This is what it is like to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright House

Signature tile at Taliesin. The Bogk House does not have a tile

Architecture is a visual medium. A three dimensional visual medium. And all architecture is dependent on many externalities. To steal shamelessly from Witold Rybczynski, some of these are:

1. Ideas
2. The Setting
3. Site
4. Plan
5. Structure
6. Skin
7. Details
8. Style
9. The Past
10. Taste

(read his book) 

I am not going to go into each one of these characteristics as I write about what it is like to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright House (should I say WIILTLIAFLWH? No? ok) because I am trying to capture something that is while not ethereal exactly, at the least somewhat intangible. I know we live in the age of "vibes" and I think that is the epitome of lazy writing, but indulge me for a moment. 

It is the vibe of the house that you first notice when you enter. 

I'll try to explain with words. (You may notice a lack of images in this post. This goes against everything I have learned about blogging over the past 25 years, but I guess I am trying to make a point. There are a lot of images of the house in many of the other posts. You can go look at those if you want)

You enter the house into a foyer that is small and has a relatively low ceiling. (yes, a little compression) The, as you walk up the three steps into the living room, you see a couple of things: The Crane Fountain, perfectly framed by a gap in the bookcase; the bookcase and the leaded glass doors; and finally, the release of a 10' 6" ceiling that towers above the orange carpet, the 1917 Wright designed library table, the other bookcase and leaded glass cabinet, and the Henredon furniture that Wright designed in the 1950s.

It takes your breath away.

You stand in silence for a moment as you take it all in. Unconsciously your eyes sweep the room and notice the fireplace. The built-in desk and settee. The sconces that seem to float out of the walls. The map rail. The ceiling detail.

And mostly, the proportions. 

The Golden Mean is golden for a reason. The living room is a manifestation of the Golden Mean. You want to (you need to) sit and take it all in. You don't want to talk, and you don't want to "learn" about the house. You want to just, well, experience the vibe.

Because everything you see is in the right place. Every detail, on first glance, is what you want to see, when you turn your head to look. 

The square motif that recapitulates the details in the lintel over the door.

The long, deep rake of the horizontal mortar joints.

The almost invisible narrow vertical mortar joints.

The wire cut tapestry brick that is exactly the same as the brick on the exterior of the house. 

And you understand that the whole was written in the detail of the parts. The Golden Mean is self referential, and the House is self referential as well. Every single part of this room, this first room you see, tells you that you have entered a special place, a place you don't want to leave.

And that is just the living room. Each room in the house has details that it takes time to recognize, and time to understand. You are overwhelmed at first, but slowly you begin to realize what a magical place you have come into. 

The step up to the dining room brings you closer to the Crane Fountain mentioned above, as well as the details around the planter and conservatory that exploit the "borrowed view" of the neighbor's garden. 

The Wright designed dining room table, chairs (lightly modified by George Mann Niedecken to make  them more comfortable) , ceiling fixture (again, a Niedecken design) as well as a card table, a built in buffet, and the glorious art glass windows that reflect the same windows that are in the living room. 

I could go on. There are only three rooms downstairs (ignoring the coat closet and power room) and each one will track you attention and reward your investigation into detail. In previous posts I try to capture some of that magic. But this media does not reward such attempts richly.

But that is not what it is like to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. That is what it is like to be in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. 

You need to understand that you live in this house like you live in any other house. You need to park your car. You need to carry groceries into the house. You need to put away the groceries. You need to do laundry, wash dishes, and prepare meals. You need to nap, to sleep, to have parties, and to read books. 

Plumbing needs to be maintained, electrical outlets and switches need to be fixed, windows need to be repaired, and everything needs to be cleaned. There is magic in the house, but magic does not obviate the need to do your everyday living. This is still a 108 year old house, with all the problems and issues that every 108 year old house has. Wright or no, if you are not willing to deal with these things it will be a hard slog.

The sense of wonder and the ability to uncover some hidden details never ends. The previous owners lived here for almost 70 years and raised five kids in this house. I know (because I asked) that they felt that they were finding new things out about the house until the day we they left, and we moved it.

Now it is our turn to experience that wonder, as well as the headaches, heartaches, and expenses that come with owning this house.

"What's it like to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house?"

That is, by far, the most common question we get about the house. (Well, maybe after the question, "YOU bought a Frank Lloyd Wright house???")

And I can see why. 

So let me start by telling the story of how we got here.

The thought of living in a Wright house was not even a figment of our imagination until about five years ago, when the Mason House in Wausau, WI was put up for sale. It is a Usonian House, which brings to mind a couple of things. Low ceilings, simple and elegant layout, no garage or basement. (all those being general rules). It was listed for $425k, which did not seem out of reach.

The Mason House

This intrigued Doreen to no end, her being such a Wright fan. So we asked the realtor if my brother Mark, who lives in Wausau, could visit to assess the height of the ceilings, and the general condition of the house.

We were told "no" and so we just passed on that house, and did not think too much about it. 

But a seed had been planted in Doreen's (sometimes) obsessive mind that owning a Wright house would be possible.

Then the Keland House in Mount Pleasant, WI was offered up for sale in 2022. It was a bigger house, but still called a Usonian. Mount Pleasant is south of Milwaukee, just west of Racine. But it looked like it had a nice view of the Root River, and it was on 3 acres. Nice! More expensive that the Mason House, but still sort of reasonable. 

The Keland House

We were late to the game on this house, and they were having a sealed bid auction. There wasn't a chance we could see it before this happened. So this, too, passed us by.

This is probably the right time to mention that I come from a large family, (I am one of seven) and most of the family, and extended family, live in Wisconsin. (some forever, some returned). All the family knows About Doreen's Wright obsession, and they all (seem to) want us back in Wisconsin, too.

So in September of 2023 when the Bogk House came on the market, we started getting many emails, texts, and Signal chats from the family saying that we really needed to come and see this house!

And we did need to see it! It was featured in the Wall Street Journal's "Mansion" section, in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Real Estate" section, and an untold number of scraped House Porn magazines.

We did not want to sleep on this one (I had just retired, and we were thinking about getting a summer place where it is cooler than Houston. Doreen was "thinking" about retiring soonish) So I called my sister who lives in Milwaukee and asked if we could spend the weekend. She said "Of Course!" (of course) and we flew up the next day.

The house was listed by Christies (because, of course) we arranged a meeting with the agent for that Friday. 

But before we arrived, Doreen did a ton of work. She made sure I could stand up in house (it is NOT a Usonian, and it is NOT a Prairie Style), she contacted the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy to see what easements were on the house (nothing that we would not have asked for ourselves), she contacted the Milwaukee Historic Preservation Commission to see what neighborhood restrictions were in place, and she contacted the Homeowners Association to see what OTHER restrictions were in place. She did a LOT of work. 

So when we arrived for the showing, we knew what was what, and what we should be concerned about.

It could not have gone better. The house was beautiful, the neighborhood was fantastic, the weather was gorgeous. 

But now hard decisions had to be made. Doreen was really still working, and was not seriously thinking about retirement (as much as I was trying to get her to). We spent a day walking around the neighborhood and visiting open houses to get a sense of the FLW premium (very low, by the way) and to think about what our lives would be like if we would pull this trigger.

We made our decision over the weekend, and contacted the agent and let her know. After a brief negotiations with the owners (Who are lovely to a one of them. We still keep in touch, and take advantage of their knowledge of the house that they lived in for almost 70 years! They have become friends) we came to a number, an an agreement, and a date to close later that year.

I will stop here for now, and in my next post answer the question that is the title of this one. 

Trying to capture the new paint color

 I am finding it quite difficult to capture the new trim color in the context of the whole house. This is partly because the windows are deep set, the color is a dark red, let's call it Cherokee Red, and the light does not fall on the front of the house to give it the best representation.

Here is one view:

I think that does a pretty good job. I posted this earlier:

So you can see the difference between the old and the new color. I think it is quite nice! In my mind, it really makes the house look happy. 

You can see this in detail on the back door:

And the front door:

Lots of folks say it makes the color "pop" and I cannot disagree.

The other colors will remain the same.

And a shout out to O'Brien Painting here in Milwaukee. They are doing a fantastic job. 

And even more furniture!

We have a couple of single beds in the small guest room. We call it The Kid's Room, or The Oh-Boy's room, for the only folks who have stayed there (with us) so far. Now we have beds:

Nice, eh?

Gustav Stickley.

First look at the new paint color

 

What do you think?

Why yes, we are getting some furniture!

When we bought this house, we bought a passel of furniture with it. The original dining room, library, and game table that Mrs. Elsner tracked down in the 1950s and 60s, as well as several Wright pieces that had been manufactured by Henredon in the '50s and '60s. Almost all of this furniture was downstairs. 

We did buy a bed, and with the help of friends and family were able to sleep on an actual bed the day we closed on the house. (Thank you Mel, Frank, Matt, and Laurie; as well as the staff from Christie's)  

But we did not have a desk, or many chairs that we could use upstairs.

That did not stop us from making do with what we had:

Yes, that is a camp chair on the right, and the desk is made from moving boxes that we shipped up here with our books in them, and two of the leaves from the dining room table. It worked, I am very happy to say.

But recently Doreen found a Wright designed table that was manufactured in the '90s, and it would fit right in:

Provenance:

Licenses from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. 

Detail:

You can see that the square motif is preserved in this desk.

And when we get it set up it looks like this:

Except for the camp chair, it is pretty nice! That other chair is one of the Henredon chairs. (And if you look closely, you can see what I am writing on the screen. Sort of self-referential) 

We are now looking for other desk chairs that will fit, both physically and from a design standpoint.

But this is a good start!

Starting to paint the exterior

As I mentioned earlier, we are going to change t he color of the trim on the windows, reverting back to the original Cherokee Red color beloved by Wright. You can imagine this color in your mind by thinking of an old red barn sitting out in the sun in the farmlands of Wisconsin. This is a color that Wright grew up with, and you see over and over again in his houses, from Taliesin to the Usonian genre. I have a photo of the house with these colors in a previous post. Oh heck, here it is again:

I will, of course, update our true colors once they are up.

But first a little pallet cleanser of sunrises over Lake Michigan:

That was not intended to get you in the mood for red, but heck, whatever works.

Now, here are some colors being auditioned. (The background you see here is the door of our Houston house. Synchronicity)

We are also having the concrete cleaned up around the house.

I can dig up some "before" photos if there is demand, but since I am seldom overwhelmed by comments, I will probably just let this be.

The guy does a fantastic job

Jayke Orvis is the concrete guy. We hope to see him perform sometime later this month. I will report back.

It is not pleasant around the house with all the sanding, scraping, and to-ing and fro-ing by the crew.

But good work requires good prep.