Unique Bruce Goff-Designed Northfield Home Sells Above Asking

NORTHFIELD, IL — A Northfield home designed by the eclectic architect Bruce Goff in the late 1930s sold last week above its asking price. The sellers accepted an offer soon after it hit the market quickly and the deal closed just a month after the house was publicly listed.

The five-bedroom, two-bathroom home has nearly 3,100 square feet of living area on a nearly half-acre down a private driveway off Wagner Road. It features floor-to-ceiling walls at its corners, hardwood and parquet flooring. Outside there's a patio, fire pit and tennis court.

Its architect, Goff, began as an architect's apprentice in Tulsa, Oklahoma at age 12. He designed his first home at 14. And at 22, he gained an international reputation with the Art Deco design of the Boston Methodist Church. In 1934, Goff moved to Chicago and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts until the outbreak of World War II.

The recently sold Northfield home and another next door are among Goff's first residential design in Illinois to be completed, according to the Art Institute of Chicago's index of its archives of his work. It was designed over a four-year period for Mr. and Mrs. Chester E. Rant. The design of the neighboring home, built for Mr. and Mrs. George Elin, was completed in 1938. His other pre-war designs in the area included homes in Edison Park, Glenview and Park Ridge, according to the Art Institute.

Mrs. Rant and Mrs. Elin were sisters, according to Crain's Chicago Business, which first reported the sale. A few years after their home was completed, the Rants expanded on Goff's design, adding a garage and a second story. According to Crain's, they hired the the firm Perkins & Will, which had designed Winnetka's Crow Island School in 1940, to design the addition.

Built in 1939, the home was last purchased by Benjamin Cothran and Margaret Vondra for just under $500,000, according to property records. The Cook County Assessor's Office estimates its 2019 market value as about $453,000 for taxing purposes, and the home's property tax bill was under $10,000 last year. It was listed on Jan. 6 for just under $600,000. Four days later, a sale was listed as pending, and the transaction closed on Feb. 5 for $615,000.

More Recently Sold Homes In Northfield, Winnetka »

One of Goff's most notable designs in the Chicago area is the Ford House — also known as the "coal house" and the "round house" — was built in Aurora for Ruth Van Sickle Ford, an artist and the then-director of the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. It was designed in 1947, completed in 1950 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016. According to the city's website, it is one of the most significant homes in the city.

Curbed Chicago first reported the Northfield home's listing last month, noting the similarities between Goff's design and the Usonian style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Goff's colleagues in the drafting room at the Tulsa architecture firm where he began his career noted the similarities between his designs and Wright, according to a 1960 thesis on his life and work.

"Looking at these houses I got the biggest thrill I ever had. For the next two years I couldn't eat, sleep, or think anything but Frank Lloyd Wright," Goff said, according to the study. He began corresponding, and struck up a "long-time, indirect apprenticeship for Bruce and a life-long friendship between the two architects."

Goff was also a visual artist and composer, citing influences including Gaudi, Native American art and the music of Debussy, according to The Guardian. Contemporary critics had trouble with what to call it: "Critics of the era could not get a handle on him. Charles Jencks described him as 'the Michelangelo of kitsch'. Others described his work as organic, futuristic, or sci-fi. He was pop and postmodern before the terms existed. What’s more, not one of Goff's works resembles another, making him even harder to classify."

A 2018 New York Times Magazine piece suggested Goff's legacy has been largely forgotten for a few reasons: "his unfashionable taste for embellishment with what some would call junk; his indifference to branding and refusal to develop a signature style; and his being a gay man in the mid-20th century in less-than-progressive Oklahoma."

• Address: 210 Wagner Road, Northfield
• Built: 1939
• Lot Size: 0.44 acres
• Square Feet: 3,095
• Bedrooms: 5
• Bathrooms: 2 baths
• Last Sold: $500,000 in August 2001
• First Listed: $600,000 in January 2020
• Sale Closed: $615,000 in February 2020

Listing information originally appeared on realtor.com. For more information and photos, click here.