National Register of Historic Places

Hardy, Thomas P., House

Racine, Racine County, Wisconsin
Listed
December 3, 1974
Type
Building
Period
Industrial
Ref No.
74000120

About this property

The Thomas P. Hardy House is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Prairie School home in Racine, Wisconsin, United States, that was built in 1905. The street-facing side of the house is mostly stucco, giving the residents privacy from the nearby sidewalk and street, but the expansive windows on the other side open up to Lake Michigan. Perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan, the house is built vertically up and down the hillside, and has a partial basement. The design of the seven art glass windows on the first floor facing the street is an abstraction of the floorplan of the house itself. Most of the windows are either on the top level, or on the lake side. Not visible from the street side are the terrace, one story below street level, and the two-story living room which, with its upper-story balcony, opens the entire living quarters to the lake view. From 2013 to 2015, a renovation was completed on the home, including a color change back to its original terra cotta. This house demonstrates Wright's ability to fit a design to a site. Most of the homes on this street are quite close to the sidewalk, since the hill drops away from the street and towards the lake very quickly, but Wright's entryway for the Hardy house is literally at the line of the sidewalk. The house has been considered one of Wright's classics. Henry Russell Hitchcock writes "Other dramatic possibilities of steep sites above water for these winged… houses are to be found in the Johnson house at Delavan Lake [Wisconsin] and the Scudder project for one of the islands at the Sault.… But the masterpiece is the Hardy house of 1905 at Racine." Kenneth Frampton states "The Hardy House … is the purest formulation that Wright was ever to make of a symmetrical, frontalized house." National Register of Historic Places in Racine County, Wisconsin Hertzberg, Mark. Frank Lloyd Wright's Hardy House. Pomegranate, 2006, ISBN 0-7649-3761-8 (978-0-7649-3761-3). Storrer, William Allin (1993). The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-77624-8. (S.115) Hardy House - Frank Lloyd Wright Designed Buildings on Waymarking.com Table XV. Perspective of Hardy-House, Racine, Wisconsin

Location

1319 S. Main St.
Racine, Racine County, Wisconsin
42.71647, -87.78215

Categories

ARCHITECTURE
National Register nomination ›
Sources

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Nearby Historic Sites

Southside Historic District
Listed
0 mi
Hall, Chauncey, House
Industrial
0.1 mi
Cooley, Eli R., House
Industrial
0.2 mi
Johnson, S.C., and Son Administration Building and Research Tower
Industrial
0.5 mi
United Laymen Bible Student Tabernacle
Industrial
0.5 mi

Questions about this property

When was Hardy, Thomas P., House listed on the National Register?

Hardy, Thomas P., House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 3, 1974.

What type of historic resource is Hardy, Thomas P., House?

Hardy, Thomas P., House is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.

What is the period of significance for Hardy, Thomas P., House?

The period of significance for Hardy, Thomas P., House is recorded as the industrial era.

Can I research the history near Hardy, Thomas P., House?

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