Oak Circle Historic District

Oak Circle is a short, curving, brick-paved street in Wilmette, Illinois, lined with fifteen houses and eleven garages built between about 1919 and the mid-1920s. Twelve of the houses are bungalows, and the rest show Craftsman influence, often with Prairie-style details. Common features include brick lower stories, wood shingles under the gables, exposed rafter tails, box-like bay windows, flower box brackets, and bands of zinc-framed art-glass windows. Three of the bungalows are the so-called airplane type, with a half-story set above a wider lower floor. Builder A. W. Dickinson resubdivided the area in 1920 and obtained permits for the seven east-side homes, and the similarity of the west-side houses suggests he or like-minded builders were involved there as well. The district was listed for its architecture, as a cohesive grouping of Arts and Crafts era houses that Wilmette has no other example of. Fourteen of the fifteen houses are counted as contributing.