Fred C. Beeson House #4

“The Inter Ocean proclaimed it "the finest structure of the kind of the whole range of Chicago suburbs." The article noted in particular the exterior stained shingles "in the style much in vogue in Eastern suburban structures." Schock's commission was likely facilitated by Henry W. Austin who provided funding for the effort.”

“Schock was a particularly skillful interpreter of popular residential styles and has a significant body of work throughout Chicago and its suburbs, much of which still remains. Austin resident Frederick R. Schock was a prolific architect, especially in the Austin community, and the grand scale, style, and quality of his designs for residential as well as institutional and commercial buildings helped to give the “railroad suburb” its distinctive identity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”

“Inside the ground floor was a series of open, ornate, formal rooms, each of which could double as a showroom for the various wood veneers Beeson sold. Continuing to serve with Schock as an elected officer of The Oaks, Beeson had room to entertain his fellow members and their families in grand style with the ballroom he had built on the third floor.”

“In 1887, when Schock designed one of Austin's most prominent community buildings, the combined Oaks Club and Austin Library, he chose to employ his unique brand of Shingle style.”

“They also illustrate the richness and creativity of Chicago's architectural community around the turn of the twentieth century. At the same time architecture firms like Adler and Sullivan were adapting traditional architecture to create a "new" American architecture, Frederick R. Schock was experimenting with the ornate Queen Anne style, at times simplifying and abstracting it as the Shingle style took shape, work reflected in Beeson House #2.”

“Other aspects are common only to Colonial Revival homes, such as the paired windows. Beeson House #4 exhibits some interesting stylistic features that are outside the realm of Colonial Revival and its antecedents as well, namely those borrowed from the vocabulary of the American Craftsman and Prairie styles which dominated the first decades of the century.”

“The depot would have been within walking distance of Beeson's new home and the line ran along Kinzie Street in Chicago past the factory where Beeson worked. Beeson, one of eight children born to English immigrants in 1859, may well have envisioned a large family when he married Agnes B. McGuigan in 1879.”

“The construction of 5830 West Midway Park by Chicago factory executive and owner Fred C. Beeson reflects the economic and social character of the "railroad suburbs" that developed at the edges of Chicago in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”

“Real estate developers like Henry W. Austin promoted their area's large lots, distance from the city's congestion and pollution, and excellent transportation to attract executives and professionals like Fred C. Beeson and architect Frederick R. Schock from the city.”