Few people have had the unique experience of viewing Naperville from the top of the picturesque brick home, now the law offices of Brooks, Tarulis and Tibble, on the northwest corner of Washington and Franklin streets.
The home was built in 1867 for Naperville pioneer Willard Scott, Sr., in the Italianate style of architecture. This style is noted for its wide sweeping porches and bracketed eaves, long narrow windows and low pitched roof. Heavily detailed and ornate features around the windows and doors are a hallmark of the style loosely based on Italian country villas and made popular in the United States by Alexander Jackson Downing. The “widow’s walk” or cupola on the top of the home was built for observation and for house ventilation.
Recently, a small group of adventurers were invited by Councilman David Wentz to climb into the cupola to see the old and the new Naperville. We met in the conference room on the first floor, a former parlor. The walls were lined with hundreds of law books. Using a tall ladder Wentz reached for a specific volume and turned to the pages where a young, Springfield lawyer Abraham Lincoln participated in Illinois court cases.
Wentz also presented the Naperville Heritage Society with two books from his grandmother, both about Lincoln.
At the top of the stairs on the second floor is a small room used as an auxiliary office. We were told to bring an extension ladder, which Tom Golden, Buildings & Grounds Support at Naper Settlement, set up below the drop ceiling. Ceiling panels were pulled back to exposed old gray, wooden steps cut off at the ceiling level leading to the roof above. Carefully, Positively Naperville’s Stephanie Penick, Councilmen Joe McElroy, Wentz and Naper Settlement’s CEO Mike Krol and I climbed the ladder and steps into the cupola.
The small roof-top room is lined with large windows and sits squarely in the middle of the roof. The interior walls are painted white with polka dot patches of exposed older paint. Looking closer at the square and rectangle patches, one can read the names and inscriptions of visitors from by-gone years. Every one of the 52 inscriptions and signatures was photographed and recorded. The earliest date found on the walls is July 4, 1873, signed by Isaac Hobart and the most recent by Annette Wehrli Sept. 1, 2012. Names also included a few Scott family members, most notably cousins Alvin and Will Scott.
Besides Naperville residents, people from Rockford, Lyons, and Sandwich, Ill., are represented as well as out-of-state Albert Stickney from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Inscriptions such as “God Bless America” and “Happy 4th of July!” are alongside drawings including a cute farmer with rake and hoe labeled anonymously, “Philip” and “Ann.”
A maple leaf was drawn next to the name of Trevor Dick a member of the Naperville Park District in 2002. We could not locate the inscription attributed to a couple watching the Great Chicago Fire in October 1871.
Naperville SUN reporter, Genevieve Towsely did not record an 1871 inscription, but she did say, “The [Dwayne] Beidelmans tell how the cupola served as a fire watch for the town, when the house was first built.” Towsley also stated the interior of the look-out was painted by the Robert Newcomer family and used as a “study center for their children,” but the Newcomers “would not paint over the names.”
Spectacular Views!
The view from the top is spectacular. The spire of Ss. Peter & Paul in the east, and the shimmering white carillon in the west bookend downtown Naperville beautifully. Looking west toward the top of the Telephone Exchange building at Franklin and Main streets, one can imagine the brewery and malt houses of the Stenger Brewery.
The trees have grown tall since the home was built and one feels as if he were on green clouds so high above Naperville. It was a memorable experience and we were fortunate to have been there.
