The program for this house started with the raising of two individual houses on four city lots.  This was an exciting yet somewhat ambitious task.  The challenge was twofold.  First, the house must be sited properly to not impose on a block where our site would be twice as large as any other on the street.  Secondly, the house needed to also weave into the overall fabric of the neighborhood.  Jules took inspiration from a house built one block south, circa 1910, where Jacques Benedict created a small country home.  The inspiration house, like Jules, would be built on what would later become four city lots, with typical Washington Park bungalows sprouting up around it as the years passed.  We imagined our new residence would have once sat out on the open prairie, 100 years ago.  Just down the lane would have been the Benedict house.  The “close” neighbors would have been the only two houses on the hill overlooking the newly developed Washington Park.  Our clients brought inspiration from the formality of a center hall idea with a mild Georgian expression. It would seem quite modest in comparison to the mansions being built around the time on Grant Street.  The idea and fantasy became so real that once the reclaimed bricks were placed on the newly framed house, the site looked as if we were rejuvenating an old country house from yester year.