The weblog Not PC has unearthed a YouTube video of a 1992 tour of the Jacobs House II, one of Wright’s Solar Hemicycles, lead by Karen Jacobs herself. The audio is a bit sketchy; just boost the volume and you’ll be fine.
Be sure to notice two notable features: the extraordinary masonry and the ceiling heights. The ceilings are an essential element of the solar hemicycle — Wright used them of moderate the temperature in side the house, allowing sun-warmed air to flow through the structure.
Mark Hertzberg was written a longer blog post on Adelman’s life and the story of how he got his Wright house reasonably close to his budget.
Details are scarce, but the Rockford Register Star is reporting that the Sate of Illinois is offering the group hoping to buy the Laurent House and open it to the public a $500,000 matching grant to purchase the house. To receive the funds the Laurent House Foundation must match the grant dollar for dollar. When listed for sale, the Laurent house was priced at $875,000, and the auction house estimates its auction price between $500,000 and $700,000. So, if matched, the state funds give the Laurent House Foundation a real chance to purchase the house, with possibly significant funds left over to fund the early stages of operation.
The Laurent House Foundation Board is hurriedly trying to arrange large pledges to buy the meticulously preserved home at a Chicago auction Dec. 15.
“We are pleased to support the conversion of the Laurent House into a new tourist destination in Rockford for all Illinoisans and visitors to enjoy, … and we are certain it will attract visitors from far and near,” Gov. Pat Quinn said today in a statement.
“Gov. Quinn’s commitment to this effort is substantial,” said John Groh, president and chief executive officer of the Rockford Area Convention Visitors Bureau. “It puts us in a position to be a credible bidder at auction.”
In another story, the Register Star interviews the Laurent family on living in the Wright-designed house.
After years on the market, the Kenneth Laurent House in Rockford, Illinois will be auctioned on December 15. A private group in Rockford hopes to raise enough money before that date to buy the house and turn it into a museum.
The Laurent House easily a candidate for one of the best residential buildings in the world. Injured in WWII, Laurent asked Wright to design a home for someone in a wheelchair with a modest budget. The Laurents have lived and beautifully maintained the house since its completion in 1952. The house still has Wright’s built-ins and furniture.
The Brandes House in Washington state is again for sale (agent’s site here), asking price $1.45 million (it last sold in 2009 for $1.5 million).
Here is a YouTube video of the Brandes House from a few years ago:
In 2008 the Sammamish Reporter interviewed the step-son of the original owner, Ray Brandes.
“Part of what makes it work as a small house is that there’s glass on both sides,” Cullen said, gesturing to the expansive glass walls on either side of the great-room style living space. “If you had solid walls, it would feel very confining.”
Cantelevered overhangs protect the windows from rain, so the view of the naturally landscaped grounds is always clear.
“One of the elements I really like is that you can stand almost anywhere in the house and see outside,” Cullen said. “The sense of space it gives you is of a much bigger house.”
Ray Brandes later also constructed a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Normandy Park. Mimi Brandes passed away, and Ray married Cullen’s mother, Helen, in 1966. When Ray and Helen retired and moved to California in 1984, Jack Cullen bought the house from them. Cullen and his wife raised their two children — now grown — in the home that sits on about four acres off of 212th Avenue Southeast.
“It’s a wonderful space to raise kids in,” Cullen said.
The Buehler House, a Usonian near San Francisco, is featured in Forbes. Sale price is $5 million.
The San Francisco Chronicle in October published an article with more details about the history of the house and in 2003 The New York Times interviewed the home’s (at the time) first and only owners, Katie and Maynard Buehler.
The agent’s site for the house has a photo gallery and more information.
Here is a website with a few photos of the Fawcett House in Los Banos, California. The Fawcett House is one of the truly great usonian designs. The house is on 80 acres and includes a walnut orchard.
The home is for sale (asking $1,750,000) and the website for the house has a stunning collection of photos of the interior and exterior, a floorplan, and “The Fawcett House: A Memoir”, based on an interview with the home’s original owner.
The Fawcett Home is a reminder that, even as he worked on the high-profile Guggenheim Museum, Wright continued to design innovative, magical homes for all of his clients, not just the famous and rich ones.
An Indiana newspaper visits Samarra, a Usonian house in Lafayette, Indiana. The house also known as the John Christian House, the name Samara, after the winged seeds of the trees that populate the area, was given to house by Frank Lloyd Wright.
The article includes a link to a photo gallery of the home — if you’ve never visited Samarra, it’s worth a look.
Largely due to the half-century of dedication of Dr. Christian, Samara may be the best place to experience the ideas of Wright; there are more dramatic Wright buildings, but even the best can only match, not surpass, the Christian House’s quiet exultation of Wright’s career.
The Buehler House is for sale. The asking price for the Bay area Usonian, built in 1948, is just short of $5 million.
The home is situated on an estate size (2.3) acre property in the prestigious community of Orinda, California (Easy Bay, very close to San Francisco) featuring two streams and extensive Japanese gardens designed by Henry Matsutani, designer of the Japanese Gardens at Golden Gate Park. This large home (over 4,300 s.f. in the main house) has two bedrooms, three baths, large TV/recreation/bonus room plus a wine tasting room. The large daylight basement is suitable for a variety of uses. The living space has been described as one of the most spectacular of this period in Frank Lloyd Wright’s work. Built of concrete block and redwood the house sits gracefully on its spectacular site with views of the koi pond and the extensive gardens. All original Wright-designed furniture and documentary information included in the purchase. The estate has just undergone an extensive restoration with no expense spared.
The condition of the house is, according to this article from the San Francisco Chronicle, astounding. After a fire in 1994 the home was restored by the same apprentice who oversaw the original construction. The house since fell into disrepair, and a recent round of restorations costing $500,000 has just been completed.
The authenticity of the house is protected by an easement granted to the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy, ensuring that the new owners will work with the conservancy on any changes to the home. The easements also ensure that the house will be open to public at least one day a year.
The website for the house includes a photographic tour, map and full details of the the property.
In 2003 The New York Times printed an article about the Buehlers and their house:
Today, Mrs. Buehler can often be found in the living room reading newspapers below a ceiling whose angle, rising from 6 feet to 14 1/2, brings to mind the thrust of the nearby Hayward fault. At night Mr. Buehler ambles out to his telescope on the patio or peers at the moon as it glows through stylized perforated windows. Even now, Mrs. Buehler said, ”the house is pretty conducive to feeling all is right with the world.”
When the house was built, she recalls, Wright arrived to inspect it in his cape, with a fob and a cane. Occasionally he banged on walls and furniture for emphasis. As they recall it, he told them, ”I’m happy to see you’re living in the house satisfactorily.”
Fifty-four years later, they still are.
Detroit’s Afleck House made an appearance in the most recent installment in Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” ad campaign.
Perhaps the Wright fan in me is supposed to rejoice, but as a native Michigander (go Whiteford Bobcats!) I have to point out that Wright-designed Afleck house got about six times the screen time as the Saarinen-dconnected Cranbrook campus. I’m guessing Chrysler didn’t import their admen from Detroit.
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