April 2012

By now, you’re aware of the announcement that The Youth Campus, located at 733 N. Prospect in Park Ridge, has closed its residential complex and will consolidate operations at its Chicago office. For 104 years, The Youth Campus and its predecessor organizations, beginning with the Illinois Industrial School for Girls, have provided services for children and teens in need at its Park Ridge campus. Conceived by social activists Hannah Greenebaum Solomon and Jane Addams, the complex of “English Cottages” (designed by Holabird and Root in 1908) was an alternative to the larger buildings commonly used to house orphans. The Society respects and salutes its friends at The Youth Campus for its legacy and continued commitment to serving youths in the Chicagoland area.

We extend our appreciation to life-long Park Ridge resident John Sasser for providing opportunities to the Society, as well as other local not-for-profit organizations, to present programs and events within the spaces of the Park Ridge Nonprofit Center (PRNC). In 2008, Mr. Sasser purchased the historic building at 720 Garden Street. At that time, it appeared that the building might be demolished to make way for a low-rise office building. Mr. Sasser has configure the interior spaces to realize his vision of a multi-tenant nonprofit center in Park Ridge, a place in town where local not-for-profit organizations find a place to call home as needed, in shared space partnerships. According to the Nonprofit Centers Network, multi-tenant nonprofit centers are buildings that house multiple organizations and provide economic, quality, mission-enhancing workspace. The Society has rented The Great Room in the PRNC recently for its Homecoming Reception in March and parlor meeting in February. More information about the PRNC can be found at its website, www.parkridgenonprofitcenter.org.

The most famous use of this building, within living memory, was as The Pantry Restaurant, during the years 1945-1966. The PRNC building was recently accorded status as a Park Ridge Landmark by the City Council, and is one of seven such sites in town.

The June, 1948 photo here shows the detail of the north side of the original building addition designed by architect Frank McCaughey when The Pantry Restaurant relocated from Northwest Highway to 720 Garden Street. This detail was covered in a long-ago addition to the building. Note camera perspective, as this photo was recorded during construction of the new Middle States Telephone Company Building across Fairview from The Pantry.

At the end of the Second World War, the population of Park Ridge was less than 15,000 residents. During the next 25 years, over 25,000 residents were added to our community. This growth was primarily a result of large areas annexed into Park Ridge and the subdivision of these lands into building lots. Roughly 6,000 single family homes were constructed during this period (As a point of reference, there are presently 10,000 single family houses in Park Ridge). Most of these homes were constructed in large subdivisions by large residential developers, such as McDonalds and MichaelJohn Terrace
. Many homes were also built by general contractors on scattered lots in Park Ridge. The exceptions to these practices were the wonderful homes designed for individual clients by residential architects. One of these architects was Louis Huebner.

In some circles he was probably as well known for his paintings as he was for architecture. Mr. Huebner’s hobby was watercolor painting, and he was an exhibitor at the Park Ridge Art Fair every June with his booth located on Courtland Avenue near the corner of Prospect Avenue. The subjects for his painting were diverse, including rural settings, covered bridges, barns, colorful prints of the southern United States and Park Ridge landmarks. Mr. Huebner’s Park Ridge houses can be divided into two periods. The first period was the 1950s, with relatively modest homes, and the second primarily in the 1960s, when he was in partnership with James Henneberg. The later houses tended to be larger and more diverse in their design. In all Mr. Huebner designed fourteen single family residences in Park Ridge. His first five houses are located west of Dee Road, near Sibley Avenue.

Mr. Huebner’s first residence was his own, built in 1950 and located on Wesley Avenue (pictured). The remaining four were completed in the early part of the decade. All of these homes were modest by today’s standards–1,000 to 1,500 square feet in area. They were one story in height and had flat or shallow sloping roofs, a carport or one car garage, primarily sided with wood and tended to have large windows in the front and back. One of these residences was demolished during the “tear down” period of several years ago and another has been substantially remodeled. In 1959, Mr. Huebner designed a second home for himself. This one was located on Prairie Ave-nue (pictured): a distinctively modern house with a curving roof line and flat roof over the garage and master bedroom. This began his second body of work in Park Ridge, which includes an additional eight houses, of which all but one were designed in partnership with James Henneberg. For the most part these houses are located in the southwest section of Park Ridge – south of Touhy Avenue and west of Greenwood Avenue. The architecture of these homes includes a red brick Georgian, an English Tudor, an Asian influenced style, a modern design on Park Lake and several which contained traditional forms with decidedly modern interpretations. For the most part those residences were larger in size (generally more than 2,500 square feet) and were two stories in height. All but one had two car garages, with at least one that had a three car garage. In addition to these single family residences, Mr. Huebner did several additions to existing homes.