Blog

By Ellen Shubart, Class of  2006

Editor’s note: Ellen is a long-time member and past president of the Glencoe Historical Society. She is currently a research volunteer and part of the Booth Cottage subcommittee that supervised the move. To read Ellen’s 2015 article about FLW in Glencoe and the Booth House, click here. 

The day, July 21^st, was perfect—sunshine and blue skies—ideal for an outdoor event. The 150-person crowd, including children and dogs, stood masked and socially distanced, watching something rarely seen, an entire house being moved.

The Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Booth Cottage is small by Glencoe standards, only 1,100 square feet and long and narrow. But even this small structure rolling down a suburban street was wide enough to require tree limbs to be cut on either side to avoid interference.

Why was the Booth Cottage was being moved along Franklin Street? It was being saved from being razed, something Wright fans and preservationists had worked on for more than a year.

The story begins in 1913 when Sherman Booth, Wright’s lawyer, friend, and fellow investor, asked Wright to design a large estate for his family on land Booth owned along a ravine in Glencoe. That plan fell flat due to insufficient funding, so the two decided to use the land in another way. They planned a subdivision, Ravine Bluffs, where they intended to build close to 25 homes, plus an additional one for Booth and his family.

While the large Booth house was being built, Wright drew up plans for a cottage where the family would live until the house was completed. Once the home at 265 Sylvan Road was finished in 1915, the family vacated the cottage. It was then moved a bit east, and later south, to 239 Franklin where it remained until 2020.

Booth and Wright’s efforts at a subdivision did not result in 25 homes; in fact, only six were built. Each was designed by Wright, and today they are lovingly cared for by their owners.

The cottage was added onto four times by its new owners—bedrooms were attached to the back and an  entryway with an overhang on the front. After the death of the owner in 2019, the house was sold. The new owners, developers with an eye for the rather large lot backing onto a ravine, promptly filed a demolition permit. They were selling the lot along with plans for a modern home.

At that point, alarmed village officials, preservationists, and Wright fans began looking for ways to save the cottage.

After a summer of searching for new locations for the house, there was only alternative. In the fall of 2019, the Glencoe Historical Society, working with the Glencoe Park District, figured out a plan. It was suggested to the owners that they donate the house to the Historical Society, with the understanding that it would be removed from the lot. The cottage would be moved down the street about two city blocks, from its 239 Franklin address, to Park 7n, a triangle of undeveloped park land. After three months of negotiations, the Historical Society signed a 99-year lease for the land at $1 per year.

The Historical Society had to raise funds to cover the more than $350,000 in costs. That sum included a significant amount for water ponding amelioration in the park, something desired by nearby neighbors concerned about the move. At least two have been adversarial, accusing the Historical Society of lowering their property values due to the relocation of the cottage in the park.

On July 21, everything came together. The day before the move, the firm Wolfe Movers of Indiana lifted the house onto three dollies, each with a set of wheels that worked independently This allowed the structure to be swung in different directions as it turned out of the driveway at 239 Franklin and onto the site at Park 7n. The straight-away drive down Franklin Street was rather easy, slowed only by cutting back the parkway’s tree limbs.

The dollies’ wheels are worked from a console that that looks like a Game Boy! And the console operator, Andrew Heck, owner of Wolfe Movers, used his thumbs just as if he were playing a video game, to control the movement of the wheels.

The operation took only two hours from the time the house moved off its site on Franklin to its placement in the park. It will stay there until a foundation is dug and poured—in four to six weeks. Then the movers will return to “roll” the house over the new foundation for its permanent residency.

While the house has been moved, the preservation efforts are not over. The Historical Society needs to raise money for a complete restoration of the interior. It will be used as a Wright resource library and storage for archives regarding Wright and his work in Glencoe, the third largest collection of Wright-related architecture in the world, after Oak Park and Chicago. The home also hold the archives of Elizabeth Booth, an Illinois suffragette primarily responsible for the 1913 Illinois voting law. Her role in that struggle took place while she lived in the Booth Cottage.

The Glencoe Historical Society has been in existence since 1937. It collects, preserves, and interprets the history of the Village of Glencoe. It is located in an historic set of buildings at 375 Park Avenue, Glencoe. Please visit!