Talk:Edward R. Hills House

GAReview

Oh well, since I stated I "review" articles in a GA discussion, I think I should get back to doing so. I don't know if starting with an article on the topic and nominated by this user would be the most appropriate, but we'll see how it works out...

I guess I will need to put the article on hold. In general, it looks very promising, and I believe that the major contributor would be willing to swiftly address any concerns voiced. Here they come:

• While the house gained notability mainly due to Wright's remodelling of it, I guess the lead should follow the usual norm for encyclopedic articles. I.e., I'd start with:

The Edward R. Hills House, also known as the Hills-DeCaro House, is a house in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, most notable for being remodelled by Frank Lloyd Wright in his signature Prairie style.

Then a short roundup of the history of the house should follow (1-2 sentences) and of its architectural significance (1-2 again), but in all I believe the lead could be limited to one paragraph for such a short article, albeit with ample subsections.

OTOH, for what I can infer from the article, it is only the currently-standing structure that is the Edward R. Hills House, and the "remodel" was actually tearing down an old house and erecting a completely new building. I believe the current description is ambigious with regard to that, at least I am not sure what happened (surprisingly to myself, I am not familiar with this particular Wright design). If what I am saying is the case, the article should be written like that, only mentioning in the history of the building that there was an earlier structure on the plot. If something else - the article should state it in a less ambigious way.

OK, now some questions I couldn't find answers for, and the article leaves me wondering - you can alleviate that either by adding missing info or rephrasing so that those details go out of sight:

1. Who was William Gray?
2. Was he the owner of the previous house, or did he just buy it for his daughter?
3. What is a sander? (OK, I know, but the readers may not - wikilink recommended)?
4. OK, we are in 1976 and only now I get to learn that Hills did some changes to the building. Please sort out the chronology and provide some insight into the nature of changes.
5. I know I said that those would be questions, but this one isn't - "stick style" needs not be written with a capital letter
6. To hell with questions - the fact that the house is on the Forest Avenue could be mentioned in some other place in the article, even in the lead section (I am still in favor of including addresses, wherever available, in infoboxes)
7. While you describe many features of the house, it is hard to get an idea about the size of the house, the plan (rectangular? square), the floor plans (how many rooms? what is on which floor?) and in general, given that there are photos available, this section is hardly involving for the reader (I know I said it many times encyclopedias can be boring, but I guess we can still present encyclopedic facts in an interesting manner whenever possible).
8. The first paragraph in the significance section should come as second, and is a mess - I do not get the impression of a logical flow.
9. OK, so we can learn something about the interior, but only at the end of the article...

Now after going through the article a few times, I have some structuring suggestions. I'd do away with the "history" section and align the article in a somewhat chronological manner. I'd start with the "origins", then describe the "architecture" (I guess it would make more sense to discuss how given features relate to Wright's styles and other works here to help give readers some context), then "fire and restoration" (Hills' changes to the house should be included somewhere in either of those two sections).

On reading the "significance" section again, I believe that the fact that the house is a part of the historic district and was declared a Chicago landmark can be dealt with in the lead section (to highlight why it is notable), and the rest are not that relevant (when the district joined the National Register pertains to the district, not the house, and what houses Wright remodelled, rather than designed from scratch is a bit trivial to me - it is important that it was his area of activity). And, as I said, the description of the relations between the house's features and Wright's style development and other works would better be integrated in the architecture section.

I hope you will find time to work on this article while I put it on hold for a week. Once you're ready, I'd gladly get down to checking the references and other stuff that's left to completing the review. I am looking forward to promoting the article :D PrinceGloria 19:57, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I just started a new job and won't have time to address these concerns. Please simply fail the article. Thanks. IvoShandor 20:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations and thanks for the quick reply! I am sorry to hear your contributions to Wikipedia will be limited, as I understand... My job is demanding too, but I might get back to the article and try to implement my proposed changes, but can't promise anything. Cheers, PrinceGloria 20:26, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I will work on it where I can as well. It will be renommed in the future. :) IvoShandor 05:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I was not logged in (changes were made by Fox69) but I have begun tackling some of the editing of this article. Or I should say that I have continued what IvoShandor and others started. Other than cleaning up some of the sentence structure, grammatical issues, and accuracy of facts, I have expanded the History section.

Changes included clearing up the issue with William Gray (who didn't exist - as far as I can tell, no one associated with this house was ever named William). I've also added detail to the part on remodeling the Gray house as the description was still fairly ambiguous. Some detailing on the alterations was added in a new paragraph, though some dates are still missing. I have made sure to note when Mr. and Mrs. Decaro bought the house and included a few more details on their remodels.

With all that done, the article is still too repetative. I am somewhat tempted to reorganize the article myself, yet the "history, architecture, significance" layout appears to be the standard for these articles. Nevertheless, I have and will continue to remove the redundancies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.227.175.243 (talk) 20:54, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Recent Changes

In response to all of the issues brought up in the GA review, I am now 80% complete with a major overhaul and expansion of this article. Here's were I am so far using the issues above as a guide:

• Lead section rewriting: NOT DONE. While I have adjusted the grammar, I am holding off until completion of the rest of the article so that I can match it to the flow of themain text.
• Clarification on extent of 1906 remodeling:  Done The first history section now explains what parts of the original house were saved during the remodel. Another set of floor plans are coming soon to further explain this. A diagram has been completed to show the original and final position of the Gray/Hills House and its neighbors. This diagram is going to have a few tweeks aplied to make it more readable sometime soon.
• Now the numbered items:

1. Who was William Gray?  Done William Gray was the father of Frank Gray, for which the Hills house was initially built in 1884. William Gray was not the father of Mary Hill as initially stated in the article; that was Nathan Moore. Note that the article does not mention William Gray as I did not find him significant enough to include (although he did live in the house breifly before it was sold to Moore).
2. Was he the owner of the previous house, or did he just buy it for his daughter?  Done Answered above.
3. What is a sander (wikilink recommended)?  Done.
4. OK, we are in 1976 and only now I get to learn that Hills did some changes to the building. Please sort out the chronology and provide some insight into the nature of changes.  Done The changes have been both documented in text as well as the pre-fire floor plans. Dates were provided when possible. The article also now correctly states which changes were (not) undone in the reconstruction.
5. "stick style" needs not be written with a capital letter.  Not done. The "Stick" in Stick style should indeed be written as a capital letter. I have checked 3 book sources on this point. It is questionable whether "style" should also be capitalized. I think not.
6. The fact that the house is on the Forest Avenue could be mentioned in some other place in the article, even in the lead section (I am still in favor of including addresses, wherever available, in infoboxes)  Done The address is now included in the lead section; it is not however in the infobox
7. While you describe many features of the house, it is hard to get an idea about the size of the house, the plan (rectangular? square), the floor plans (how many rooms? what is on which floor?) and in general, given that there are photos available, this section is hardly involving for the reader (I know I said it many times encyclopedias can be boring, but I guess we can still present encyclopedic facts in an interesting manner whenever possible).  Done This paragraph has been completely replaced by two sections detailing the exterior and interior elements of the house. The sections aim to describe the most important features (and those not shown in photos) without delving into too much detail. Other readers and peers may still believe that I have written to much. (What's your opinion?).
8. The first paragraph in the significance section should come as second, and is a mess - I do not get the impression of a logical flow.  Done Like the architecture section, the significance section has been mostly rewritten. It is now more of a comparison section for elements from the previous two sections.
9. OK, so we can learn something about the interior, but only at the end of the article...  Done See above. Although I regret that I can find no interior images, hopefully my description and floor plans will give a fairly good impression of the inside spaces.

Now for some changes I still want to make:

•  Done Draw a third set of floor plans showing the house in 1906 with an overlay of the 1884 house.
•  Done Mark out the changes in the pre-fire and  Done post-reconstruction floor plans using shading and line weight
•  Done Clean up the location of images; place all of the plans in the same general area of the article (near the corresponding time period)
•  Done Change the name of the Architectural Signifcance section; it no longer seems like the best title
•  Done Finish editing the last two paragraphs of "Comparison to Other Wright Works"
•  Done Clean up the references;  Donebreak out separate page sources for O'Gorman and HAARGIS works.
•  Done Most importantly: work on the articles flow. I'm still not sure if the architecture section should come first, last, or somewhere in the middle.
•  Done Rewrite the lead section to match the flow of the article.

Fox69 (talk) 04:48, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

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