Window repair planned at Wright home and studio

Abstract

The plate-glass window was a 1980s replica of a type Wright used in several places around the compound, and was set with more than a dozen pieces of colored glass in its corners.

Restoration is underway after a recent storm tore a decorative window off its hinges at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park.

The window, which is not original to the turn-of-the-century residence, is boarded up as the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust works to replace it, said Karen Sweeney, the Trust's preservation architect.

Even though the window was closed and wired shut, a storm last week yanked most of it from the Chicago Avenue side of Wright's drafting room and dashed it to the ground, Sweeney said. The plate-glass window was a 1980s replica of a type Wright used in several places around the compound, and was set with more than a dozen pieces of colored glass in its corners.

"They're decorative, so that makes them a bit more complicated than just a sheet of glass (to restore)," she said.

The window's copper-plated zinc frame is largely intact, she said. The trust will work with a local glass specialist to replace the shattered pieces -- a process Sweeney expects to complete in the next month or two.

Cost estimates are not yet available, she said.

The recent storm was the first to damage a window at the home, which also has glass from before 1909, when Wright last lived there, Sweeney said.

"It just happened to be one of the areas where the (original) window wasn't still in place," she said.

The storm also tore limbs from trees near the house.

----------

[email protected]

Credit: By Wes Venteicher, Tribune reporter

Illustration

Caption: Photo: A board protects the interior of the Frank Lloyd Wright studio after a recent storm tore a window from its hinges. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT HOME AND STUDIO PHOTO Photo: Repairs for Wright home and studio. Arecent storm tore a decorative window off its hinges at the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park. (Triblocal Edition, Zone NRW, page 1).