A hidden gem

Hidden behind a nondescript mailbox and down a gravel driveway in Schaumburg is a true architectural masterpiece that is even listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Yet, few people even know that this home at 645 S. Meacham Road exists and even fewer have seen it because it is so well shielded from the road.

Renowned modernist architect Paul Schweikher was only 34 years old when he designed the flat-roofed redwood, brick and glass home for himself and his family in 1936 while a passenger on a trans-Pacific cruise ship returning from a traveling fellowship in Japan.

As luck would have it, Schweikher had recently been paid in seven acres of land for transforming an unincorporated Roselle barn into a magnificent modernist home, so he had a place to build his house. In addition, he had won a monetary award from General Electric for designing an "industrial building of the future."

"It was the perfect storm. He had time to design the home while traveling from Japan; he had the land on which to build it; and he had the money for labor and materials," explained Todd Wenger, executive director of the Schweikher House Preservation Trust.

The one-story avant-garde home with an attached architectural studio, completed in 1938, features an abundance of vertical and horizontal lines, with nary a circle or a curve (except for the round soaking tub which was put in by the subsequent owner). Many who walk in the door immediately think of Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie style homes and his later Usonian homes.

But Wenger said that Schweikher's home, which he dubbed "South Willow," only gives a nod to Wright. He was not as devoted to patterns and ornamentation as Wright was. Schweikher got his eye for detail and proportion from his former boss, David Adler; from George Keck, his partner in the design of 33 "Homes of Tomorrow" for the 1933 Century of Progress World's Fair; and from his good friend, Mies van der Rohe.

"There was a free flow of thought between the architects of the time and everyone was borrowing from each other, so there are many similarities between the various modernist architects, especially since they were all widely published at the time," Wenger explained. "But...