Thanksgiving reconsidered

On this, the most traveled holiday, one of the sibs came by on her way to the Grove Park Inn http://www.groveparkinn.com/Leisure/ ) to see the house. She commented that we had mentioned years ago building a Roman style house with a barrier to the world and a courtyard in the middle.

I've been reading the Emperor series of books by Conn Iggulden (co-author of The Dangerous Book for Boys). In it, a group of country folk walk into Rome for the first time and comment on the architecture of the greatest city in the greatest Empire of the day. The visitors note that unlike Egypt, where the most impressive buildings are the tombs for the dead, Rome was a city built for the living, commerce and conquest.

I do think architecture reflects the place of its origin. New York has limited space, hence the skyscrapers. The prairie is low and flat, therefore the Prairie Houses hug the ground, emphasizing the horizontal which to Frank Lloyd Wright represented "home."

On our trip south, the most interesting group of buildings was on the strip of I-85 between Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina. These innovative buildings anticipate the boom years to come for those forward looking people of the state to the south.

And, as far as our "courtyard" home - if we'd lived in Roman Times, we couldn't have afforded one of those. They were out of our tax bracket. We'd have had to live in an upper apartment, which had no running water or any of the modern conveniences the Romans had to offer, like sewers. There were also very tiny windows to block out the hot Italian sun and consequently they were firetraps for dwellers. Should one of these tenements catch fire, you couldn't even jump to safety, you were just stuck there, skin crackling, like the Thanksgiving turkeys we all ate last week.

ROOFLINE COMPLETED!

Hotty Toddy

Heading south for Thanksgiving. Rains for the past couple of days so nothing new on the house.

Will write more after we're more stuffed than the turkey.

http://www.olemisssports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=2600&ATCLID=204838053

STEEL 2

Our great room trellis now has the steel supports it needs.

The other ones looked a little funny too until they were encased in wood.

This is the bedroom trellis. It doesn't look so dorky.

Another famous American Architect

In the comment section following the fireplace post, one of my sibs, BB mentioned that she liked her fireplace because it was a open barrier between the foyer and the great room. It can be seen from either side and yet provides privacy to the living quarters so not just anyone can peek in and see them in their jammies at the unseemly time of early afternoon.

Thomas Jefferson, that guy from Virginia, knew a thing or two about building. I just assumed he designed Monticello and the colonnade at UVA. But, he also built a lesser known country home to which he would retire when the company got to be a bit too much in Charlottesville.

Poplar Forest outside of Lynchburg Virginia is a tiny delight. This was a house intended to maintain Mr. J's privacy. An uninvited visitor could be shown through the house all the way to the back public reception area, and never really see the private spaces because of the central hallway.The bedrooms and family living areas are to either side of this hallway.

http://www.poplarforest.org/

Instead of the compression and release theory of going through a small foyer to enter an airy great room, it was more of a squeeze play, that gets the company in and out quickly. He could walk them through the house, and out the back door before they knew what was happening, and they felt like they were truly being invited into his home.

It always comes down to this. We want to live in beautiful homes that are comfortable. And, we want our privacy too. My sister achieves this with her fireplace, TJ had a walk through hallway, and we have a wall to the world on the street side.

This is the "street" side of the house. There will be clerestory windows on the great room, that tall kitchen window that you can see and one small window in Pat's sanctuary/bathroom/laundry room.

Rumor has it

Our builder told us one of the neighbors snuck over and asked if he was building a convenience store...

Rainy Day construction

Shown is the beginning of the roof for the great room. As you can see, it introduces a new plane which lends interest.

The interior shots show a "dead" space that was created at the joint of the higher roof to the lower. One of the builders thinks we should put an aquarium in there, Pat immediately said, "that's where we can put the dead bodies," and I said it could be the "naughty zone," for bad babies which means our BOB could be spending his toddlerdom there.

A view of infinity

This is the window at the end of the corridor in the bedroom wing. I think it looks like something escher could have drawn, an infinite puzzle.

http://images.google.com/images?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS338US339&sourceid=chrome&q=escher+drawings&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=YVsDS8vvO4zgnAe2-9xu&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQsAQwAA

Great Builders building Great room!

That's Tom Southern the contractor.

Pat on top of carport.



Views of the great room from the roof.

The great room looking toward the stairs.

Obviously my hopes for a roof tonight were overly optimistic.

YEAH!

After a week of IDA rains, work has begun again! I think we may have a roof on the lower, great room portion tonight! Yeah....

We are not alone...whoahahhaha

We are not the first, nor will we be the last to decide to go back to the future and build a usuonian house. When we went for our second visit to the Pope-Leighey house in Alexandria Va, we were the only ones on tour and asked if we could really take our time. The docent knew exactly what we were up to and said, "sure, lots of people bring tape measures."

I don't think we were that organized. I had an old grocery list and pencil stub and Pat paced out the rooms while I wrote down the dimensions. You can buy a floor plan for any of the unbuilt Frank Lloyd Wrights houses from his foundation, but that will cost you a pretty penny, plus, then you have to abide by their rules and regs and they will have an advisor come out to tell you how it should all go down.

You can go on ebay and buy FLW plans to modify and/or just build.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Usonian-Style-home-by-F-L-Wright-architectural-plans_W0QQitemZ140344717622QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPlans_Blueprints_Guides?hash=item20ad327136&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262?refid=store#ht_2704wt_935

However, we knew we wanted to take the basic plan and modify it enough that we didn't want to do that. We had already designed our country home and built that without any problems...even after the dog ate the plans on the second day of framing.

A family out in Ohio designed and built their own usonian.

http://usonianredhouse.com/construction.html

This house, while it really looks like it could have been designed by FLW wasn't.

What these Ohioans did, and what we are attempting to do is bring that sense of FLW style back with modern materials- so our roof won't leak.

The inside furniture looks really like FLW's but I didn't like that style, and in his book, The Natural House, FLW discusses how difficult it was for him to design a comfortable chair. Indeed, he and Mamah Cheney had mission style chairs for their use at Taliesin.

The chair above is from TARGET.

Calamari calls us

I couldn't find a picture of the Pope Leighey fireplace, but I did find a site that had a usonian fireplace , to give you an idea of how important they were to the structural integrity of the buildings.

http://nwrenovation.com/design/frank-loyd-wrights-usonian-houses/

The website belongs to, NW Renovation, a home improvement magazine.

As you can see, the fireplace is the pillar that helps hold up the roof, and it is also a wall that hides the kitchen from the living area. By using a gas fireplace, we have opened up the kitchen to the great room, so that who ever is cooking isn't out of the conversation loop. We have regained our "calamari counter," as our Mikey calls it. Pat will be able to fry the squid, and we can all sit around and eat it so fast, he won't get any.

Here is our fireplace, much less impressive, but more portable as far as placement in the house.

Napoleon GVF40 Fireplace

Fireplaces.

A quick trip around undeveloped countryside will reveal exposed fireplaces; the lone remnants of former dwellings. The reason for this is that they were the sturdiest bits of the structures that no longer exist.

A hundred years from now, there won't be the same archeological artifacts because we have all gone whole heartedly for gas fireplaces. This is sad because our children won't have the same smoke filled rooms to clog their memories of good times and cursing by parents who forgot to open the damper.

An unvented gas fireplace has no need of a chimney, flue or damper. It just needs a gasline to feed it and can be placed anywhere in the house. You can even replicate the great dining hall from THE LION IN WINTER by placing your fireplace in the middle of the room. All you'd need would be a couple of mangy dogs fighting over the deer haunches and the illusion is complete.

The Pope-Leighey house needed its fireplace to be in the center, creating a wall between the living room and the kitchen. Frank Lloyd Wright used this, the strongest part of the house, to anchor his ceiling joists.

We're using steel instead and have moved our fireplace to the far side of the room because we, non-purists that we are, like a fire every morning by which to read our paper and sip our coffee. We don't have a cackling aroma filled room, but we do have a semblance of that which Prometheus stole from the gods and it's alot easier to flip a switch than chop firewood.

This lovely illustration show Prometheus bound, with his liver being eaten. This was the punishment that the Gods deemed fit the crime.

IDA!

Rain rain go away
come again another day.
My house needs building.
STAY AWAY...

at least, until I can say,
we're dried in now...

...HURRAY!

Bon Appetit mebbe

A friend informed me that BON APPETIT has a holiday article titled, Dreaming of a Wright Christmas complete with recipes. My friend hit on two of my main cylinders. Food and houses. The other four are my daughters, Pat is the chassis.(How is THAT for an off the cuff metaphor?!)

On a run out to the Harris Teeter, braving the throes of Hurricane Ida rains, I bought the magazine and Pat promptly found an error. It is a lovely house, it is a Frank Lloyd Wright house and the recipes look delicious. The people who inhabit the house are young and gorgeous and need to reproduce to improve the gene pool.

HOWEVER, the home, the Charles F. Glore house, was built in 1951, NOT 1954 as stated in the article. We used The Vision of Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas A Heinz, Regency House Publishing 2005. However, I can see where confusion reigns. A Herbert Angster built a house in LAKE BLUFF around the same time, and our book confuses the two. However, I went to one of my standby sites and they came down on the side of 1951.

http://eng.archinform.net/projekte/13807.htm

and I guess if you're thinking about food, all bodies of water look the same.

And if this same inattention to detail follows through to recipes, well, there you go. Your holiday meal could be a big fat bust.

Thanks Dad

Paavo Vilho Hanninen

Pocket Doors and Elegant Hedgehogs

One big difference between our house and the original, Pope-Leighey house, is that we are using pocket doors in all the rooms. We chose this option for space...but tonight while reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbury (Europa Editions, 2009), I found a perfect explanation of the benefits of pocket doors.

In this novel, a Japanese gentleman has bought and renovated a Parisian apartment and installed sliding doors.

"I was fascinated by the way the Japanese use space in their lives, and by these doors that slide and move quietly along invisible rails, refusing to offend space. For when we push open a door, we transform a place in a very insidious way. We offend its full extension and introduce a disruptive and poorly proportioned obstacle. If you think about it carefully, there is nothing uglier than an open door. An open door introduces a break in the room, a sort of provincial interference, destroying the unity of space. In the adjoining room it creates a depression, an absolutely pointless gaping hole adrift in section of a wall that would have preferred to remain whole....Sliding doors avoid such pitfalls and enhance space. Without affecting the balance of the room, they allow it to be transformed. When a sliding door is open, two areas communicate without offending each other. When it is closed, each regains its integrity. Sharing and reunion can occur without intrusion. Life becomes a quiet stroll..."

I asked Pat why he thought Frank Lloyd Wright didn't use pocket doors in the Usonians. He thought it was cheaper to do the other sort. I think it is interesting that a Japanese gentleman introduced the sliding door to this Parisian apartment and we are using them in our little house... after all, Mr. Wright was heavily influenced by the Japanese. A bit of serendipity... we are now thinking of learning how to do bonsai...

@)#$(#*$#(*$() THAT DANG JIM CANTORE

Forget what I said in my earlier post, Jim Cantore, that harbinger of death from the Weather Channel is on the Gulf Coast..... will plywood go sky high??????

The Hidden Costs of Hurricanes

Thankfully, for many reasons, this has been a low hurricane year. The last time we built a house, hurricanes had caused the price of plywood to go sky high. This year, as the season ends, we are looking at a weakening Hurricane Ida in the Gulf of Mexico. Hopefully we won't have any late season blows.

Still framing the great room. We'll go check on the progress later on.

BOB is napping. Don't mess with a happy baby has always been my credo.

Check it out

If you are thinking about doing something like this but are afraid to take the leap of faith, there are opportunities to actually stay in a usonian. My sister first told me about this one which is very nice, but there are others. Here is a the nice one in Pennsylvania

http://www.polymathpark.com/duncan.asp

Here's a link to the USONIAN INN. http://www.usonianinn.com/ This website isn't wonderful as I couldn't get any pictures to open.

Here's a link to something that WILL open pictures, I think.

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-hotel-6611374-the_usonian_inn-i

Here's a more high-cotton usonian, in Wisconsin.

http://theschwartzhouse.com/Home.html

Here's one in Illinois:

http://www.muirheadfarmhouse.com/

And Finally...here's one from the county where I was raised..

http://www.penfieldhouse.com/

LAKE COUNTY OHIO has two usonians I know of. This one you can stay at and another is a private residence. Lake County also has the fewest days of sunshine in the country which is why we moved south.

This is the private residence:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hypnoraygun/sets/72157614628753388/show/

The pictures in the slide show are very informative on why my entire family headed out as soon as we could. The winters are brutal. I remember driving by this house fairly regularly and knowing it was a Frank LLoyd Wright design, although the word usonian was not in my vocabulary at that time.

Act Two

Tom is now framing the great room...

Rabbiting the lintels

Tom, Pat and I were standing around discussing our insulator guy's observation that maybe the overhangs and carport should be insulated to help eliminate moisture which could lead to mold. We stood there for 10 minutes trying to figure out if this was cost effective,etc. I turned to Pat and said, "We're very close to 'rabbiting the lintels, aren't we?"

Anyone who is going to build a house should do one important thing. Before going to the bank,before buying the lot, before picking the builder- one should watch the great, funny and o so true Cary Grant movie Mr. Blandings Builds his Dream House.

In that movie, Lex Barker comes up to Cary and asks him if he wants his "lintels rabbited or not." Cary has no idea what the worker is talking about and watching his face while he's trying to figure out what the request means is sheer Cary Comic genius.

We're still framing the bedroom wing, so no new photographs. Although on a health note, I managed to conk my head on a brace hard enough it knocked me to the ground and my clogs flew off my feet.

Here's a picture anyway of one of the most wonderful human beings to walk on earth..

.

Myrna Loy is in it too.

We lent our copy to Tom, our contractor; mainly so he'll get our jokes.

I'm going to go get an aspirin now. My head hurts.

Boxing

A while back I saw a television segment on Jamie Wyeth, the American artist and son of Andrew. I thought it was on Sixty Minutes, but couldn't find anything on Youtube so I may be wrong.

In this interview the camera followed Jamie around town as he scouted new things to paint. His tool for this was a large cardboard box in which he would sit and peer out into the world through a square cut out. This cutout was his way of getting rid of all the extraneous visual information.

I thought of Jamie and his big brown box when I stood in our spare room and looked out. The eastern wall is all glass, a frame which eliminates everything but the view. This windowwall makes the very small room simultaneously cozy and expansive. It is wonderous to behold and now we're having the inevitable argument. I want THAT to be our master bedroom and leave the larger bedroom clear to be our spare room.

We shall see who wins.

This is my cardboard box view. The brace, of course, will be gone soon.

http://www.jamiewyeth.com/biography.html

cantilevers, carports, and construction joy

Tom, our builder, is really enjoying his work right now. At least I think that's what it is. Surely, it's not the anticipation of his upcoming cruise for his 20th anniversary....

No, he really is excited because he can see that the project is going well...knock wood.

Now, the original Pope-Leighey house has a flat roof. OUR roof is going to be oh so slightly hipped because as anyone who has ever taken a tour of a Wright house knows, his roofs leaked. The two pictures here are showing the very, very thin wedged added wood on top of the roof joists.

This small incline/decline will ensure the rain leaves the roof quickly and not hang around waiting for an uninvited, dripping entry into our home.

On another note, Pat got nervous and on his evening walk, went by and remeasured the living room... I don't know what he would have done if it wasn't right at this point... I think the concrete footprint, for good or ill is what we have to deal with. Thankfully, his worries were unfounded and it was all good.

That toddlin' town

Whatever that means...

Chicago's Oak Park must have had something in the water. In the latter part of the 19th -early 20th centuries it was a hotbed of ideas and strong mothers. It was home to Ernest Hemingway as well as Frank Lloyd Wright. Both of these men had pretty impressive moms. Frank's mom determined early on he was going to be an architect, even before he was born so the story goes. And in his early childhood, she purchased some froebel blocks for his play.

http://www.architoys.net/toys/toypages/froebel

If you want your child to be the next Frank Lloyd Wright then you can access this webpage

http://www.shopwright.org/blocks.html and nurture her/his interest.

Ernest Hemingway's mother was another force. Just Google Ernest Hemingway's mother and you will bring up tons of really nasty stuff, but the thing that impressed me most about her was her radical kitchen design. If my reading of his biography was correct, she was one of the first people to incorporate built in kitchen cabinetry as well as the idea of a "work triangle" in her home. Her theory was that to be efficient, a kitchen's work spaces should be able to be reached without walking all over a huge room. She was farseeing enough to envision a time when people wouldn't have servants or time to spend trying to locate things.

Of course now, we've gone backwards and our kitchens are looming large again even as we are eating out more.

Here's a link to the tour of Wright's Oak Park

http://www.gowright.org/homestudio/tours.php

And here's Papa's link

http://www.ehfop.org/