Folk art flair

Combine Texan and Swedish styles and you get what can only be called a picturesque house with a strong feeling of folk art.

The home behind the pine-tree-shaped fence on a corner lot at 455 Birch St. in Winnetka is charming if eccentric.

Built in 1920 by Lola Maverick Lloyd, the house is for sale for just under $1.5 million, perhaps $1 million below the market value of the land.

The bargain price is based on protections in the form of easements and historic designations placed on the house and the land by former owners.

Not only can the home not be torn down or more homes built on the property, but many features of the interior must be maintained as they are.

These stipulations will be enforced by an Illinois nonprofit group interested in architectural preservation.

The many protected features include light sconces with shades carved from salad bowls in themes from nature -- including butterflies, flowers and mushrooms. Another type of sconce is carved in a rabbit shape.

Much of the artwork in the house is by Charles Haag, a Swedish immigrant renowned for his sculpture. Wood carving was his favorite form of art.

Few surfaces in this home escaped at least the touch of his knife -- including built-in beds and cabinets, decorated with everything from abstract shapes to pine cones, flowers, ducks and moose horns.

While the beds are to remain in the house, one in a downstairs room could be awkward. Permission to convert the bed to a desk could be obtained, said Howard Meyers of Baird & Warner in Winnetka, who with his wife, Susan, has the home listed for sale.

Lloyd, an artist as well as a social activist and a well-known international campaigner for peace during and after World War I, probably was involved in designing her house.

The mother of four children built the home with the help of Haag, a family friend, after her divorce from her husband, William Bross Lloyd, son of a prominent North Shore family.

Stepping in the front door, a visitor sees a two-story room with a railing along two walls creating a second-floor hallway. A fireplace of dark red brick stands beside the open staircase and near the middle of the large open space.

High up on a wall is a mural inspired by the family ranch, where Lloyd spent time although she was raised in St. Louis.

The mural of a cowboy, a woman with flowers, a horse, a steer and fowl, including a turkey, was painted by Lloyd's friend Dorothy Loeb, a collectibles artist from the Depression-era Works Progress Administration.

While this mural cannot be destroyed, a home buyer could arrange for a temporary canvas cover, Meyers said.

The home has three bedrooms on the first floor and two on the second, as well as 2½ bathrooms and two staircases. The kitchen and bathrooms can be remodeled, although some potential buyers have told Meyers they would keep the baths as they are.

Areas where a buyer could make changes include a large second-floor attic area that could be dormered and the basement.

Some of the windows are casements and others are little squares or quirky horizontal bands, including one with amber glass to mimic the morning sun from Lloyd's childhood days in the Southwest.

The golden stucco house with green and barn red trim sits on three regular Winnetka lots that total more than half an acre and are heavily wooded.

Lloyd's descendants owned the house but donated it to the Pond Foundation, a small Santa Fe, N.M., organization that will benefit from the sale.

Meyers seems charmed with the house and undaunted by the job of selling it with such restrictions.

"I've seen lots of older houses, but very few older houses that continue to be 100 percent old," he said. "Often people's first reactions when they see old kitchens and bathrooms are, 'I have to change this.' Many people don't want to change this. This is something precious."