The Modernist Ben Rose House (in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)

When I posted about the Farnsworth House, I was asked if it was from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s not, but there is some crossover.

Ben Rose House
This garage was made famous in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”. Ferris and his buddy Cameron tried to reverse the odometer in Cameron’s dad’s vintage Ferrari here. They ended up crashing the Ferrari through the glass windows down to a ravine below.
Photo by Carmen B from Chicago, IL, USA

The house they are talking about isn’t Ferris Bueller’s house. It’s Cameron Frye’s house. It is the Ben Rose house in Highland Park, Illinois.

Ben Rose House Interior
Photo by Carmen B from Chicago, IL, USA

Both the Farnsworth House and the Ben Rose House are Modernist.

Both houses are steel framed, glass walled with lots of natural wood.

Both are supported on steel pylons.

Featured Image Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division — The Farnsworth House gives the illusion of floating
Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

The Farnsworth House gives the illusion of floating, five feet off the surrounding ground to get it above what was thought to be flood level. (Which mostly worked, except for a few sad soggy exceptions.)

Ben Rose House
Photo by Jeff Gunn from Atlanta, USA

The Ben Rose house hangs over the edge of a steep ravine. It is on a concrete foundation.

Ben Rose House
Photo by Kristopher Anderson

The front of the house is just a few steps up. The front of the garage is level with the ground.

Ben Rose House supported on steel pylons
Photo by Jeff Gunn from Atlanta, USA

The rest of the house and garage is balanced on steel legs.

The Farnsworth House architect was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It was completed in 1951. The Ben Rose House was designed by architect A. James Speyer, a student of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It was built in 1953. It is described as Modernist Movement, Miesian International Style.

Ben Rose House supported on steel pylons
Photo by Carmen B from Chicago, IL, USA

Some things I read say the house was designed by “architects A. James Speyer and David Haid.” The house is Speyer. David Haid designed the garage, the “automobile pavilion.”

Ben Rose House by architect James Speyer is in Highland Park, Illinois, overlooking a ravine. Built in 1953, the steel framed, glass-walled mid-century house also has an automobile pavilion designed by David Haid. Both architects studied with Mies van der Rohe.

House of the day: Ben Rose House by James Speyer
The Modern House Journal

The Ben Rose House (in the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)

The Ben Rose House is at 370 Beech St, Highland Park, IL 60035. The coordinates are 42.1736690, -87.7855080. On Google Maps it is called the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off House. The lot is on a large ravine.

This is the ravine. The house is on the side of it.

I found the original plan for the house on the Art Institute of Chicago website: Art Institute of Chicago Ben Rose House Plans

This footprint is from the Highland Park GIS and County Information site.

Geographic Information System consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data.

Wikipedia

GoMaps is our county Online GIS Mapping System. It’s a great source for information about houses. You can find tax, owner and permit information.

The house is considered Ranch style. The original part was built in 1953. It has 4,390 square feet of finished floor space. There are 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It has a formed concrete foundation, wood siding and composition roll roofing. It has central air cooling and forced hot air heating. The basement is on a slab. The open frame porch was added in 2020.

Permits to remodel the interior, add a basement and an underground garage extension were issued 11/29/2023 and expired 11/28/2024. I doesn’t show what work was actually completed.