1925 - J William Beckman House - IN

[A.Fox]

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.

IMG_20181106_064621079_HDR Adjust.jpg (2.4 MiB) Viewed 2090 times

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.

20200101_105359.jpg (2.23 MiB) Viewed 2090 times

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.

7596244032_IMG_1988 Adjust.jpg (1.2 MiB) Viewed 2090 times

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.”

7518596848_IMG_0620.JPG (1.96 MiB) Viewed 2090 times

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.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Happy to see it in its entirety! Very nice!

You're right to call it "Eclectic". As you noted, there are elements of Colonial, Neoclassical/Renaissance, Spanish, and Prairie styles present. That's one thing I love about early 20th Century residential architecture - so much of it is impossible to put into a single category.

I'm sorry to hear that a previous owner removed the original garage doors, painted woodwork, and gutted two possibly original bathrooms. The 1990s and 2000s were not kind to houses built in the first quarter of the 20th Century.

If you are able to get copies of the original blueprints, the architect's name should be on them. You may also try the city/county records and local newspaper archives from the Spring and Summer of 1925. You may get lucky. We are in the same boat where we think we know the architect who designed our house, as there are several known houses and buildings around here that have been attributed to this person and our house shares several elements he liked to use; however, the blueprints to our house and all others disappeared in 1931 when the developer that built our neighborhood went under due to the Great Depression and all the records were destroyed.

[A.Fox]

1918, our street is a like reading a textbook on the eclectic revival styles. To the north we have a French Eclectic, to the south a half timbered Tudor Revival, the Paxton house across the street is full Renaissance Revival, next to it is an all stone and slate Tudor Revival. In the next block there's a couple Spanish Revival houses, a Cotswold house with rolling shingle roof, and a few variants on Colonial Revival. Ours is possibly the hardest to put a label upon. It doesn't seem have enough defining features of any particular prevailing style.

One of the curiosities I've had with our house related to it's eclecticism is a little bleached out by the glare in my close up photo of the portico. Perched between the arms of the broken pediment, where there usually would be a pineapple, urn, or artichoke is instead a blank crest surrounded by curls of leaves and topped with a knight's helmet and a arm holding a sword as if it had been plucked off some English manor house. It's an interesting reference to Tudor revival that doesn't really repeat anywhere else. It's also interesting to note that all of the exterior "stonework" is actually a precast concrete that uses what I think is crushed up red granite as its aggregate. Perhaps that was a Beckman Supply Co. product.

The blueprints have been a bit of an emotional roller coaster over the last month. When we first got contact with the owner he said that that they were still in the house and that if he visited he would show us where they are. That had me checking any possible hiding place that I could imagine in the house. When he clarified that they had been kept in a fireproof box that we had obviously never seen, we were very disappointed that they were likely tossed or taken by someone involved with the bank or the sale of the house. We just heard that he had located another copy, now if only we can get him to unroll them and tell us who's name is printed on them. the answer is so close!

I haven't had much luck with local records so far, though it was through a few newspaper articles that I was able to nail down the permit and move-in dates in 1925, versus the 1924 date that the tax assessor has on record.

[Gothichome]

If I may add my two cents worth (Canadian pennies of course) on first impression of the back garage corner my thoughts went to modernest styling. Mainly do I think to the box like massing between to home and the garage.

[A.Fox]

Here's some more photos showing what the was like when we first saw it. Please excuse teh quality, as I only had my phone with me then. Someone with the bank's maintenance divisions had dropped the ball with the yard care and the lawn and landscaping were running wild (to the neighborhood's chagrin):

IMG_20180614_185538982_HDR.jpg (1.69 MiB) Viewed 2050 times

It wasn't until 2 days after closing that we were able to walk in through the front door, as it has two deadbolts, one of which could only be opened with a key that was not left with the house. No keys had been left with the house at all so either the bank or the utility company first tried to unsuccessfully drill out the mortise lock on the back door then resorted to kicking it in, in the process dislodging the door jamb and casing. They were able to get into the garage, which is attached to the home, but not interconnected, by breaking the mortise lock. Getting a locksmith that sort of knew what they were doing so we could unlock and lock the house in the short period before we had to move in was one of our first big headaches.

So our first impression of the house was it's back hall with peeling wallpaper, peeling paint, blistering plaster, and water stained carpet in a house that we thought was going to be fairly turn-key. Maybe we should have run away then!

IMG_20180714_132333293_HDR.jpg (763.96 KiB) Viewed 2050 times

If we had been able to enter through the front, we would have passed through a small 4'x4' vestibule through a second door and into the foyer:

IMG_20180613_154113745.jpg (537.38 KiB) Viewed 2050 times

IMG_20180721_062312806.jpg (1.53 MiB) Viewed 2050 times

We could tell from the several places where it wearing off the all of the original trim including the doors, casing, crown, and full staircase had once been unpainted. I could also tell by the trim profile and the way it had been installed that the faux wainscoting had been added. The black and white marble floor was also a definite addition and was one of the previous owner's design signatures. The doors were all burgundy latex over the prior ivory oil based, and you could literally grab an edge and start peeling the adhesion was so bad. The bronze or brass light I believe is one of the few original fixtures in the house.

IMG_20180714_132532650.jpg (1.6 MiB) Viewed 2050 times

IMG_20180613_150736394.jpg (1.33 MiB) Viewed 2050 times

The living room is generously sized and runs the depth of the house with windows overlooking both the front and back yard. Based on the paint buildup we believe the picture molding on that breaks the walls into individual segments to be original. The mantle is as well, even as it is subdued by the ivory paint. The black granite on the surround is laminated right over the brown marble, a little of which is still visible inside the firebox, and the hearth was formerly red quary tile like master bedroom hearth. I'm looking forward to the day when the "Tuscan" ceiling lights go away, but we want to find out what the originals looked like first.

Also, that is a price tag hanging from the light, most likely from an action held right before the bank took possession. We are lucky that more was not stripped from the house.

IMG_20180613_150817062.jpg (1.62 MiB) Viewed 2050 times

IMG_20180613_150821931_HDR.jpg (428.07 KiB) Viewed 2050 times

The sun room has brick walls, though you can barely tell from the white paint and drapery. There is also a wallpaper boarder inset into the wood crown. Also here is some rare wood that escaped the paintbrush. On the other hand, we believe the firebox is the only original element of this fireplace. The over-mantle is hung on the wall like a picture with two screws. Peering down through the opening at the top of the pediment with a camera, I can just about see what looks like a recessed niche above the mantle, but the electrical for the two mantle outlets are running through it. We haven't decided what we are doing with this fireplace yet.

[A.Fox]

Gothichome, the view of the house from the driveway is one of my favorite. The way that the boiler chimney merges with the rear entrance, then steps down to the garage, and then to the section of basement that extends out past the footprint of the house (our well and storage tank are in there and coal was original loaded into the house through there) is all very interesting.

Modernism hadn't quite made it to America yet in the early 20s, but Wright and the Prairie School are very familiar around here. I think there is some influence of that here, even if unintentional.

[1918ColonialRevival]

One thing I've learned is that the tax assessor records were often composed years after the fact and the dates on them were largely based on memory or even random guesses. The tax record for our house says 1915, the city records say 1919 (which is when it was actually first sold), but we were able to date the construction to the late summer months of 1918 through carpenter's marks on a few pieces of wood in the walls, dates on original plumbing fixtures, and a couple of artifacts found when we opened walls to do plumbing work.

Perhaps the most interesting wall find was an embossed local pharmacy bottle with the paper label still affixed. According to the label, the bottle contained Dobell's solution, which was a popular oral antiseptic in the early 20th Century. It was heavily used in late 1918, as it was believed to reduce one's risk of contracting the deadly Spanish Influenza. The Spanish flu first appeared in this area in late September 1918 and by the first week of October, it was dealing a heavy blow. This would have been around the time the work on our house was being finished. It appears that at least one of the plaster workers was using it as a somewhat futile means of prevention.

I really hope the blueprints turn up. Unless that box was hidden in a good location, I'd be willing to bet someone from the bank made off with it, thinking it probably contained cash or jewelry.

[A.Fox]

Yep, maybe someday that box will turn up again...probably not in the house though.

There was a locally famous Tudor Revival house in our neighborhood that was foreclosed upon and left vacant for nearly a decade with the back door sitting unlocked while the mess of multiple mortgages, loans, and liens were cleared up. People were squatting in the house and many copper fittings and features dissapeared during that time. We found the original drawings, had them scanned and kept them stored away in our house. It's probably good that we did; just before the house finally came on the market everything that wasn't tied down inside was hauled away in a big dumpster.

We tried purchasing that house too, but we didn't stand much chance. The realtor had a top notch marketing scheme, got tons of hype, probably a hundred or more potential buyers and people who just wanted to look through in a single week, and the winning offer was twice the asking price, even though the house required at least $150k and/or a lot of personal labor before it was even fit for habitation. We handed the drawings over to the new owners as their housewarming gift.

[GinaC]

It looks like there is plenty of the original stuff left, and it is gorgeous! The windows look original, and if they are, that's a huge plus. Even if they aren't, if the PO had the new ones match the old ones, you're ahead of the game.

If you really do want to restore the bathrooms, old fixtures seem pretty easy to get.

[A.Fox]

Gina, all windows are original except the kitchen window, which is an all wood Marvin casement that's old enough that it has single pane glass. A total of 1 double hung and 6 casements actually functioned when we purchased the house. Now I think we are up to 5 and 9. Window restoration is supposed to be a large part of this year's projects. Glazing is in pretty poor condition overall, many are painted shut (or in some cases painted open), and several are missing or have broken ropes.

We also have all but 6 original doors and hardware (most lost were on closets, or removed from the kitchen area). The doors were made in Wisconsin by the Paine Lumber Company and were called the "Miracle door." They feature an early version of a plywood core with veneer for a large recessed panel that is only 1/2" thick and a full door assembly that is stable and doesn't split or crack. We've seen them in a few other houses in the neighborhood.

Bathroom restoration probably isn't happening anytime soon, at least not until we do everything else. They are actually pretty tasteful and neutral in their design.