653-655 West Vine Street
Springfield, IL, USA

Heimberger House

The Heimberger House is a historic house located at 653-655 West Vine Street in Springfield, Illinois. The two-family house was built in 1915; it was designed to resemble a single-family house to blend in with the surrounding neighborhood. Harry Jasper Reiger designed the Arts and Crafts style bungalow. The house has a characteristic low-pitched Craftsman roof with exposed rafters, wide eaves, and clipped gables. Skylights in the roof let natural light into the interior rooms, an uncommon feature for a Craftsman bungalow. The front porch is covered by a large half-timbered gable and features ornamental tiling.

The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 21, 2014.

National Register of Historic Places - Heimberger House

Statement of Significance:

The Heimberger House is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places as being locally significant as described in the Multiple Property Document (MPD) form, Multiple Family Dwellings in Springfield, Illinois. Specifically, the house is eligible under Criteria A for community planning and development and under Criteria C as an example of a double house as defined in the registration requirements of the MPD. The success of expansion of housing to accommodate the rapid growth of Springfield’s population from 1900 to 1920 began to depend on multi-family housing as a solution that was socially acceptable to the community. The Heimberger House, built in 1915, incorporated the elements that would prove harmonious in one of Springfield’s newest residential areas. Namely, the house was located near the newly built trolley line in one of the fashionable neighborhoods near Washington Park; it was an attractive all-brick, Arts and Crafts style home, a modern trend at the time; and, perhaps most importantly, even though it was a two-family home, it was built to blend in with its surrounds, by resembling a single-family home with carefully disguised, but separate, front and rear entrances. As a double house it was, and is, without peer in Springfield. It features some of the most stylish advanced features of the period, including multiple skylights, numerous, high-end Craftsman features, with an alluring street and interior presence, both then and now.