English: The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park, a national landmark (house 1889, remodel 1895, studio 1898, studio remodel 1909). The history of Oak Park and River Forest is forever linked to the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, who operated out of his Oak Park home and studio from 1889 to 1909. This was his transitional period from his work with Adler & Sullivan through the refinement of the Prairie Style. The 1889 home was mostly utilitarian and Wright initially spent little time there. At this time, Wright mostly worked in the Auditorium Building in downtown Chicago for Adler & Sullivan. Wright yearned to build houses, but the firm only designed houses when requested by their major commercial clients. Wright eventually became solely responsible for designing any such houses, but the commissions were few and far between. To pay his debts, Wright secretly accepted independent commissions for houses; today this is considered his "bootleg" period. Adler & Sullivan were unaware of these projects until 1893, when Wright made the ballsy move of designing a house only a few blocks away from Louis Sullivan's townhouse. Wright was quickly kicked out of the firm. Now on his own, Wright expanded his Oak Park home into a full studio, eventually moving all operations there in 1898. In 1901, Wright completed the Frank Thomas House, which he considered to be the first house in the new Prairie Style. After a lengthy trip to Europe, Wright moved into his new studio, Taliesin, in Spring Green Wisconsin in 1911.