Running parallel and south of the I-90 Northwest Tollway, old US-20 approaches Chicago from the northwest past Schaumberg and O’Hare Airport, before bending south near Oak Park, Chicago’s most interesting suburb. Just 10 miles west of the Loop, easily reachable at the end of the Lake–Dan Ryan CTA “El” line, this sleepy but well-heeled neighborhood was the home and proving ground of America’s best-known architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio (daily; $8; 708/848-1976), at 951 Chicago Avenue, for a fascinating look into the life and work of the great architect. Take a guided tour of the house he designed, remodeling almost constantly between 1890 and 1910 as his practice, and his family, grew. He also completed many other buildings in this turn-of-the-20th-century suburb, including the austere classic Unity Temple.
Oak Park was also the boyhood home of Ernest Hemingway, and of contemporary writer Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
