Had the opportunity Sunday to drop by an open house for the Ben Rose estate in Highland Park, IL, which many of you may recall as Cameron's house in John Hughes' classic teen flick Ferris Bueler's Day Off -- and the site of the coolest Ferrari wreck ever.
The estate itself consists of two buildings, the main residence (seen above) and a matching glass & steel pavilion perched above a ravine near Lake Michigan. Believe it or not, this ultramodern was built 56 years ago; its architect, A. James Speyer, was a teacher at Illinois Institute of Technology and a student of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. An obvious influence here was Mies' Farnsworth House. The Rose home was only one of a handful buildings designed by Speyer, who in 1961 became Curator of the modern art collection at the Art Institute of Chicago. Inside lies a time capsule of postwar ultracool.
Vintage Harmon Kardon hi-fi, topped with LPs of Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz. Next to it: Eames plywood divider.
Huge bas relief Buddhist carving, from Angkor Wat or something.
Straight from the set of "Mad Men."
One of the basic tenets of Modernist architecture is to erase the boundary between inside and outside. Here's a view from the study.
Ben Rose, the man who commissioned Speyer to design the house and who lived in it for over 50 years, was a photographer who ended up making his fortune in textile design, some of it influenced by primitive art.
But the part of the home most familiar to movie fans is the pavilion out back, a stunning one-room glass box where Ferris and Cameron tried to roll back the odometer on the Ferrari 250 GTO.
Inside: whaddaya know? A vintage 60s Bentley awaits.
The pavilion was originally built as a studio and entertaining spot...
...but Ben Rose also utilized it as a garage for his collection of Bugattis and British sports cars. Some of his car memorabilia and trophies:
And here is the famous window through which sailed Mr. Frye's Ferrari...
And the 40' ravine into which it subsequently plummeted.
Sigh. If only there were a Ferrari handy. Hey, what's that red thing out there on the bridge?
Awesome! This F430 will make a dandy star for a plunge re-enactment. I am Abe Froman, Sausage King of Chicago! Now to fetch my slim jim and hotwiring tools...
Crap, too late. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to cut through some back yards and get back in bed before my parents get home from work.
You're still here?
It's over, go home. Go.
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Update: my Chicagoland car buddy Jim F writes:
About 10 years ago the local race group had an event at the house. Rick and I both were there. At that time, Ben had his Cisitalia 202, 1947 HRG, 1927 Bugatti 35B, ex-Mille Miglia 1931 Alfa Romeo 1750 Testa Fisa and some other lesser exotics.
Prior to that Ben had given me a ride for a number of laps around Grattan race track in the Bugatti...it handled well for a 70 yo car on skinny tires.
Ben's wife told us the story why they gave permission to use the house in the movie... Which i can relate now... They always had problems getting someone to clean the windows...your local services do not have the equipment to clean windows looking over a 40 foot ravine...so when the movie company asked for permission to use the house and garage...she asked, will you clean all the windows if we let you use it...and that was the deciding factor.
BTW Ben (and his brother who also collected) had a real Ferrari 250 California Spyder like the one used in the movie...they owned it in the early 70s...bought it for 8K, sold it for 12K, thought they made a killing...of course by then late 80s they were close to $1 mill...
Ben also was quite a modern art collector.. At the time we were there, there was original modern sculpture, an original Jackson Pollack and other similar contemporary art.
