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a visit to a frank lloyd wright home in dousman, wisconsin
October 22, 2010
During our recent trip to Milwaukee to visit the Coolest People Ever, Michael took us to see the home of his friend and business partner, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It’s actually half a house, begun in 1954 and left unfinished in 1956 when the original owners ran out of money. Dave and Liz were gracious enough to open their home to us and show us all of the amazing built in features and the repair work they’re currently doing. We sat bathed in sunlight on chairs custom designed by Wright for the home, explored the basement and peeped into the crawl space where you can see the raw cliff face that was blasted away to make space for the house (and a salamander! living in a hole in the basement floor!), leaned out over the balcony railing gazing way, way down at the rocky hillside the house perches over, heard about the mathematically complex layout of the house, saw a model created from the original house plans of what the master bedroom wing will look like, and stood in the spot where the bedrooms will someday be (when the rest of the house gets built).
I had planned to take plenty of photos but ended up feeling kind of funny about it, because it’s someone’s home. Here are a few I snapped with the little Harinezumi; I took a few film shots outside the house with a couple of different cameras, but y’all will have to wait a bit to see them.
Here’s a shot looking up in the living room, where you can see the wall of built in cabinets and, beyond that, the clerestory windows.
Looking from the living room out into the entrance foyer. Liz talked about eventually putting down carpet in the house, but I love the look of the concrete floors. Up the stairs to the right there’s a little office with its own porch balcony overlooking the living room (of which I did not get a picture). If this was my house, that’s one area that would be cluttered with plants, the one thing that can’t be secreted away into all of those fabulous built in storage closets (you know, to make it look like you live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house and don’t own any stuff or create any clutter).
I wish I’d taken a photo of the Green Bay Packers blanket thrown over the back of the Wright-designed couch. It was nice to see, because while the place didn’t really have a showroom vibe about it, there weren’t really all that many things that stood out like that as the kind of stuff you’d hide when the camera crews come.
Just to the left of the stairs leading to the foyer, the Predicta Corona television. These are the tvs that Michael and Dave build (see more Predicta designs here).
Peter and Michael in the living room. Oh, look, there’s that Packers blanket.
Looking out the living room windows, over the balcony railing.
You can see a good photo of the exterior of the house here (at the top of the page; scroll down for a little blurb about the house) at this Wright tour page.
Posted by jodi on October 22, 2010 at 1.38pm
Categories: jet set nouveau riche superstars
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Packers and Coca Cola.
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[...] friend Michael, the Coolest Guy in the World, behind the Frank Lloyd Wright house he took us to see. Only half the house was completed before the original owner ran out of money in [...]
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