exhibit, published the book. The International Style, based upon the exhibit Their book became the "Bible" of the modernist movement and secured the name of this avant-garde style. In the book, Hitchcock and Johnson defined three, central features of the international style: volume, defined by plane surfaces bounding a space, rather than massing: regularity - an aesthetic principle rather than an axial plan, and the avoidance of applied decoration". The new style placed emphasis on the "intrinsic elegance of materials, technical perfection, and fine proportion of buildings" rather than on extraneous omamentation. In Chicago and globally, Mies van der Rohe became the figurehead whose worries became the new expression of the international style. Mies was the former head of the Bauhaus, a progressive school for the arts founded by Walter Gropius in 1919. He left Germany in 1938 to become head of Chicago's Amour Intimate of Technology, which later became Illinois Intimate of Technology. Keck admired and was influenced by his works, but did not rigidly adhere to the international style. Although the Kecks never attained Miens' status, they were generally recognized as influential teachers and innovators within the Chicago School of Architecture.

One of Kecks' earliest buildings, which reflected the simplification of design and rational plan of the international style, was the Miralago Ballroom in Wilmette, completed in 1929. These two stories, steel framed, white smcco building with reinforced concrete slabs that cantilevered at the second floor, was a precursor to later International style buildings in Chicago. One of Keek's early apartment buildings, the Cruger Apartments, built in Elmhurst in 1926, exhibited similar European influences. The three- story brick building was a simplified building with minimal ornamentation, a flat roof and walls, and a symmetrical plan.