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If you take a vacation in Chicago, it’s worth spending a day in Oak Park. The small town was the home of two cultural heavyweights – writer Ernest Hemingway and architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The two main points of interest for me were the Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum and the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio.
Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum
The Ernest Hemingway Birthplace Museum is the Victorian house where Hemingway was born in on July 21, 1899, and lived in until 1905. Admission is US$20 (as of March 2024) and tours are offered Thursday through Sunday. Tickets can be purchased in person but advance reservations are highly recommended. Tours last at least 45 minutes.
Most of the pieces in the house are not originals but are from the period. The guide did a fantastic job lecturing about the history of the house and Hemingway’s family. A highlight was his mother’s bedroom, where he was born.
At the time of my visit, the museum was located on the ground floor of the Oak Park Arts Center a couple blocks away. In 2017, it moved to a building next to the birthplace. The museum contains exhibits and artifacts from the great author’s life.
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio
The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, which was built in 1889, is a pleasant walk away from the Hemingway home. In the studio, he helped to develop the Prairie School of architecture.
Tours of the home are offered daily. They last about an hour and cost US$20 (as of March 2024). It’s highly recommended to reserve tour times in advance on the official website. You can also add on a self-guided audio tour of the neighborhood, which contains the largest number of Wright homes anywhere. This takes about 45 minutes and costs an extra US$10 (as of March 2024). I just missed the last tour of the day because I turned up a bit late.
Scoville Park
Scoville Park, near the Hemingway Museum, is a public park dedicated in 1912. There’s a monument dedicated to World War I soldiers in the park as well as a marker for the Continental Divide, showing the flow of water for the Great Lakes Watershed and the Mississippi Watershed.
Unity Temple
The Unity Temple, a Unitarian Universalist temple designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1908, is also in Oak Park. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to visit. Guided tours of this UNESCO World Heritage site are US$20 and run Monday through Friday, while self-guided audio tours are US$15 and run Monday through Saturday (as of March 2024). An in-depth tour of the building, including areas not usually open to the public, costs US$40 (as of March 2024) and is available on Saturdays only.
