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October 17, 2005
TT: Thanks for the memories
Here are two pieces of e-mail I received apropos of my article in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal about spending the night in two Frank Lloyd Wright houses:- "For the past sixteen years, my wife and I (together with our five children) have resided in a 1901 Wright-designed house in Oak Park, Illinois. During this time, we have come to know quite a few Wright homeowners and many other fans of his. While we have known some to 'suffer in silence' (and some not so silently) when sitting through a long dinner on reproductions of his famous straight-backed chairs, I have never heard any of the homeowners express anything but praise and joy concerning the pleasure of living in their homes and the magic interplay of space and light that Wright managed to create in them. Many consider our home to be one of the early ‘masterpieces,' but it is certainly no museum piece. Like your description of the Schwartz House, it has been occupied by children for much of its 104 years, and our own five have certainly ridden it hard. The spaces absorb and welcome them. As young parents in 1989, we purchased the house as much for its livability as for its beauty. The value of Wright's design is fundamentally in the spaces themselves, not in the famous art glass or other details that adorn them. Even our youngest children unconsciously appreciate that and have told us that we are not allowed to move to any other house!"
- "My grandparents bought a house outside of Milwaukee in the 1920s from a young architect they had met named Frank Wright and lived the rest of their lives in that home. The house was terrific, the furniture and sconces all designed by Mr. Wright (not the dishes). Several small fruit-bearing trees were in the front yard right next to the porch and the way the leaves hung down in the summer always reminded me of the roof of the house. There was a wonderful laundry chute we used to play with when we visited. When I was about eight (1960) we were having a wild pillow fight under the sleepy eye of a babysitter. I threw a triangular-shaped pillow at my sister and clipped one of the sconces right off the wall. When my grandmother died we had no relatives in Milwaukee and so my parents sold it. Unfortunately, when my grandparents bought the home they did not know how important the architect would become and so no official documentation was kept proving who had designed it. The house was sold for a song.
"Some time in the late 1980s I traveled to Milwaukee for my oral medical boards and took a cab out to the house. No one was home. I sat on the porch and ate some of the berries from the trees for ten minutes, keeping the cab waiting.
"Thanks for bringing back some memories."
And thanks to you both for writing.
Posted October 17, 2005 12:04 PM
