Garden Homes Historic District

Garden Homes Historic District is a residential neighborhood in Chicago with 152 brick cottages and stucco duplexes that architect Charles Sumner Frost designed in 1919-1920. The homes sit on generous lots with plenty of space for each resident to garden.

Chicago businessmen including J. Ogden Armour and William Wrigley Jr. founded an organization in 1919 to create new homes for working families after World War I. This project was one of the first large-scale housing ventures of its kind in America.

The neighborhood shows how families in the 1920s wanted to escape crowded city living and build real homes with space around them. You can see this vision alive today in the way residents use their gardens and maintain their properties.

The area is easy to explore on foot, with convenient access to public transportation and downtown. Visitors should take time to look at individual home architecture and garden designs on the properties.

Each home was intentionally built with its own land for a garden, creating a continuous green system throughout the neighborhood. This idea was revolutionary at the time and set the project apart from tightly packed housing developments.

Location: Illinois

GPS coordinates: 41.73639,-87.62167

Latest update: December 14, 2025 14:20