Historic Modernist Winnetka Brick Mansion Sold, Will Be Preserved

WINNETKA, IL — A unique early example of European Modernist architecture on the North Shore sold for $1.45 million Thursday after being listed for just under $2 million last May. Built in 1926 on a 1.2-acre lot set between the lakefront and the center of the village, the home has only had two owners. The seller, Susanne Bush, had owned the home since 1954.

Distinctive features of the house include a second-floor "sleeping porch,"a glass sunroom in the master suite, two squash courts in the basement and an open stair to roof terraces on the third floor.

Its creator, Howard T. Fisher, was a Chicago architect active in the 1930s and 1940s. During the Great Depression he patented and sold affordable prefabricated houses marketed as, "A house that's twice as good at half the price."

Fisher's General Houses, Inc. showcased its model homes at the House of Tomorrow exhibits at the 1933 Century of Progress exhibition in Chicago. Featuring pressed steel panels on a concrete foundations, the homes could be put together by unskilled workers in about two weeks and sold for about $4,500 – about $87,000 in 2018 dollars. Sears, Roebuck & Co. worked with General Houses to build model homes in several Chicago suburbs in 1935 but the partnership was unsuccessful, and Fisher's company wound up producing fewer than 150 homes in total.

Fisher designed the three-story red brick home on Fisher Lane – family-owned land on which the architect himself would later build his own house – for the needs of his brother's family of eight, according to a 1997 article about the home from the Winnetka Historical Society.

The structure functioned as Fisher's thesis while an architectural student at Harvard, and he used it as an opportunity to introduce emerging elements of the European International style. Fisher described it as a "machine a habiter" – French for a "living machine" and a term used by other International Style architects of the time, according to the article from architectural historical Susan Benjamin.

Demolition had been a possibility the listing agent sought to avoid, she told Crain's Chicago Business, as the house needs a significant amount of work and has not been landmarked. But the new owners, an accountant and marketing executive with experience rehabbing homes who are moving from Virginia, plan more than $1 million in upgrades. Crain's reported they intend to expand the kitchen, master bath and laundry room and update other mechanical elements of the red brick house, the favorite of their two young daughters among all the houses they had considered.

• Address: 949 Fisher Ln, Winnetka, Illinois
• Price: $1,675,000
• Square Feet: 5,458
• Bedrooms: 7
• Bathrooms: 4 full, 1 half
• Built: 1927
• Listed: $1.95 million in May 2017
• Just Sold: $1.45 million in September 2018

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