Roscoe Harold Zook (1889 – April 1949) was born in Valparaiso, Indiana in 1889. He received a degree in architecture from the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology, or IIT) in 1914. In 1916 Zook married his first wife, Mildred. They divorced in the late 1930s. They had one son, Harold B. Zook, who followed in his father's footsteps to become an architect in Corona del Mar, California. In the early 1940s, Zook married his second wife, Florence, whom he met through mutual friends (and clients). Zook died in April 1949, just short of his 60th birthday.[1]
Zook started his career working with Howard Van Doren Shaw in Chicago. Later, he opened his own office on the 17th floor of the Marquette Building. During the depression, he moved twenty miles west of Chicago to Hinsdale, Illinois and designed thirty-four homes and buildings from 1922-1953.[2] Twenty-eight houses in the neighborhood are still occupied.[3] He also worked in Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia.[4]
He is known for the "Cotswold style cottages" he designed which use details from Tudor architecture including timber framing, exposed beams, diamond-shaped window panes, and intricate brick or stonework. He developed a roofing technique that came to be known as the "Zook roof", with wood shingles laid out in an undulating pattern across the surface to recreate the appearance of a thatched roof. The roofers used "rolled eaves" at the edges of the roof to make a curved transition into the wall below.[4] Zook designed ornamental ironwork for several of these houses using a trademark spider web pattern.
In partnership with architect William F. McCaughey, Zook designed the 1928 art deco style Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge, Illinois. This was their only theater design, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.[5] The theater features a 100-foot-tall (30 m) tower and lantern, a unique marquee and one of the original installations of a Mighty Wurlitzer theater organ.[6]