Interesting Facts About Garages

[Paul Ringstrom]

Interesting Facts About Garages:

1. The first attached residential garage was built in 1902 Frank Lloyd Wright as part of the Warren McArthur House in Chicago.

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I recently read this "factoid". Is it true?

[SDR]

Drawings at Artstor show the Warren McArthur garage as a separate and free-standing structure; the house plans include no garage.

https://library.artstor.org/#/search/Wr ... =1;size=24

https://www.google.com/search?client=op ... UTF-8#ip=1

S

[Reidy]

Wright's own Oak Park house has an attached garage, now a bookstore. I don't know when he built it.

https://www.gochicago.com/wp-content/up ... G_5398.jpg

[Tom]

Model T Ford was 1908.
A stable may have been the first garage!

[Matt2]

Keep in mind that local codes often prevented attached garages due to concerns over health impacts of the automobile. I imagine every city changed those codes to allow for attached garages at different times.

[Roderick Grant]

that is correct, Matt, and the reason FLW's garage intended for the basement of Cheney (1903) was not allowed. FLW's own garage was added to the house during the 1911 modifications for Catherine.

The McArthur Garage/Stable (1900) isn't attached to the house, but it has a residence on the second floor for the chauffeur making it the first for FLW. Apparently, the welfare of servants was not so important.

[JimM]

Yes, the plan for restoration and adaptive use of the H&S includes historic plans and elevations of the changes from 1889 to its publication in 1977, indicating three brick garages added contiguous to the West end of the original house in 1911 before leaving for Europe (shown in a prior liked photo). Actually it was one double bay garage for the revised studio converted for use by the family, and a "third" garage (not visible in the linked photo) on the other side of the double bay for use by an income tenant in the existing house. A brick firewall was placed between the garages and continued to completely separate the original house from the remodeled studio structure; an obvious code requirement even at the time for such a major renovation.

Not mentioned in the text, although included as a 1911 structure, is a small three stall stable. The stable is tucked into the SW corner of the lot with the garages as appendages between it and the original house. It would seem odd to add a stable at that point in the history of the complex so again, although not specified, it may have already existed but necessarily was remodeled for continued family use. This is only speculation since the plans graphically document the many alterations while indicating the stable as new construction in 1911. The location juxtaposed with the garages is exactly where one would have put a stable in relation to the original house, and Wright must have had a horse or two for quite some time.

[DavidC]

Robie (1910) was built w/ an attached garage.


David

[SDR]

With Robie we are reminded that the client was the inventor of a motorcar. He is listed in Wright references as Frederick C Robie; could it be that this Wiki entry has his middle initial wrong ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robie_(automobile)

Here Robie's middle name is given as Carleton:

https://www.antiquemotorcycle.org/conte ... m_id=49868 He is said to have married Lora Hieronymous, daughter of the president of the Illinois National Bank, in 1902.

There is a photo of the car in one of the Robie books, as I recall.

S