Dart’s Home
Route 3, Stop 2
Description by Conor Libit
Name: Edward Dart house II
Address: 239 Oak Knoll Road
4 Bedrooms, 2.5 Bathrooms
Architect: Edward Dart
Built: 1956 with additions later
239 Oak Knoll is a concrete, glass and steel house built in 1956 by Ed Dart for himself and his family and he lived here until about 1964. The hub of this very liveable house is an "all-year porch" designed to add a sense of outdoor living and added space to the main areas of the house even during the harsh midwestern winters. One of the most striking features of the home is a glass atrium that houses a living tree. Originally designed as a 3-season porch and now enclosed in glass, this room provides a connection with the outdoors even in the depths of winter. The house is arranged in three levels to adapt to the slightly rolling, wooded site, and "to avoid the box-like aspect of the normal two-story house". The kitchen, dining, and family rooms are located on the main entry floor. Living room with fireplace and the study a half-flight of stairs down, bedrooms a half-flight up. This split level design was unique amongst the numerous houses Dart designed. A curved stair has been used to make an interesting connecting link to these split levels. The structure of the house is of steel and wood frame on concrete foundations. Throughout the house, Dart worked to bring the outside in with floor-to-ceiling windows, skylights, and using the exterior siding of the house on interior walls. A long dining room is set between two glass walls and the bedrooms, living room and upstairs hallway retain their original walnut cabinetry. The exterior is surfaced with local quarry stone, wood, and glass. Interiors have sand-finish plaster ceilings, walnut and plaster walls. Dart strategically extended the flat roof of the home in a few areas - sheltering guests from the weather in front of the north entrance, creating a covered walkway from the carpark to the north entrance, and shielding the bedrooms from the hot summer sun with a dramatic overhang extending over the eastern portion of the house.
The house was purchased in 2021 and is being updated by the current owner, whose aim is to modernize the house in the spirit of Dart’s vision.
The eastern portion of the house was added by the Darts in later years. Created of concrete with inset stone, this addition has a castle-like appearance with a single narrow window cutting through its concrete walls reminiscent of some of Dart’s later designs.
Can't Miss:
The curved staircase and built in furniture with skylights.
Low ceilings designed to direct your views to the outdoors.
A live mature tree in the atrium.
Oversized stone fireplace that extends from the exterior to the interior of the home.
Ed Dart Bio
By Barbara L. Benson
Since the early twentieth century, noted architects have designed residences, churches and the occasional public building in our area.
This tour focuses on that time when a number of these architects both lived and practiced in Barrington.
EDWARD D. DART was born in 1922 in New Orleans, Louisiana to parents of French descent. After school in New Orleans and at the Woodbury Forest School in Virginia, he entered the University of Virginia. Leaving after two years he enlisted in the Marines, and flew bombers in the Pacific in World War 11.
On January 19, 1946 he married Wilhelmina Plansoen, a Duke University Alumna.
After military service he enrolled in the Yale School of Architecture studying under Richard M Bennett. Graduating in 1949,he had also studied under Pietro Belluschi, Marcel Breuer, Richard Neutra, Louis Kahn, Eero Saarinen, Harold Spitznagel, and Paul Shweiker for whom he later worked in Roselle, Illinois, thus bringing him to this area.
In a prolific and distinguished career Dart became a Fellow of the AIA at 44, and garnered 18 AIA Awards. At Yale developed his personal design style of using natural materials, incorporating a building into its site with free flowing spaces.
Throughout his career, between 1949 and 1968, he designed 52 custom homes, 26 custom churches, and many commercial structures. His last and most challenging assignment was the design of Water Tower Place in Chicago. He died in July 1975 in his home in Barrington Hills. He, and later his wife Wilma are interred in St. Michael’s Church Columbarium, a church he designed and they attended.