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Frank Lloyd Wright's Spring House in Tallahassee, Florida, was commissioned by George and Clifton Lewis, who sought a comfortable house for their large family that fit within their modest budget. Completed in 1954, the home features an unusual "hemicycle" form—a shape that the designer briefly experimented with at the end of his career. Now, a fundraising campaign aims to acquire, restore, and open the house to the public.
The Dr. Richard Davis House, also known as "Woodside," is situated on a wooded two-acre lot in an established and conveniently located neighborhood in Woodside, Indiana. This unique home, which is on the National Registry of Historic Places, was built in 1952 and has been completely renovated by the current owner.
Built in 1957, this home was saved and dismantled at its original location in Illinois and relocated to its current location in Acme, Pennsylvania—only 30 minutes from the iconic Fallingwater. The Duncan House shares the 100-acre Polymath Park with three other homes for rent, designed by Wright’s apprentices.
Also known as Still Bend, Schwartz House was designed as part of a LIFE Magazine competition in 1938, in which the publication commissioned eight architects to design a "dream house" for four typical American families. The design became reality when Bernard Schwartz commissioned the architect to build the home for his family in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Modified for the site, the 1940 house boasts classic Wright touches like red tidewater cypress board, huge windows, and interiors in harmony with the natural surroundings.
As the only handicap-accessible building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the Kenneth and Phyllis Laurent House (so named for the couple that lived there from 1952 until 2012) was completed in 1952 as one of the so-called Usonian homes. The couple married shortly before World War II, and Ken Laurent underwent surgery during his service in the Navy that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Wright listened closely to his clients' needs to create an accessible design that was decades ahead of his time, including thresholds and floors that are level with the exterior ground for easy transitions between inside and outside. Wright designed much of the furniture in the house.
The uniquely large Elam House is a Usonian Home located in Southern Minnesota and is one of only 13 Wright homes in the state. Built in 1951, the home features five bedrooms, six bathrooms, three floor-to-ceiling fireplaces, two living rooms with soaring ceilings, a cantilevered balcony, over 100 windows, rare white cypress wood and massive limestone piers, and stonework comparable to Wright's home Taliesin East. Guests can book a stay at the one-bedroom guest house on the property and enjoy private tours of the main house.
The only Frank Lloyd Wright–designed home in Hawaii captures not only the architect's signature style, but also the spirit of its location—with an outdoor lava-rock hot tub overlooking the ocean and breathtaking, panoramic mountain views of three of the Big Island’s awe-inspiring volcanoes (Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai). The 1995 home was commissioned by Sanderson Sims in partnership with Taliesin Associated Architects, John Rattenbury, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Originally conceived for the Cornwell Family in Pennsylvania in 1954, the 3,700-square-foot, passive solar hemicycle home embodies the architect's principles of organic architecture in which the structure blends harmoniously with the natural landscape.
As Wright’s first L.A. project, the iconic Hollyhock House was built between 1919 and 1921 and was filled with challenges from beginning to end. Enter Aline Barnsdall, the wealthy oil heiress and arts patron who held the dream of having a live-in venue to produce her own avant-garde plays. Wright wanted to create a design that would be defined by the region and that took advantage of Southern California's temperate climate. To do this, each interior space is echoed with an exterior space in the form of pergolas, porches, outdoor sleeping quarters, glass doors, and rooftop terraces that look out to the Hollywood Hills and the Los Angeles Basin.
Inside Fallingwater on iconichouses.org
The only residence in Oregon by Wright, the Gordon House was designed in 1957 for Evelyn and Conrad Gordon and finished in 1963 (four years after Wright’s death). Originally located adjacent to the Willamette River near Wilsonville, the home is now located within the Oregon Garden in Silverton, Oregon. When its 2001 owners planned to tear it down, the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy obtained a three-month reprieve to dismantle and relocate it. The house, another example of Wright's Usonian vision for America, opened one year later—and is the only publicly accessible Frank Lloyd Wright home in the Pacific Northwest.
According to the Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research, "school teachers Sara Stein Smith and Melvyn Maxwell Smith, undeterred by their modest salaries and guided by a shared love of architecture, met Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin in 1941 and commissioned a custom home." The Smith House in Bloomfield Hills offers tours of the Usonian home and narrates the couple’s story.
Built in 1937, Taliesin West was an experiment in desert living that evolved at the hands of Wright and his apprentices until he passed in 1959. Meant to be a refuge from the harsh winters of the Midwest, the complex—which grew to include a drafting studio, dining facilities, three theaters, a workshop, Wright’s office and private living quarters, and apprentice and staff residences—takes direct inspiration from the arid landscape. Over the years, Wright continually rethought previous design solutions and rebuilt sections of Taliesin West with the assistance of his apprentices. Today, the complex continues to be the headquarters of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and School of Architecture.
The Palmer House was built for William and Mary Palmer during the early 1950s, and is one of Wright's last residential masterpieces. Completely secluded and nestled against the northeast side of the beautiful Nichols Arboretum, the house is only a five minute drive (or 20 minute walk) to downtown Ann Arbor.
The 2,000-square-foot home is furnished with a collection of Wright-designed furniture and even includes a teahouse. The signature Wright design complements the sylvan setting with bold triangular geometry and a cantilevered overhang.
Although primarily an event space, the Emil Bach House in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood is also available for rent. Designed in 1915 for the president of a brick company, the classic late Prairie-style home is designed with flat overhanging roofs and a short series of geometric cubes. The home recently underwent a two-year renovation and is now fully restored with original elements.
This tiny house set on the bucolic Mirror Lake in Wisconsin is balanced on the edge of a steep hill and measures only 880 square feet. The "flying roof" seems to hang in space without support. Wright was already in his 90s when Seth Peterson asked him to design the cottage, and the 1958 building was Wright’s last Wisconsin project. Wright died in April 1959, before construction was completed.
Following a painstaking, multimillion-dollar restoration, this masterpiece has been restored to its former glory and reopened to the public with newly expanded tour offerings. The Frederick C. Robie House, widely considered to be the epitome of Prairie style, was completed in 1910 as a private residence near the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park campus. Additionally, several pieces of original furniture, including the home’s dining table and chairs as well as the main floor‘s guest room furniture, are newly on display as part of a loan from the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.
Frank Lloyd Wright's Mäntylä House—Finnish for "house among the pines"—was threatened by an encroaching development before being relocated to Polymath Park in Pennsylvania. Aside from the concrete block, floor slab, and roof rafters, the entire home was transplanted. President of Usonian Preservation Tom Papinchak and his team worked from multiple versions of prints and created their own set of drawings on site. Some modernization occurred to ensure longevity of the home, including mechanical and plumbing upgrades, and as Tom reminds, Wright was always a proponent of state-of-the-art materials and sustainability.
Built in 1953 for Samuel and Dorothy Eppstein, the ranch-style home is an exemplary representation of Prairie School-style architecture and Usonian thinking. Constructed by the original homeowners, the midcentury residence displays a history of care and thoughtfulness in every detail. The home has been completely renovated and furnished, staying true to the original era of the home and preserving the handiwork, craft, and brilliance of the original. The massive undertaking was led by husband-and-wife team Tony Hillebrandt and Marika Broere after careful research and conversations with previous residents. The result is a beautiful restoration which respects the history of the home.
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