1617 NE Thompson St Bold Prairie Style House Designed by John Virginius Bennes

Real estate investor Marcus Delahunt built this house in 1909 as a speculative venture.  Remarkably for such a project he hired one of Portland's most notable residential architects, John Virginius Bennes, who produced for this commission a definitive example of a Prairie Style home.  Bennes came to the U.S. as a boy from Czechoslovakia and grew up in Chicago, where it is believed that he worked for Frank Lloyd Wright.  After a few years practicing architecture in the gold-boom town of Baker, Oregon, he came to Portland in 1906, where he introduced the Prairie Style.  This is one of his earlier homes in the style, and the first one in Irvington.  Soon after the home's completion, it was purchased by Walter R. Hoover, who was a lumberman and real estate investor.

Bennes went on to design many notable buildings in Portland including the Cornelius Hotel downtown on Park Avenue and the landmark Hollywood Theater on Sandy Boulevard.  His work also includes many of the buildings on the Oregon State University campus at Corvallis.  (The 2002 Home Tour featured another Bennes-designed Prairie Style home)

One of the few indigenous American architectural styles, the Prairie Style developed in Chicago.  Frank Lloyd Wright is the best known exponent of this style.  The low pitched hipped roof, wide unsupported eaves, massive square porch supports, decorative planters, and banks of leaded glass casement windows are all defining characteristics of the Prairie Style.  The emphasis on the horizontal rather than the vertical elements of buildings reflects the flat prairie landscape that surrounds Chicago.

The house has a comfortable layout and a warm feeling.  Reproduction wallpapers grace many of the rooms.  The windows are thought to have been crafted by the Povey Brothers firm in Portland.  Most of the light fixtures, notably those in the living and dining rooms, are original.  These rooms also feature natural oak woodwork, mahogany-inlaid floors and molded plaster ceiling decoration.

Alterations to the house to accommodate a new kitchen and downstairs bathroom have been executed without any visible disruption to the historic woodwork.  In fact, the beautiful oak cabinetry of the newly remodeled kitchen looks perfectly in place in this home.

Upstairs, four bedrooms look out onto a recently landscaped yard bordered by huge maples, giving the impression of living in a tree-house.