Having designed a dozen residences in the style throughout the 1920s, Schimek was one of the architects who significantly contributed to the early development of the city and its character before development froze after the 1926 Hurricane and subsequent Real Estate collapse. Schimek later applied this experience to his larger-scale work in the Broadview-area planned community, which was then the largest development in that region of Greater Chicago since the crash of 1929.
