Ever since we bought this house I’ve pretty much been obsessed with knowing the history of it. Last year, by chance, a package came for the previous owners. After contacting them so that they could pick it up, they dropped off the original blueprints for the house!

There were two sets of blueprints. The original working blueprints had coffee stains on them and marks. They were so old that they just crumbled upon touching them. The second set, were more pristine and had less wear and tear. I ended up bringing both sets to a professional fine art framer who framed my favorite page of the set. The older set we locked away in a tube not to be touched any further. The rest of the second set were laid flat in a folder on the back of the frame.

Someow, I felt like a huge mystery was starting to unravel. I was able to see all the original plans for the house, and the materials that had been used. It was amazing to see the layout of the original kitchen and learn more about the intent the architect had for the house.

From there I went down a rabbit hole to learn more about the architect. William M Cooley, had built the house in 1956. He was a prominent modern church architect and had won numerous design awards for his buildings.

Tragically, he died at the age of 41 in a mysterious car accident. There isn’t a lot of information that I could find about him other than this. I know he designed 100s of modern churches in the midwest and I’m still on the quest to find out more. Please comment if you happen to have any info you can share.

Anyway, I’m a total nerd about this kind of stuff but I hope some people find this as fascinating as I do.