The Wesley House: A Home, A Landmark, A Legacy

Flossmoor, a village just shy of 10,000 residents located about twenty-five miles south of the Chicago Loop, is home to several remarkable midcentury homes. Architects such as Keck & Keck, Edward Dart, and Bertrand Goldberg as well as Edward Humrich, John McPherson, and John S. Townsend have left their mark in this village. Among these luminaries is architect Robert L. Wesley, who designed and built a house for his family in 1975.

Robert “Bob” Wesley, who passed away at the age of 88 on January 24, 2026, was a native of Memphis, Tennessee. At twelve years old, Bob attended the grand opening of the African American-owned Universal Life Insurance Company’s new office building where his mother worked as a stenographer. The building had been designed by McKissack and McKissack, an African American-owned and operated architectural firm located in Nashville, Tennessee. It was then that he knew that he wanted to become an architect.

He earned a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering from Tennessee State University before continuing to the University of Oklahoma, where he received both a Bachelor and Master of Architecture in 1963 and was the second Black graduate of the architecture program.

Bob joined the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) in 1964 and became its first Black partner in 1984, a personal milestone and a significant advancement in the profession where Black architects continue to be underrepresented. During his nearly four decades with the office, he worked on an impressive range of civic, commercial, entertainment, master planning, and infrastructure projects. In his different roles at the firm, he contributed to iconic projects such as the Sears Tower and John Hancock Center in Chicago, civic projects such as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall, universities such as Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, and public spaces such as Millennium Park. He worked in cities beyond Chicago, including Austin, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis, and internationally in Algeria, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. In 2020, the SOM Foundation created the Robert L. Wesley Award to support BIPOC students and honor his career.

In the early 1970s, Bob and his wife Wilma, who was a Supervisor of the Pathology Lab of Michael Reese Hospital, lived in Prairie Shores, a complex of five midcentury high-rise apartment buildings located in Chicago's South Side Bronzeville neighborhood. They both worked downtown but the possibility of having extra space to enjoy a “country environment” and higher quality schools attracted them to Flossmoor.¹ This was the perfect opportunity for Bob, then in his mid-thirties, to design a house for his family.

In an area of winding roads and tall trees, Bob designed a two-story, four-bedroom home recessed from the street with a roofline combining angled and flat sections that gave it its unique profile and provided cues of the spatial richness that one would find in its interior. The outside was clad in 1” x 6” vertical redwood siding, with a front façade punctuated by only a handful of windows while the north facing back façade was more porous to the backyard. The dark wood exterior contrasted with the bright white interior. In plan, a gallery foyer connected to the living room became the backbone that organized the house and separated the public areas from the bedrooms on the first floor. This backbone was reinforced by the placement of the front window in alignment with the large back window in the north façade, which provided an uninterrupted line of sight from the front of the house to the open backyard. Above this area, a bridge overlooking the living space below connected the rooms on the second floor, including those for daughters Tracy and Tammy. The section drawings produced by Bob showed the different spatial configuration of the rooms determined by the angled roof, including the 23-foot-tall double-height space of the living room. The clerestory windows on the second floor facing north were designed to provide generous soft light to the whole house. Ample exterior deck surfaces were designed to extend the living areas outside and connect them with the backyard.

On September 11, 1973, Bob and Wilma submitted the nine-sheet drawing set and building application to the Village of Flossmoor. While previous documents listed Markovic & Company as their general contractor, the September application was revised and listed Bob as the general contractor. Bob, Wilma, family members, and friends would end up building the house, bringing the design into reality. They hired subcontractors to install drywall, rough in plumbing, electrical, and mechanical and then Bob and the rest of the team worked on the house in evenings and weekends. With the help of friends and family, Bob and Wilma took care of the floors, cabinets, closets, and doors as well as painted all the interior with 100 gallons of white paint. It would take them thirteen months to build the house.² Over the course of the construction, a few small changes took place. For example, the bridge connecting the upper rooms changed shape, adding an angle that helped create a small reading area. Similarly, during construction Wilma suggested the installation of the wood planks diagonally creating and interesting visual effect. “I think every architect should build a house to demonstrate that a custom-designed home, tailored to an individual’s requirements, can be built economically,” Wesley said. “Because I was able to exert close control on this project the square foot cost was lower than that of a tract house.” In 1975, the family moved into their new home. “It was unlike anything else in the neighborhood,” says daughter Tammy Wesley Robertson.³

Tammy remembers the bright white, clean, and expansive interior, with floor-to-ceiling windows, allowing light to pour in from every direction. Bob and Wilma furnished the house with modern objects, glass and marble tables, and iconic pieces by Mies van der Rohe, Charles Eames, Warren Platner, Eero Saarinen, and Le Corbusier. A collection of colorful paintings hung from the white walls. The double-height living room came in handy during Christmas—her favorite time of the year—to place the tree. “Each year, it took eight strong neighbors to carry in our tree, which stood around twenty feet tall and seemed as wide as it was high. It filled the living room and became a spectacle that people would stop to admire from the street.”⁴

The house was built with a 7’-10” basement that became the heart of Tammy and Tracy’s childhood. They had a large playroom, making it a place of imagination and comfort. “We built forts, played with Barbie dolls, and took shelter during tornado watches and warnings,” says Tammy. “In the 1970s, our grandparents, who lived upstairs in their own part of the house, kept a massive console television, stereo, and record player downstairs. It became a gathering place where our whole family would come together.”⁵

Outside, the family enjoyed the yard filled with lightning bugs, ladybugs, frogs, and a tire swing that Bob hung for Tammy and Tracy. The place had the “country environment” qualities they were looking for when the family was considering moving to Flossmoor.

After fully settling into their house, Bob became part of the Architectural Advisory Committee and Chairman of the Appearance Commission at the Village of Flossmoor.

After almost four decades at SOM, Wesley retired on September 30, 2001, and the next day, he and Wilma put their Flossmoor house up for sale and moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. “It is quite an investment you make when you get to the partnership level, and my family had suffered enough without me being around.” The Wesleys built a house in Scottsdale, where they lived for nine years before moving to Naples, Florida, in 2010. Wilma passed away on February 12, 2016, at the age of 85.

The Flossmoor residence was bought by Cynthia Ramsey Nolan and her husband, Tom, who were moving to the Chicago-area from Dallas. “When Tom and I relocated to Chicago, we searched extensively for a modern home that would be in keeping with the furniture we had collected over the years,” mentions Cynthia.⁶ “Our previous place was cantilevered over a stream, offering a treehouse feel, so we sought a home that would provide a similar feeling of being in nature.”

Cynthia shares that she and Tom did a lot of entertaining in the spring and summer months over the years, benefiting from the three sliding glass doors in the kitchen, den, and dining spaces that open to a wraparound deck. Cynthia also highlighted the two-story wall of glass exposure in the living room and the large-format windows that brought light in, even on overcast days. “Every main room offered a feeling of being in the outdoors while also being very private due to the tree lined perimeter,” says Cynthia.⁷

The organization of the house also defined spaces that could be more independent and private. For example, the office is separate from the main part of the house and includes a side entrance. There is an art studio on the second floor that both Bob and Tom—a painter—enjoyed that has floor-to-ceiling sky panels providing abundant light. A second primary bedroom provides a private suite for those visiting.

Over the years, Cynthia and Tom updated areas of the house, including the metal roof, kitchen, and bathrooms, but they made all the changes with an intention to honor the original design by Bob.

After almost twenty-five years of owning the house, Cynthia and Tom, who have decided to move to downtown Chicago, are putting the house up for sale for the next owner to enjoy it as much as they and the Wesleys did. Tammy says: “We spent twenty-seven years in that home, years filled with creativity, warmth, and countless memories that could never fully be captured on a page. It was more than a house; it was a place of light, imagination, and connection. We can only hope it continues to be a home filled with happiness and peace for those who will live there now.”⁸

Bob Wesley developed his professional career at SOM, contributing to many remarkable projects in Chicago and beyond. However, it is the house he designed in Flossmoor where he was able to fully explore his design approach and build for his family. The indisputable architectural qualities of the house, being a representative project of Robert Wesley as an architect, and being over 50 years old—the threshold typically used to be eligible for local, state, or national landmark status—make this home significant. We hope that the Village of Flossmoor, in partnership with the new owners, consider landmarking this home so it can be recognized along with the rest of the significant residences located in Flossmoor.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Tammy Wesley Robertson, Tracy Wesley Kocourek, Cynthia Ramsey Nolan, and Tom Nolan for contributing their memories about living in the house. Thanks to Laurie Mead for providing the photographs of the house. Thanks to Karen Widi, Manager of Library, Records and Information Services at SOM, for the support.