Excerpt from the upcoming book, Local Architecture Chicago, Vol. 1: Historic Beverly Hills-Morgan Park. Copyright Jennifer R. Kenny, 2019
Those building contractors who delivered ornamental concrete block houses in the early twentieth century went beyond most expectations for durable home design. Concrete block homes were modern innovations, using new construction processes and concrete materials. The blocks created solid, rough-faced exteriors, generating attention-grabbing design amid nearby frame homes. With concrete block construction, builders achieved lasting, rock-solid design for homeowners, giving new meaning to the phrase “a home is a one’s castle.”
Within a short time, between 1903 and 1910, contractors such as Palmer D. Diamond and the Morgan Park Concrete Company constructed concrete block homes in Beverly and in the Village of Morgan Park. Competitively priced from $2,500 to $3,000, a concrete block home offered low maintenance, masonry construction and two to three bedrooms that had once been cost-prohibitive to many new home buyers. The most common are two-story designs built by local contractors in popular house types such as the American Foursquare and Bungalow. The American Foursquare is the most prevalent design principally because it is believed that the boxlike form of the Foursquare lent itself well to the uniform, rectangular blocks.
Although concrete is a building material used throughout history, the use of concrete in home building gained tremendous popularity after 1900, when Portland cement became widely available in the United States and concrete methods were improved. Concrete was a good alternative to brick or stone, inexpensive, fireproof, and very durable. The concrete block industry has its origins in 1899, when Chicagoan Harmon S. Palmer first patented a cast-iron concrete block machine that allowed for the mass production of block for use in construction.[i] These early hand-operated machines made single, rectangular blocks. Often crushed aggregate was added to concrete to give it texture. Sometimes mineral pigments such as iron oxide or aggregate were added to achieve the coloration of stone. When molded, the block could be faced to have a rusticated appearance to imitate stone or could be pressed into a number of ornamental designs such as rope, wreath, or scroll using a face plate inserted into the machine.
Although builders could purchase concrete blocks from a local supplier, concrete blocks could also be made by an individual on site. Ready-mixed concrete was not available until 1913, so the concrete was mixed first on site and the poured into the block machine. Machine manufacturers and catalog retailers actively promoted the product to do-it-yourselfers and small-scale contractors and developers, and for this reason concrete block construction escalated in the 1900s. Many concrete block homes were built by local contractors, although a number of plan-book and catalog companies, such as Sears and Radford, offered their own designs in concrete block.
Local building contractor Palmer D. Diamond (b. 1871, Illinois—d. November 25, 1930, Orange County, California) is associated with many concrete block homes in Beverly–Morgan Park.[ii] Hoping to seize upon a new trend in modern concrete construction, Diamond constructed at least nine homes in the area, including his own home and castle-like garage at 2211 W. 110th Street, then known as 2249 Arlington Avenue. Near Diamond’s home are other concrete block designs just east of Western between 108th Street and 113th Street. Experimental types of residential construction for middle-income home buyers seemed to fascinate Diamond. When concrete block homes fell out of fashion in the neighborhood, he went on to be the exclusive franchiser of American System-Built Homes in 1917 on Chicago’s South Side and also in Riverside and Hollywood, California. Only lasting one year of production, these quality and affordable homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright could be purchased and erected anywhere in the country using machine-produced and standardized materials. When Diamond further expanded his real estate interests in California, he sold his house on 110th Street in 1924 and relocated to Orange County, where he passed away in 1930.
Today, twenty known concrete block residences and one garage are still
standing in Beverly–Morgan Park, and many other homes in the neighborhood have
concrete block foundations or concrete block elements. Although changing tastes
and new technologies brought an end to the early-twentieth-century concrete
block house, the homes below remain as a testament to the durability and longevity
of this building material.
[i] United States Patent Office. Harmon S. Palmer of Chicago, Illinois. Machine for Molding Hollow Concrete Building Blocks. Patent No. 623,686. April 25, 1899.
[ii] Palmer Diamond established his “concrete-stone” works at 111th Street and the Chicago Terminal Transfer Railroad Tracks in 1906. “General News Items.” Morgan Park Post. June 9, 1906, p. 2.