Frank Lloyd Wright launched his famous Taliesin Fellowship at his compound in Wis-consin in 1932. Aspiring architects apprenticed there, milking cows and chopping firewood before they ever sat at a drafting table. Arthur Dennis Stevens arrived in 1948 as a recent high school grad. “I remember walking up the steps to his office,” Stevens once recalled. “I got halfway there but had to stop because I got goose bumps.” He remained for five years and later went into business in the Chicago suburbs with fellow Wright acolyte Don Erickson. In his long career (he died in 2019 at 88), Stevens designed a number of homes, including the 2,300-square-foot split-level at 1120 Ridgewood Drive in Highland Park, now for sale at $1.35 million.
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Built in 1961, the four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath residence was home to interior designer Emanuel Feingold, his sister, and her husband. Feingold reportedly liked to tinker with the place, so much so that Stevens called it the “house that was never finished.” Reflecting the land-embracing ethos promulgated by Wright, the house has a lean horizontality, with a clerestory façade and plenty of floor-to-ceiling windows and doors to unite the home with nature. The residence sits on 0.84 acres, designed by noted landscape architect Stephen Christy.
Inside, the primary materials are mahogany and concrete, the contrast of which creates an engaging visual rhythm. The open-plan main living area rests under a pitched ceiling and is anchored at its center by a pier-like fireplace. The kitchen boasts contemporary appliances and fresh countertops, and new white oak flooring runs throughout the house. These updates dovetail perfectly with Stevens’s design, reminding us that mid-century modern never goes out of style.
Thomas Connors is a freelance writer for Chicago magazine.