1925 - J William Beckman House - IN
Posted: Mon Jan 20, 2020 11:55 pm
Hello all, I’ve had a few posts on the forum already so I figured it would be helpful to introduce the house as a whole so you can all see the bigger picture. Please excuse the long post, this is also the first time that I am summarizing all of my research.
The house was built for John William Beckman (1867-1946) and Mary Rabe Beckman (1877-1967) and their daughter Helen (1908-2007). William and Mary were first generation Americans with families of German Heritage. William was from a family of farmers who first settled in Michigan then moved to a town in central Lake County Indiana. I know less about Mary’s family, but by 1900 they were living in a town south of Chicago which would eventually become a south Chicago suburb. William and Mary married in 1902, and initially lived in the southeast side of Chicago. William held various clerk and book keeping jobs before partnering with his brother Herman to form the Beckman Supply Company in 1904 in downtown Hammond, Indiana. He would become president and sole owner of the company after the death of his brother to tuberculosis in 1923. The company sold raw building products such as brick, concrete, plaster, and stucco, and starting in the 1910s also provided coal to many area homes.
The Beckman’s built their first house in Hammond in 1913, which had many similarities to their current home, but it was wedged sideways on a city lot. As the city annexed farms south of the prior borders starting around 1915, there was new push to develop these farms into fashionable neighborhoods. The Paxton family, owners of a local lumber company purchased one of these farms, set aside several acres for their own mansion, and then commissioned local Developers Martin and Woods to form a new neighborhood out of the remaining land. The streets were put in around 1921, and by the mid-twenties construction was underway on several houses. The Beckman family purchased a lot directly “behind” the Paxton estate, received their permit for the new house in February 1925, and were moved in by August.
Stylistically, the house is very much an eclectic mix of Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival with some prairie and arts and crafts undertones mixed in. Maybe Neoclassical would simply be the best term for it. It has what I think is a fascinating sense of refinement and consistency in the way that all of the parts are put together, and how it makes the best of proportions and sparing use of ornament. Inside, it’s defined by generous sized rooms, a very formal yet open arrangement of spaces, and a general preference to space and design over function.
By the time of the house’s completion, William was 58. Mary 48, and Helen was 17. She would soon leave for Miami Ohio to attend school Western College for Women in Oxford, OH and continued her studies at Simmons University in Boston. It was there that she met Albert Kaye (1909-1997) who was attending MIT for a master’s and doctorate in chemistry. Two days after Christmas in 1934, the two were married in the Beckman House. The ceremony was held in the living room in front of the fireplace while a string quartet played in the foyer and dinner followed in the dining room. They returned soon after to Boston, but moved back to Hammond after Albert finished his education. They raised their three children in a house just two blocks from their parents. He worked as a metallurgist in Chicago, then briefly commuting by plane to Pittsburgh for a similar position until 1946. Then, with William’s health failing due to a heart condition, Albert took over as head of the Beckman Supply Co.
According to their son, Albert and Helen moved back in to the Beckman house in the mid to late 1950swith Helen’s aging mother (who was now confined to living in a small room off the kitchen as she could no longer manage the stairs). All of their children were by that time in college or soon to be headed to college. Albert upgraded many of the house’s systems while living there, including installing chillers in the basement that used water from the house’s original well for air conditioning, converting the original steam boiler to gas, replacing the first floor radiators with baseboard units, remodeling the kitchen, and electrifying and automating the house’s original carriage house doors. But the overall appearance of the house remained unchanged, and apparently much of the original furnishings and contents remained with the house through the 1990s.
In 1965 the Backman Supply Co. closed its doors. The land was sold off to the city for urban renewal in development of public housing. Interestingly, Albert Kaye was at the time serving on the Hammond Redevelopment Commission who was instrumental in creating the renewal plan. In his retirement, Albert served in other community posts such as the Hammond school board. Following his death in 1997, Helen lived in the house for just two more years before the house was put up for sale and she moved into assisted living facility in a neighboring city.
The house was purchase by a Chicago interior designer of some acclaim. He retained much of the original material of the house but made some significant alterations. On the exterior he made the first major change in color scheme since the house was built: trading a long history of cream and pale yellow trim colors for a deep purple. The original electrified wood trifold garage doors were also changed out for modern overhead doors. Inside, the two original bathrooms were gutted and fully remodeled (they may have possibly been remodeled also in the early 60s), the 1950s kitchen was upgraded, the foyer’s wood floor was replaced with black and white marble, and all of the home’s woodwork was painted off-white. Faux wainscoting was added to most of the rooms, the sunroom fireplace was completely fashioned in the Adams style, and the other two fireplaces received upgrades with paint and marble. Each room was festooned with bold wallpaper prints, heavy drapery, and wall-to-wall carpet. While all of these changes were tasteful, and even got it featured in a national publication, I feel that many of them dulled or obscured the original feel of the house. We’ve also realized that he mostly focused on how the house looked, at put less effort in keeping it’s systems and envelope in good shape.
The house went on and off the market between 2010 and 2015 before being foreclosed upon in 2018 and sitting vacant for half of a year. This is where we entered the picture. We were already Hammond residents of a couple years and had put our late 40s rambling “English cottage” on the market while attempting to purchase a different house. When that offer fell through with our house not finding a buyer it time, we set our eyes on this one. The timing just ended up being perfect, as we secured a buyer on our house a week before this one came on the market. It’s really just by luck that we managed to get the home too, as the seller’s agent was determined to get one of their own clients in the house, and had no problem bending ethic to do so. Then the day after our offer was accepted the copper downspouts and several lengths of gutter were stolen from the house.
Since moving in we have taken on many projects. In the first autumn we rebuilt the crumbling masonry parapet on the garage and got rid of all of that evil ivy that was climbing on the back and sides of the house, brought the main electrical into compliance, re-roofed the “flat” roofed garage and rear wing, Tuckpointed the main chimney, and pulled out all of the carpets. Last year we had stripped and refinished almost all of the doors that are original doors to the house, a handful of windows, and select trim and staircase elements in the foyer and back hall, had major repairs done to the clay tile roof (see my previous posts), stripped the brick on the master bedroom fireplace, and started on the painting and decorating to the interior. This year we plan to start refinishing floors (they are in generally good shape, but the finish is worn thin and there are paint splatters everywhere) and work on repairing and repainting the wood windows, most of which are in good condition, but are painted shut and the glazing compound and exterior paint is well past replacing). Honestly, we’ve been hiring out most of the work, but I have been taking on small projects as my time permits. As a restoration architect, I find much of this fascinating, but I don’t work on residential projects through work, and at 7 years experience, I’m still fairly “green.”
Recently we also managed to track down the prior owner and two of the grandchildren from the original family. The prior owner said that he left the house’s drawings and documents with the house, but they weren’t found when we bought it, which is very unfortunate. But we have since heard that he dug up another copy. One of the great mysteries has been who designed this house. I have my thoughts, and the son thought it was someone of some renown, but we haven’t found any definitive records. He has also said that he would share his photos from his renovations and what the house looked like when he purchased it. We’ve also talked to the grandchildren, who never lived in the house full time, but thought they might be able to dig up some things in their records, such as photos from their parents’ wedding.
Hope you are all still with me after that book. Thanks for all of the insight so far, and I hope to be here a while.
The house was built for John William Beckman (1867-1946) and Mary Rabe Beckman (1877-1967) and their daughter Helen (1908-2007). William and Mary were first generation Americans with families of German Heritage. William was from a family of farmers who first settled in Michigan then moved to a town in central Lake County Indiana. I know less about Mary’s family, but by 1900 they were living in a town south of Chicago which would eventually become a south Chicago suburb. William and Mary married in 1902, and initially lived in the southeast side of Chicago. William held various clerk and book keeping jobs before partnering with his brother Herman to form the Beckman Supply Company in 1904 in downtown Hammond, Indiana. He would become president and sole owner of the company after the death of his brother to tuberculosis in 1923. The company sold raw building products such as brick, concrete, plaster, and stucco, and starting in the 1910s also provided coal to many area homes.
The Beckman’s built their first house in Hammond in 1913, which had many similarities to their current home, but it was wedged sideways on a city lot. As the city annexed farms south of the prior borders starting around 1915, there was new push to develop these farms into fashionable neighborhoods. The Paxton family, owners of a local lumber company purchased one of these farms, set aside several acres for their own mansion, and then commissioned local Developers Martin and Woods to form a new neighborhood out of the remaining land. The streets were put in around 1921, and by the mid-twenties construction was underway on several houses. The Beckman family purchased a lot directly “behind” the Paxton estate, received their permit for the new house in February 1925, and were moved in by August.
Stylistically, the house is very much an eclectic mix of Renaissance Revival and Colonial Revival with some prairie and arts and crafts undertones mixed in. Maybe Neoclassical would simply be the best term for it. It has what I think is a fascinating sense of refinement and consistency in the way that all of the parts are put together, and how it makes the best of proportions and sparing use of ornament. Inside, it’s defined by generous sized rooms, a very formal yet open arrangement of spaces, and a general preference to space and design over function.
By the time of the house’s completion, William was 58. Mary 48, and Helen was 17. She would soon leave for Miami Ohio to attend school Western College for Women in Oxford, OH and continued her studies at Simmons University in Boston. It was there that she met Albert Kaye (1909-1997) who was attending MIT for a master’s and doctorate in chemistry. Two days after Christmas in 1934, the two were married in the Beckman House. The ceremony was held in the living room in front of the fireplace while a string quartet played in the foyer and dinner followed in the dining room. They returned soon after to Boston, but moved back to Hammond after Albert finished his education. They raised their three children in a house just two blocks from their parents. He worked as a metallurgist in Chicago, then briefly commuting by plane to Pittsburgh for a similar position until 1946. Then, with William’s health failing due to a heart condition, Albert took over as head of the Beckman Supply Co.
According to their son, Albert and Helen moved back in to the Beckman house in the mid to late 1950swith Helen’s aging mother (who was now confined to living in a small room off the kitchen as she could no longer manage the stairs). All of their children were by that time in college or soon to be headed to college. Albert upgraded many of the house’s systems while living there, including installing chillers in the basement that used water from the house’s original well for air conditioning, converting the original steam boiler to gas, replacing the first floor radiators with baseboard units, remodeling the kitchen, and electrifying and automating the house’s original carriage house doors. But the overall appearance of the house remained unchanged, and apparently much of the original furnishings and contents remained with the house through the 1990s.
In 1965 the Backman Supply Co. closed its doors. The land was sold off to the city for urban renewal in development of public housing. Interestingly, Albert Kaye was at the time serving on the Hammond Redevelopment Commission who was instrumental in creating the renewal plan. In his retirement, Albert served in other community posts such as the Hammond school board. Following his death in 1997, Helen lived in the house for just two more years before the house was put up for sale and she moved into assisted living facility in a neighboring city.
The house was purchase by a Chicago interior designer of some acclaim. He retained much of the original material of the house but made some significant alterations. On the exterior he made the first major change in color scheme since the house was built: trading a long history of cream and pale yellow trim colors for a deep purple. The original electrified wood trifold garage doors were also changed out for modern overhead doors. Inside, the two original bathrooms were gutted and fully remodeled (they may have possibly been remodeled also in the early 60s), the 1950s kitchen was upgraded, the foyer’s wood floor was replaced with black and white marble, and all of the home’s woodwork was painted off-white. Faux wainscoting was added to most of the rooms, the sunroom fireplace was completely fashioned in the Adams style, and the other two fireplaces received upgrades with paint and marble. Each room was festooned with bold wallpaper prints, heavy drapery, and wall-to-wall carpet. While all of these changes were tasteful, and even got it featured in a national publication, I feel that many of them dulled or obscured the original feel of the house. We’ve also realized that he mostly focused on how the house looked, at put less effort in keeping it’s systems and envelope in good shape.
The house went on and off the market between 2010 and 2015 before being foreclosed upon in 2018 and sitting vacant for half of a year. This is where we entered the picture. We were already Hammond residents of a couple years and had put our late 40s rambling “English cottage” on the market while attempting to purchase a different house. When that offer fell through with our house not finding a buyer it time, we set our eyes on this one. The timing just ended up being perfect, as we secured a buyer on our house a week before this one came on the market. It’s really just by luck that we managed to get the home too, as the seller’s agent was determined to get one of their own clients in the house, and had no problem bending ethic to do so. Then the day after our offer was accepted the copper downspouts and several lengths of gutter were stolen from the house.
Since moving in we have taken on many projects. In the first autumn we rebuilt the crumbling masonry parapet on the garage and got rid of all of that evil ivy that was climbing on the back and sides of the house, brought the main electrical into compliance, re-roofed the “flat” roofed garage and rear wing, Tuckpointed the main chimney, and pulled out all of the carpets. Last year we had stripped and refinished almost all of the doors that are original doors to the house, a handful of windows, and select trim and staircase elements in the foyer and back hall, had major repairs done to the clay tile roof (see my previous posts), stripped the brick on the master bedroom fireplace, and started on the painting and decorating to the interior. This year we plan to start refinishing floors (they are in generally good shape, but the finish is worn thin and there are paint splatters everywhere) and work on repairing and repainting the wood windows, most of which are in good condition, but are painted shut and the glazing compound and exterior paint is well past replacing). Honestly, we’ve been hiring out most of the work, but I have been taking on small projects as my time permits. As a restoration architect, I find much of this fascinating, but I don’t work on residential projects through work, and at 7 years experience, I’m still fairly “green.”
Recently we also managed to track down the prior owner and two of the grandchildren from the original family. The prior owner said that he left the house’s drawings and documents with the house, but they weren’t found when we bought it, which is very unfortunate. But we have since heard that he dug up another copy. One of the great mysteries has been who designed this house. I have my thoughts, and the son thought it was someone of some renown, but we haven’t found any definitive records. He has also said that he would share his photos from his renovations and what the house looked like when he purchased it. We’ve also talked to the grandchildren, who never lived in the house full time, but thought they might be able to dig up some things in their records, such as photos from their parents’ wedding.
Hope you are all still with me after that book. Thanks for all of the insight so far, and I hope to be here a while.