Robert A. Millikan House
- Architect
- Thomas Tallmadge
- Year
- 1907
- Style
- Prairie School
- City
- Chicago, IL
The Robert A. Millikan House at 5605 South Woodlawn Avenue in Hyde Park was home to physicist Robert A. Millikan from about 1908 to 1921, the years in which he carried out the Nobel Prize-winning work that later made him famous. Built around 1907 by the Chicago firm Tallmadge & Watson, the three-story brick house was designated a National Historic Landmark on May 11, 1976, in recognition of Millikan's residency.
the building
Prairie form, Tudor trim. The house is one of three adjacent Tallmadge & Watson designs built around 1907, with a broad Prairie-style profile and slightly projecting gabled sections near each end. The full third floor and the second level of the off-center entrance section are finished in Tudor-style half-timbering, an unusual pairing with the horizontal brick massing below.
the style
The house works in the Prairie idiom common to Hyde Park in the early 1900s, but departs from strict Prairie plainness by finishing its upper floors in Tudor-style half-timbering rather than plain stucco or brick, giving the roofline a more historicist look above the horizontal brick base.
More on Prairie Schoolthe architect
Thomas Tallmadge practiced with Vernon Watson as Tallmadge & Watson, a Chicago firm active in the early twentieth century; this house was one of three the firm designed together on this stretch of Woodlawn Avenue around 1907.
significance
The house earned National Historic Landmark status on May 11, 1976, based on its association with Robert Millikan's residency rather than on its architecture alone -- the years he lived here were when he performed the work that led to his Nobel Prize.
nearby
- Hyde Park Union Church
- Arthur H. Compton House
- Keck-Gottschalk-Keck Apartments
- Frederick C. Robie House
- St. Thomas Church and Convent
- Snell–Hitchcock