Book - Prelude To The Prairie Style - Eight Models of Unbuilt Houses by FLWright - Paul Kruty

Prelude to the prairie style: eight models of unbuilt houses by Frank
Lloyd Wright, 1893-1901 / by Paul Kruty, with an essay and chronology

by Paul E. Sprague.
Kruty, Paul.
Champaign, Ill. : School of Architecture, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, c2005.
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PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES
BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
1893-1901
BY PAUL KRUTY
WITH AN ESSAY AND CHRONOLOGY

BY PAUL E. SPRAGUE
School of Architecture
University of Illinois
Urbana-Champaign
2005
This catalog has been published in conjunction with the exhibition. "Prelude to the Prairie Style, Eight Models of"
Unbuilt Houses by Frank Lloyd Wright. 1893-1901." held at I space, the gallery of the College of Fine and Applied
Arts. University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. 230 W. Superior. Chicago. 60610. September- October 2005
Designed by Gretchen Wieshuber. Studio 2D. Champaign. IL.

Printed by University of Illinois Printing Services.
Funded by the U 1 L'C Campus Research Board
ISBN: 0-9660146-4-2
First edition. All rights reserved
No part of this catalog may be reproduced without the written consent of the School of Architecture. UIUC.
and the authors
< 2005 Paul kruty

The School of Architecture
117 Temple Hoyne Buell Hall
University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign
611 Taft Drive
Champaign. I L 61820
The text of the essay. 'The Evolution of Wright's Long. Narrow Hip Roofs" is s Paul E. Sprague
.All drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright are e The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. Taliesin West. Scottsdale. AZ.
and are used with permission.
Front Cover Goan house [Cat. 1]

Headpiece, p 8 Home in a Prairie Town [Cat. 7]
Back Cover Heller house [Cat }]
PAUL KRUTY
Introduction: Creating a Modern Style

PAUL KRUTY
The Evolution of Wright's Long, Narrow Hip Roofs

with an appendix documenting the dates of design of

eight unbuilt houses by Frank Lloyd Wright
PAUL E. SPRAGUE
Annotated Catalog of the Eight Models

PAUL KRUTY
1 Orrin Goan house, 1893
2 Jesse Baldwin house, 1895

3 Isadore Heller house, 1897
4 Rebecca Eckart house, 1897
5 Aline Devin house, 1898
6 C. A. McAfee house, 1899

7
-
"A Home in a Prairie Town," 1900
8 Victor Metzger house, 1901
Selected Bibliography
FOREWORD
PAUL KRUTY
In the fall of 2004, students in my graduate Sprague has not only made this research avail record Wright has left of them. Previously, offer
seminar constructed eight basswood models of able for the present study but has also provided ing architecture students in my graduate history
unbuilt projects designed by Frank Lloyd Wright summaries of his reasons for assigning particular seminars the option of making basswood models
of unbuilt or demolished buildings
by
between 1893 and 1901. The eight projects, each dates to the eight unbuilt designs. These summa Walter
indebted in some way to the work of Wright's ries follow his essay on the hip roof. He has also Burley Griffin eventually produced six models
mentor, Louis Sullivan, predate Wright's famous provided many of the illustrations reproduced of individual buildings, two paired house-groups,
Prairie masterpieces, including the Ward Willits, here, including the only known photograph and model of the entire project for the inte
a
Darwin Martin, and Frederick Robie houses, of the east facade of the Husser house, which grated development known
Rock Crest/Rock
as
the Larkin building and Unity temple. Yet each appears here for the first time (fig. 28). Glen. These nine models were exhibited as
a
of the eight projects has something to offer in In some cases it was necessary to supplement group in Chicago in 2003 and published in an
furthering our understanding of the remarkable Professor Sprague's files with additional mate annotated catalog.2 During the fall semester,
buildings that were to follow them. rial, including searches in census records and 2004, my graduate seminar investigated the work
Despite the regard Wright himself felt toward Chicago newspapers for several of the clients. of Wright from its beginning until World War
several of these projects, and their importance Research undertaken by one of the students, Following the success of the Griffin project,
I.
I
to understanding his work, the student of archi Michael Waters, in conjunction with references decided to assign the class the task of building
tecture will search in vain for any documentary supplied by Professor Sprague and myself, led to models each to the same scale, one-quarter inch
research done on them, and will find only a smat the discovery of the lot on which Jesse Baldwin equals one foot. The students broke into pairs
of critical of them.1 It is the aim intended to build his house [Cat. Although charged with constructing eight projects of the
2].
tering analysis
of the present publication to begin to correct on the same block on which Wright's home and 1890s. The results appear in this publication.
this problem. For many years Paul E. Sprague, studio stand, the site has never been known until The graphic documentation available in order
Professor Emeritus of the University of Wis now. to undertake these tasks ranged from complete
consin—Milwaukee, has undertaken the research In addition to research and documentation, working drawings to little more than sketch
a
necessary to create a more accurate chronol creating three-dimensional models of these plan and perspective rendering. In each case,
it
ogy than is presently available of Wright's work works offers another possibility towards under was necessary for the students to make informed
between 1887 and 1903 in order to understand standing them. Models allow for clearer vision choices about matters related to fenestration,
a
better the complex changes in Wright's architec of what the houses were meant to be than detailing, scale, measurement, and inconsisten
is
ture that occurred during these years. Professor readily possible through the incomplete visual cies among drawings. To supplement my own
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
■
I
knowledge, Professor Sprague spent a week as Applied Arts, David Chasco, Director, School
guest of the School of Architecture, sharing his of Architecture, and Mary Antonakos, Director,
professional research (much of it unpublished) I space. I owe debts of gratitude to Selah Peter
and personal insights with the group. My heart son, Carol Berg, Tamela Boadu and Sherri Kiska,
felt thanks to Paul for his generosity and enthu as well as Barbara Prahl and Marsha Fleming for
siasm. Classroom study was further enriched their assistance. As always, Gretchen Wieshuber
with field trips to Chicago's Hyde Park neigh found a wonderful way to give visual unity to all
borhood as well as suburban Oak Park and River this material. Funding for the exhibition and
Forest in order to examine first-hand a number catalog was made possible by a grant from the
of Wright's houses from the 1890s, both inside Research Board of the University of Illinois at
and out. The students and I particularly wish to Urbana- Champaign. May it continue to flourish
thank Steven Goldstein, Audrey & James Kouvel, in these penurious times.
and Karen & Kevin Murphy for their hospitality. Finally, special notes of thanks to Jane for her
In addition, Roy & Pamela Van Cleave graciously support (and forbearance) and to Spencer for
allowed me to run my tape measure around and sacrificing precious walk-time for the sake of
through their house. architecture.
First and foremost, I am indebted to the four
teen students who created the models: Woo- 1

Recent books mostly repeat the incomplete and sometimes
young Choi, Emma Colon, Molly Cundari, Laura incorrect information published more than a half century
Dean, Thomas Hagensick, Ann Harrer, Sangwon ago by Henry- Russell Hitchcock in In the Nature of Materials:
1887-1941,the Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: Duell,
Kang, Euisang Lee, Sarah Lowe, Sung-Ah Park,
Sloan and Pearce, 1942) and Grant Carpenter Manson in
Douglas Pettay Nolan Sit, Vidhya Thyagarajan,
Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910:the First Golden Age (New York: Rein-
and Andrew Vogt. And a second word of thanks hold Publishing Corporation. 1958)
to Tom Hagensick for attending to last-minute 2
Paul Kruty. Walter Burley Griffin: Architectural Models of Projects
details. and Demolished Buildings (Urbana: School of Architecture.
My appreciation further extended to
is University of Illinois. Urbana- Champaign. 2003).
Kathleen F. Conlin, Dean, College of Fine and
2 ■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

INTRODUCTION: CREATING A MODERN STYLE
PAUL KRUTY
As he turned twenty-six in June 1893, Frank Lloyd The inclusion of elements derived from Sul
Wright opened his private architectural practice livan's new formal expression, however, revealed
in the Schiller building in Chicago's Loop (fig. fundamental dilemma facing Wright. From
1).
a
Wright had just severed his connections with the Silsbee. he had learned manner of composition
a
firm of Adler & Sullivan, where he had worked and an interest in the materials of construction
for slightly more than five years. Although the but virtually nothing about architectural theory
primary influence evident in the designs he had and its relation to the meaning of style. These
produced until that point reflected the pictur were subjects that obsessed Sullivan, who was
of
by
esque compositions fostered the architects eager to expound at length upon them, par
the so-called Shingle style, an approach to design ticularly to his young protege. Sullivan thus
imparted to Wright through his first employer, transferred to Wright the very idea of creating
Joseph Lyman Silsbee, the building Wright had contemporary architecture that responded to
a
just designed before leaving Adler & Sullivan the needs and wants of what Sullivan variously
exhibits the strong influence of Sullivan's archi called Modern, American, Democratic life, that
tecture. The Orrin Goan house [Cat. (fig. freely accepted the materials that would make
1]
2), intended for site in La Grange, Illinois, this possible, whether these were new or old.
is
a
of of
by
formally arranged in elevation around central and would do so way new vocabulary
a
a
axis that marks its entrance. Large double-hung form and decoration.2 While Sullivan admitted
plate-glass windows on the ground floor are sur that much could be learned from the past, he
mounted with second-floor arcades that recall maintained that was impossible to reuse past
it
a
of buildings
by
host Louis Sullivan (including the architectural forms themselves without compro
Schiller building), while surrounding the arches mising their fundamental meanings. According
are clear suggestions of Wright's own version of to Sullivan, the great historic styles of architec
by
Sullivan's abstracted, botanic ornament.1 When ture were created architects, craftsmen, and
the Goans abandoned the project, Wright offered builders in tune with the world around them who
revision of the design to William Winslow, who were expressing their interpretations of their
a
constructed the following year, 1894, in River particular time and place in the architectural
it
Forest, Illinois. The result was one of Wright's forms and details they gave to their buildings.' FIG. 1. Schiller building, Chicago, IL, 1891 . Adler
first masterpieces. Those forms, Sullivan argued, could only repre- Sullivan, architects. Perspective, from the
&
southeast. Drawn by Louis Rasmussen.
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT MOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT■
3
similar borrowing by his draftsmen and associ
ates of his own personal, modern architecture—
what has come to be known, for better or worse
as his "Prairie Style" — this is just how he treated
Sullivan's architecture
during the 1890s.
However, Wright did not limit himself to
borrowing from Sullivan. Following his design
of the Orrin Goan house, Wright experimented
with a variety of forms, arrangements, decorative
schemes, and materials before he developed the
architectural vocabulary that he began to
FIG. 2. Project: Orrin Goan house, use

La Grange, IL, 1893. Frank L. Wright, architect. Perspective and
sketch plan. consistently from 1902 forward through the first
decade of the twentieth century. Despite their
sent the cultures that had created them. Whether to find his own way of expressing the contempo variety, it is possible to trace in these works of
an individual the 1890s the emergence of forms and details

might actually be successful in rary world in architecture.
that would coalesce to form Wright's mature,
expressing modern life in his work depended on This was a tall order. Sullivan himself had
of the personal, modern style, as Paul Sprague does with

the verity mystical connection among the struggled through the 1880s without discovering
artist's soul, contemporary culture, and the great the solution to his personal quest. Yet in 1890 Wright's characteristic hip roof in the essay that
of all creative follows.
source energy, Nature. But the goal he suddenly succeeded to his own satisfaction
of every architect should be to try to bring these when he designed the Getty tomb in Chicago's
It is also possible, despite their interconnect-
edness, to divide these diverse buildings and
elements into synchronization. Graceland Cemetery and the Wainwright build
Sullivan's theory made sense to Wright. It St. Louis, Missouri. The first was histori projects into distinct formal groups, including
ing at a
continuations of the picturesque Silsbee lineage;
gave purpose to design decisions in a way that cal building type made of traditional materials,
composition did not. It also raised limestone and bronze, while the second was the forays into a variety of historic styles, includ
picturesque
the importance of the architect in the scheme newest building type in the western world — a ing Classical Revival, Tudor Gothic, and Dutch
Colonial, and experiments with the severe geom
of things, making him the bearer of cultural fireproofed, steel-framed tall office block, ser
significance. At the same time, it presented a viced by elevators and a state-of-the-art heating etry, simplicity and axiality as well as decorative
for the novice architect, because and cooling plant. Yet Sullivan brought the
richness of Sullivan's architecture, as first seen in
great problem
the Goan project.4
Sullivan did not provide in his call to arms a designs of each to life with his newly invented
or method of design. Sullivan had of form and detail. The temptation Perhaps the most fascinating of these three
prescription vocabulary
created a personal architecture that, to his mind, for architects who wanted to build according groups are those works that might be called
the "Sullivanian" designs, which continue the
solved the problems he believed beleaguered to Sullivan's theory was to treat his personal
contemporary architecture; but he did not claim solution as a universal Modern style capable of approach laid down by the Goan house and
which constitute the majority of the models
to have invented a universal Modern style nor development in the hands of other designers.
was this his aim. Instead, he urged each architect decade later Wright would decry a presented in this catalog.5 The most obvious
Though a

of these, which draw upon such Sullivanian
features as organic ornament, formal arched
entranceways. and arcaded loggias, include the
unbuilt projects for the Heller I , Eckert, Devin
and McAfee houses [Cats. 3-6] as well as three
constructed buildings, the Winslow, Heller II
and Husser houses. A second group that relates
to Sullivan's interest in geometric form but in a
less obvious way begins with the Baldwin house

project [Cat. 2] and continues with the Winslow
stables and the two houses built for George and FIG. 3. Ward Willits house, Highland Park, IL, 1902. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Perspective, from
the southwest.
Rollin Furbeck (figs. 11-13, 18-20).
Wright's resolution of the seeming dilemma of

working in picturesque, Sullivanian and historic in 1902 in the Ward Willits house in Highland built in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, for Victor
modes virtually simultaneously occurred in 1900, Park, Illinois, with its roofs changed from gable of an
8].
Metzger [Cat. But these recollections
when he revisited the forms of Japanese architec
to hip (fig. earlier era were now set in the overall context
3).
ture he had initially discovered first-hand in 1893
The decisive break had thus occurred. Wright, of the new horizontal, continuous, undecorated
while clearly integrating lessons learned from of exter forms that first appeared in 1899 at the River
having fully absorbed this smorgasbord
the English Arts-and- Crafts architects, includ nal and internal influences, now embarked on Forest Golf Club and again in 1900 in the two
ing C. F. A. Voysey and M. H. Baillie Scott, and series of architectural investigations using houses in Kankakee and proved fruitful source
a
a
a
also reflecting on several designs of his own that
limited but remarkably flexible vocabulary of of inspiration for decade.
a
were ripe for development, most importantly
While versions of two of the unbuilt Sul
design that avoided direct references to Silsbee,
the River Forest Golf Club of 1899. The results Sullivan, Japan, England, or historic form. This livanian houses— the Goan and Heller I— were
of this evolution and synthesis included the B.
self-reflexive Prairie Style served its architect further developed and subsequently built as
Harley Bradley and Warren Hickox houses in for more than decade. Yet it did not emerge the Winslow and Heller houses, many of the
a
1
1
Kankakee, Illinois, which Wright published in
full-blown in 1900. For the three years fol other important Sullivanian designs were not
revised form the following year in the Ladies Home
of in any form, including the projects
lowing the first realization the Prairie Style constructed
Journal as "A Home in a Prairie Town" and "A in 1899, elements of Wright's architecture of for Baldwin. Eckart, Devin and McAfee. All of
House with 'Lots of Room in It'."6 The former the previous decade— including angled pylons, these substantial buildings were intended to be
[Cat. 7] (figs. 35-36) marked the fullest expres arched entrances, decorated columns, complex made of brick with stone trim. Even though they
sion of Wright's emerging Prairie style to that
moldings, heavy interior details, and massive remained projects, as group these six are crucial
a
date and served as a model for the Darwin Martin
exterior towers— reappeared from time to time to an understanding of the evolution of Wright's
house in Buffalo, New York, built of stone and
until finally disappearing in 1903. Many of these architecture on the eve of the Prairie house.
brick in 1903. The latter (fig. 37) found its con features are found in Wright's scheme for the Wright himself was aware of their impor
sistent physical embodiment in wood and plaster
tance. In 1900, in the first exhibition of his
extravagant stone house designed in 1901 to be
■
J
work at the Chicago Architectural Club since many houses, the Winslow house was still "the NOTES
1894 (excluding several panels of Luxfer electro- architect's best known and, on the whole, the '
Except for the arches, these qualities are all found in the
glazing shown in 1898 and 1899), he chose to When the English Arts-and-
most successful."12 elevation of Adler 8c Sullivan's Charnley house, designed
Crafts designer and architect, C. R. Ashbee, in 1891. with working drawings prepared under Wright's
display the unrealized projects for Devin, Eckart
supervision. While the plan of the Charnley house is alio
and McAfee, alongside an early scheme for the toured America in 1900 as an ambassador for
symmetrical and axial, the Goan plan defies the central axis
Abraham Lincoln Center. From among all of his the British National Trust, he met Wright at a It has now been shown definitively that the Charnley house
works that had been constructed since 1894, he banquet at Jane Addams' Hull House. On Ash- must be attributed to Sullivan, not to Wright; see Paul E
Sprague. "Who Designed the Charnley House Louis Sul

showed with the four projects only the Moore bee's last day in Chicago, as the English historian
livan or Frank Lloyd Wright?," 129-170, in Richard Long
house and his Studio addition.7 A decade later, Alan Crawford has shown, Wright escorted him streth. ed.. The Charnley House: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright,
when he carefully selected for the Wasmuth port on an architectural tour, taking him to the newly and the Making of Chicago's Gold Coast (Chicago: University of
folio those buildings that he wished the whole completed Husser house. In his diary entry of Chicago Press. 2004).
world to know about, he resuscitated the Devin 8 December 1900, Ashbee called the Husser 2 Sullivan
discussed his architectural theories in many words
and McAfee houses among the few early build house "one of the most beautiful and the most written over many years; for his collected essays, see Robert
Twombly. ed.. Louis Sullivan: the Public Papers (Chicago: Uni
ings he chose to include.8 individual creations I have seen in America,"
versity of Chicago Press. 1988). In 1890 when asked by a
Wright also worked with his colleague and further evidence to support Ashbee's belief that newspaper reporter to explain what school or style Adler
friend, Robert C. Spencer, Jr., to produce the Wright was "far and away the ablest man in our & Sullivan's new synagogue for Kelilath Anshe Ma'ariv
most thorough record of his work to appear in line of work that I have come across in Chicago, belonged. Sullivan replied. "It is the nineteenth century
school. That is all I can say for it It has no historical style

print to that date, published in June 1900 in the perhaps in America."1'
It is the present;" Chicago Tribune, 30 Nov. 1890, 36.
Boston journal, Architectural Review.9 Among its As the 1890s drew to a close, it was the figure
* Sullivan's of course, was part of a larger architectural
quest,
pages were illustrations of the McAfee, Heller I, of Louis Sullivan that united the small but
development in the western world. The French architect.
Goan, Devin, and Eckert II houses, most if not growing number of Chicago architects, Wright Viollet-le-Duc. in his 10th discourse, famously presented
"
all of them prepared especially for this publica among them, who were dedicated to expressing the challenge. Is the nineteenth century destined to close
without possessing an architecture of its own?" Eugene
tion. Of the houses recreated as models in the the vitality of their city and country in a new
Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Entretiens sur I'architecture (1872).
present catalog that had been designed by 1900, way. Breaking with the master personally in 1893,
published in Benjamin Bucknall's translation by Sampson
only the Baldwin house is absent from Spencer's Frank Lloyd Wright spent the remaining years Low. Marston. Searle & Rivington, London, 1877 and 1881,
article.10 of the nineteenth century wrestling with the reprint ed.. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.. 1987). I.
447 Discussing English architecture in the 19th century. J
Wright's constructed Sullivanian houses of ideas, and their visual expression, that he had
Mordaunt Crook called "the Victorian obsession with the
the 1890s— particularly the Winslow, Heller and discovered through Sullivan. If the results that idea of a new style" part of "the central problem of Victo
Husser houses— were the first of his buildings to emerged between 1899 and 1902 remain the rian architecture;" J. Mordaunt Crook, The Dilemma of Style:
gain wide recognition. In 1900 Spencer reported basis of Wright's continuing fame, the journey Architectural ideasfrom the Picturesque to the Post-Modern (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 98-99. For a discussion

that "[n]o recent example of domestic architec that led to those results— and which produced
of the American context of Sullivan's thought, see Mark
ture has inspired more local flattery in the form so many exciting buildings — was certainly as Mumford. "Form Follows Nature: the Origins of American
of imitation" than the Winslow house." Three fascinating, and perhaps more intriguing. Organic Architecture." Journal of Architectural Education 42
of all Wright's (Spring 1989): 26-37.

years later Spencer reported that

4 This study examines only Wright's domestic architecture. the group of Sullivanian houses of the 1890s; The Chicago
The situation with his non-domestic buildings is somewhat Architectural Annual (Chicago: Chicago Architectural Club.
different. 1902). 13 unnumbered pages.
1 8
Both Manson and Hitchcock use Sullivan's name as Frank Lloyd Wright. Ausgefuhrte Bauten und Entwurfe von Frank
an adjective when discussing these houses. For example. Lloyd Wright (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth. 1910). Plates II and
Manson refers to "the Sullivanisms of the Husser house" VIII. Wright also included the Winslow and the Heller
while Hitchcock calls attention to "the generic Sullivanian houses, but not the Husser house among the plates.
sensuality" of the Heller house;Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright

''Robert C. Spencer. Jr.. "The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright,"
to 1910, 78: and Hitchcock. In the Nature of Materiab, 27. For
Architectural Review 7 (June 1900): 61-72.For the context of
the context of Wright's use of Sullivan's forms, see Ronald
Wright's relationship with Spencer, see Paul Kruty, "Wright.
E Schmitt. Sullivanesque: Urban Architecture and Ornamentation
Spencer, and the Casement Window." Winte rthur Portfolio 30
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2002), esp. 92-100
(Spring Summer 1995). esp. 107-11.
Schmitt only discusses Wright's constructed houses of the
not his projects. 10

1890s. For the next major survey of his work to appear in a
6 national magazine after Spencer's 1900 article, published

"A Home in a Prairie Town." Ladies Home Journal 18 (Feb.
in 1908, Wright included among more than two dozen
1901): 17: and "A Small House with 'Lots of Room in It'."
buildings only the Winslow and Husser houses from his
Ladies Home Journal 18 (July 1901): 15.
work before 1900: see Frank Lloyd Wright, "In the Cause
'
Annual of the Chicago Architectural Club, being the book of the Thir of Architecture," Architectural Record 23 (March 1908): 155-
teenthAnnual Exhibition, 1900 (Chicago: Chicago Architectural 65 and plates.
Club. 1900). nos 582-592. All of these entries were illus "
Spencer, "Wright," 66. Spencer was specifically refering to
trated in the catalog. The exhibition ran from 20 March to 2
George Maher's Farson house of 1897.
April 1900. Wright sent the same drawings and photographs
to the St. Louis Architectural Club, whose exhibition was 12

Robert C. Spencer, "Brick Architecture in and around
Jr.
held from 12 to 22 April 1900; Annual Exhibition of the Saint Chicago." Brickbuilder 12 (Sept. 1903): 187.
Louis Architectural Club (St. Louis: St. Louis Architectural Club.
" Alan Crawford. C. R. Ashbee: Architect, Designer & Romantic
1900). nos. 536-46 For his next showing with the club, in
Socialist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). 97
1902. Wright included among his many entries only the
Winslow house and stable and the Heller house loggia from
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRKilIT■
7
8 ■ PRELUDE
TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE
THE EVOLUTION OF WRIGHT'S LONG,
NARROW HIP ROOFS
PAUL E. SPRAGUE
Among the more charming yet typical char

acteristics of Frank Lloyd Wright's early work
are the long narrow hip roofs of low pitch with
widely overhanging eaves that grace most of
his residences and a number of other build

ings. While it is true that Wright used hip roofs
in many dwellings before 1895, these were not
thekind that would distinguish the work of his
maturity in the early twentieth century. Between
1887 and 1895 Wright designed a succession
of houses, some having hip roofs of high pitch,

others having a more moderate slope. During
those years he also experimented with houses
clad in gable roofs.
The house Wright designed for a site in La
Grange. Illinois, for Robert Emmond (June

1892)1 is an example of the first type of hip roof
(fig. 4). There the roof rises at the steep angle of
16 inches vertically in 12 inches horizontally to
produce, along with the intricate massing of the
lower floors, the kind of picturesque composition
he had learned from his first employer, Joseph L.
Silsbee.2
The most interesting house having the

second, more moderate kind of hip roof is the
for Orrin Goan (April FIG. 4. Robert Emmond house, La Grange, IL, 892. Frank Wright, architect. Photograph from the
L.
one designed 1893),
1
southwest. Gilman Lane, photographer.

also meant for La Grange (fig. Here
1].
5) [Cat.
Wright seemed intent upon disciplining his pic-
BY ERANK LLOYD WRIGHT
■
9
In 1894, when approached by William
Winslow for the design of a house on his prop
erty in River Forest, Wright returned to his Goan
house for inspiration In fact, the width of
7).
(fig.
both fronts the same within inches: 60 feet
is
6
inches. The depth of the main block, however,
is
quite different: 32 feet in the Winslow house and
22 feet in the Goan house (fig. 8). this depth
is
It
that in the second floor supports the front and
back edges of the main hip roof and generates
the height of the ridge above the eaves.4 Further
more, at the Winslow house, Wright began the

FIG. 5. Project: Orrin Goan house, La Grange, IL, 1893. Frank L. Wright, architect. Main (west) facade. roof slope at the edge of the four- foot-wide over
Model built by Laura Dean and Thomas Hagensick. hangs, thus making the depth of the roof 40 feet
FIG. 6. Project:
by
turesque inclinations both designing formal

a
facade while also taming the upward aspirations Orrin Goan house.
Plan, redrawn
of the Emmond roof lowering the pitch of the
by
from Architectural
Goan roof.
Review by Charles
Rectangular in plan, the Goan house proper
Gregersen.
by
measured about 60 feet wide 22 feet deep
(fig. 6). Even so, because of the 10 in 12 slope of

'
the roof, the ridge would have reached height

a
above the eaves of about 9V2 feet. As result,

a
even though the slope of the roof moderate,

is
can hardly be considered the kind of long and

it
narrow roof with which Wright soon would be
experimenting. There also another experimen

is
tal element in the roof design of the Goan house

that apparently began there. The slope would
end at the outside walls, yet the eaves were to
project some four feet beyond the walls as flat

slabs, visually attractive but technically undesir plan
a
p"l<?oz.
able feature in terms of structure and drainage. p^esr
IO PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

■
FIG. 7. William Winslow house, River Forest, IL, 1894. Frank L. Wright, architect. Photograph
of main (west) facade.
versus the 22 of the Goan. Had he maintained playroom to his own house, he crowned
the same pitch as the Goan roof, the ridge would its rectangular plan with a gable roof to
have reached nearly 17 feet above the eaves. It match the roofs of the original house.
was surely for this reason that Wright lowered
the pitch of the Winslow roof to 7.5 in 12.5 Even Mr. Baldwin's Roof
given the greater depth of the Winslow roof
so, The first roof of the new type, long
compared with the Goan roof, the height of the and narrow, of low pitch and having
Planol WinslowResidence,firstHoof
Winslow" s ridge above the eaves came to 12V2 wide overhangs, appears in the house
feet, three feet higher than the Goan roof. As designed by Wright for Oak Park lawyer,
such, the Winslow roof dominated the house in Jessie Baldwin (June 1895) [Cat. 2] (fig.
FIG. 8. Winslow house. Plans, measured and drawn by
a way that Wright's later roofs do not. 9). But for unknown reasons, the new William Allin Storrer.
During the years before 1895 Wright also house was never built. When the new
designed houses with various kinds of gable roofs. type of roof made its first appearance in
In two houses, the first for Warren Mc Arthur the Baldwin drawings, it was to cover only the How it was that Wright came to design the
(April 1892) and the second for Frederick Bagley 6
narrow third story (fig. 10). The roof above narrow hip roof of low pitch that covers the attic
(December 1893), Wright employed Dutch the second floor was also essentially a hip roof story and shed roofs in the story below can only
gables. For Nathan Moore's house (January of low slope; however, as the walls of the third be surmised. It may have been partly the result
1895). Wright gave its roofs a very high pitch floor interrupt its rise toward an implied ridge, of Wright having had to design a relatively long
in keeping with the Gothic style that Moore the roof becomes a shed roof on each side of and narrow house to fit the constraints of Bald
demanded of his architect. Even as late as about the house. win's 89 by 200-foot lot on Kenilworth avenue
July 1895 when Wright added a new kitchen and
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT ■ II

in Oak Park. Surely it also was Wright's desire was the extra space gained for use by Baldwin's
to make the attic more functional by avoiding four children as is implied by Wright's designa
the decreasing height at the sides of ordinary tion of the round end at the front of the attic
attics where the rafters and tie beams gradually as a "playroom."7 Although it seems unlikely
meet. By adding walls to the attic — walls located that Wright had conceived the idea of the long
inward of those on the bedroom floor— he could and narrow hip roof of low pitch simply as an
provide standing head- room throughout the aesthetic feature to be imposed on the house,
attic. Another functional advantage that may it would seem that once he had designed the
also have motivated both client and architect Baldwin roofs and experienced their aesthetic
» f5-3
r* '
FIG. 9. Project: Jesse Baldwin house, Oak Park, IL, 1 895. Frank L. Wright, architect. Main (east) facade. FIG. 10. Project: Baldwin house. Plans, redrawn
Model built by Euisang Lee and Wooyoung Choi. by Euisang Lee and Wooyoung Choi.
I2■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

Planolsecond
floor
FIG. 11. Rollin Furbeck house, Oak Park, IL, 1 897. Frank L. Wright, architect. Photograph from the
southeast. Wayne Andrews, photographer.
FIG. 12. (right) Rollin Furbeck house. Plans, measured and drawn by William Allin Storrer.
character, he found them desirable and after Wright waited over a year and a half to
wards continued to recommend the roof type propose a similar roof to another client, Rollin
to clients, even as he gradually modified its form Furbeck (January 1897) (fig. 11).8 Furbeck owned
and function. a parcel 65 feet wide by 17$ feet deep on Fair
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT! I3

FIG. 13. Rollin Furbeck house. Photograph of
north facade. Paul E. Sprague, photographer.
Oaks avenue in Oak Park on which he wanted
to build. Although a house similar in width to

the Baldwin house could have fit the property,
though barely, Wright restricted the plan to a
rectangle of about 38 feet wide and 32 feet deep

with the front door facing the street.9 After
designing a fairly conventional floor plan for

FIG. 14. Project: Isadore Heller I house, Chicago, IL, 1897. Frank L.Wright, architect. Perspective, from
each of the lower floors. Wright added a narrow the southeast.
third story at the center of the house (Fig. 12).
This allowed him to roof the third floor with
the same kind of long narrow hip of low pitch
with wide overhangs that he had proposed to
Baldwin but had not been able to build. Shed
roofs, similar to those on the Baldwin house,
covered the wider second floor on both sides of
the house. But there was a difference. Wanting
windows in the side walls of the third floor of the
Furbeck house because it was to be a bedroom
floor, Wright did not continue the sloping shed
roofs until they touched the sides of that story
as they would have seriously compromised the
size of its windows. Instead, he ended each as a
ridge about five feet from the walls of the third FIG. 15. Project: Heller I house. Plan, redrawn by Ann Harrer and Sarah Lowe.
story (fig. 13).

experimenting not only visually but structurally and bathroom walls toward the north side of it
as well. and by bedroom walls that were to be set back
Only about two months after receiving the to form an open loggia on its south side.12
commission for the Furbeck house, Wright was When designing the highest roof of the Heller
asked by Isadore Heller to make sketches for house, Wright simplified the Baldwin roof by
a dwelling on Woodlawn avenue in Chicago eliminating the circular playroom of its third
(March 1897) [Cat. (fig. 14). The lot, 50 feet
3]
floor. The resulting roof over the Heller's third
wide and 164 feet deep, was even more of a chal floor consisted of a long narrow hip that inter
lenge than the Baldwin lot.10 Wright responded sected at right angles a shorter hip of the same
with similar but more imaginative rectangular
a width to form a T
in plan (fig. 16). ,?
As in the
plan than the one for Baldwin that measured Baldwin house, the second floor was covered by
about 42 feet wide by 112 feet long at its great an implied hip roof of the same low pitch as the
est dimensions (fig. 15)." In it the main axis, to third floor roof interrupted by the walls of that
consist of living room, hall and staircase, was floor to produce shed roofs on either side of the
perpendicular to the street but it ended at a cross house.
axis containing a butler's pantry and a dining
room, the latter pro
jecting slightly beyond

the south wall of the
FIG. 16. Heller I house. View of main facade and
roof, from above. Model built by Ann Harrer and house. That Wright
Sarah Lowe. was eager to explore
the possibilities of
Of course Wright could have made the third
the new type of roof
is certain, for once
floor as wide as the house below it but this solu
again he proposed to
tion would have dramatically enlarged the size
the client a narrow
of the third floor. His other choices were to do
of third floor devoted to
what he did when he located the walls the
a very large children's
third floor above the inner walls of the lower
floors, or to invent some system to support the playroom and several
of servant's rooms and

walls of the third floor over the rooms the
bath. Wright intended
second floor. It was a problem he had avoided
to support the long
solving in the Baldwin house because it was not
built. What these observations make clear is that
walls of the third
narrow upper floor playroom in the
when Wright proposed adding a FIG. 17. Isadore Heller II house, Chicago, IL, 1 897. Frank L. Wright,
second floor by closet
story over a wider lower story, he found himself architect. Photograph, from the southeast.
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGIIT■ 15

Although Heller did not build the design as running the length of the rear rectangle except While the stable did look backward to the
of multiple roofs and high center section of the
by
it,
Wright first envisioned he did erect second where interrupted the walls the higher
a
similar but less ornamental version that retained center section. The latter displayed yet another Furbeck and Heller houses, also looked forward
it
the narrow third floor playroom and other rooms hip roof of low pitch but one oriented in the in several ways. By extending the wings further
laid out in fashion similar to what was proposed same direction as the hips of the one-story wings. from the higher central section than Wright
a
by
by
He united the shed roofs adding other
If
originally (fig. this seems complicated— was; and the result had done previously, and even
it
17).
bringing continuous skirt roof across the front was one of the more complex of Wright's roof wings at right angles, he made obvious the visual
a
of the
by
house. plans. elegance that might be attained multiple hip
In designing the stable built for the Winslow
family (June 1897), Wright covered the structure
with fairly complicated roof plan, consisting
a
of three levels of narrow hip and shed roofs

of low pitch (fig. . 14 The complexity of the
8)
1
by
roofs seems to have been driven an equally
complex plan (fig. 19). Although the ground
floor broad rectangle, the stable more easily
is
is
a
understood, especially as regards its roofs, as a

rectangle at the rear with two wings projecting

from the front of it, partly enclosing court 'U-.-j;;
a
yard. The second story covers only part of the

a
ground floor rectangle at the rear, its front wall

standing on the wall of the first floor, while its FIG. 18. Stable for the William Winslow house, River Forest, IL, 897. Frank Wright, architect.
L.
1
Perspective view on axis.
by
rear and side walls rest on beams supported
posts within the rooms of the ground floor.15 At

the center of the rectangle there room on the
is
second floor that rises full story above the walls

a
of the first floor, thus recalling the elevations of

both the Furbeck and Heller houses. To cover
this structure, Wright specified that low hip
a
roof with wide overhangs be built over the two

front wings (fig. 20). Its outside slope was con
tinued as shed roof where met the side and
it
a
back walls of the main of the stable. Over the

part
second floor on either side of the higher center
block, Wright built another hip roof of low pitch FIG. 19. Winslow stable. Plans.

■
16
roofs of low pitch. Also by restricting the build

ing to two relatively low stories, except for the
higher center, he exaggerated the horizontality
thus attained by covering the narrow wings with
long hips of low pitch having wide overhangs.
It was acomposition that the architect clearly
found desirable and one that he would try to
replicate in the buildings that followed.
The next house that Wright designed was
to have been erected in River Forest on Oak
avenue (now Edgewood place) for his early
patron.Edward C. Waller (December 1897).
The house was actually intended for Waller's
FIG. 22. Eckart house. Main elevation.
recently widowed daughter, Rebecca, and her
16
4].
two children [Cat. Although the house was

never built, set of working drawings survives at
a
the Wright Archives.17
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT■ 17

The one recalls the Goan roof. It slopes down to
the outside walls, then becomes an overhanging

slab. The other slopes down to the edge of the
overhang. The first has a higher pitch, 6 in 12, the
second a lower pitch, 4.5 in 12. The one that he
favored but seems never to have tried again, was

the more steeply sloped roof that ended in an
overhanging slab, for it is this roof that appears
in a rendering of the design published by Robert
18
Spencer in 1900 (fig. 23).
Secondly, in the Eckart house Wright began to
FIG. 23. Project: Rebecca Eckart house, River Forest, IL, 1897. Frank L.Wright, architect Perspective
re-evaluate the need for a third floor, the addi
view from corner.
tion of which to the Baldwin house had given
rise to the narrow hip roof of low pitch. Not
In the Eckart house Wright took two decisive Wright also seemed uncertain about how
quite ready to abandon the third floor. Wright
steps toward perfecting the new type of hip roof best to treat the overhangs. Two possibilities
equivocated by reducing it to a picturesque tower
and integrating it with the plan of the house. are shown on the working drawings (fig. 22). that, had on the Baldwin and Heller houses.
as he
For the first time, he seems to have recognized
that it was through the plan that he could best
satisfy his growing desire for the kind of long,

narrow hip roofs of low pitch that he was grad
ually finding so satisfactory aesthetically (fig.
21). Where the site allowed enough room, this

required designing the house as a series of narrow
wings projecting outward from a central inter
section. And because the wings of this centrifugal
plan would be narrow and the same width in all
floors, there was no need to reduce the width of
the third floor, thus avoiding shed roofs. Even
so, the plan of the Eckart house clearly remained
experimental. For example, on the ground floor

in the area where the wings intersected, Wright
seemed uncertain about how to subdivide the
interior, adding pencilled changes to the first-
FIG. 24. William Fricke house, Oak Park, IL, 1 901 . Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Photograph of the
floor plan. north facade. Paul E. Sprague, photographer.

new hip roof.21 But in having three equally wide
stories without shed roofs above the second story,
the Devin house presented Wright with new
a
problem because its side walls would rise sheer
a
three stories without interruption. No doubt the
architect would have invented suitable deco
a
rative system for subdividing the walls, had the
house been built. In the drawing of the Devin
by
house he avoided the problem presenting the
house in elevation and in perspective only as seen
from the front (fig. 27).

FIG. 25. William Martin house, Oak Park, IL, 1 902. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Photograph of the
main (west) facade. Paul E. Sprague, photographer.
he continued to associate with children, here that Wright's interest in houses in three stories
labeled "nursery."19 Eventually Wright would vanished— except for those houses with above
decide that a tower room on the third floor made ground basements— and he concentrated on
more sense as a billiard room, a notion he first designing dwellings that were low and long, like
presented to Victor Metzger (September 1901), his new hip roofs.
who. however, did not build Wright's design
It was finally left to William Fricke to Houses for Mrs. Devin and Mrs. Husser
[Cat. 8].
erect in Oak Park (December 1901) the only It was in the large house for Aline Devin (August
house of the period by Wright to have a third-
1898) that Wright introduced a new concept that
20
floor billiard room (fig. 24). lifted the basement out of the ground and built
As late as the end of 1902 Wright seemed it at grade thus raising the main living floor to
unable to decide whether to emphasize the verti the second story [Cat. The long narrow lot on
5].
cal or the horizontal in his residential designs. It Chicago's north side connecting Sheridan road
was about December of that year when Wright with Lake Michigan naturally resulted in plan
a
designed another vertically accentuated house of the same kind, about 24 feet wide and 72 feet
in Oak Park for William Martin (fig. 25). But long, not including the attached octagons (fig.
after the drawings were finished, Wright resolved
26). No longer needing to reduce the width of
the dilemma in favor of the horizontal. The the top floor, which now consisted of bedrooms,
Martin house was the last Wright built with was perfect structure to be crowned with the FIG. 26. Project: Devin house. Plans at first and
it
a third floor not devoted to bedrooms. After second floor, with lakeshore at upper left.

often as possible during the first decade of the
next century whenever he could find receptive

clients like Frank Thomas, Arthur Heurtley,
Ferdinand Tomek and Frederick Robie.
From a Golf Club to a Prairie Town
It was early 1899 when Wright designed the
first building to incorporate all elements of the

personal architectural vocabulary that were to
characterize his architecture from 1903 to 1909
The building where Wright had evolved his new
type of hip roof to this point in his career was not

a residence, in fact, but a clubhouse for the River
Forest Golf Club (January 1899) (fig. 30). The
first person to write seriously about the build
FIG. 27. Project: Aline Devin house, Chicago, IL, 1 898. Frank L. Wright, architect. Perspective view on
axis. ing was Henry- Russell Hitchcock, who clearly
In the house Wright designed for Helen

Husser (January 1899) and built near the lake-
shore on Chicago's north side, he returned to the
theme of his Devin house: a main and bedroom
floor built over an above-grade basement. A
photograph of the garden side of the house
and an elevation of the entrance side show the
imaginative decorative details Wright invented

to subdivide the three-story-high side walls,
something he had not had the opportunity to
do for Mrs. Devin's house (figs. 28-29). As with
the Devin house, for the Husser house Wright
avoided shed roofs by designing three equally
wide stories above which he displayed the new
type of hip roof that he was finding increasingly

11
attractive. It was a type of raised house that
Wright obviously liked very much and built as FIG. 28. Helen Husser house, Chicago, IL, 1 899. Frank L. Wright, architect. Photograph from the
southeast, by William Gray Purcell, 1903.

FIG. 29. Helen Husser house. West elevation
understood its significance: "The River Forest having already explored that possibility when it when building on relatively narrow city lots, or
Golf Club represents the beginning of a new was forced upon him by the requirement that the simply because they considered the two-story
architecture. It is not a mere Opus I, but a First golf clubhouse be only one story. It was a solution house traditional.27
Symphony."23 In plan it was a simple T, one story that he rarely exploited, however, presumably Apparently the last house Wright designed
in height, consisting of porch, club room and because homeowners either required two stories before the turn of the 19th century was for
dressing rooms, the main part long and relatively
narrow, its roof a mature hip of low pitch.24
Ironically, Wright was himself unaware of

the significance of the clubhouse, for he did not
exploit its potential at once. In several designs
that followed during 1899, he continued to build
on the residential projects proceeding it. The
Henry Cooper house (second half of 1899),
designed for a site in La Grange, Illinois, seems to
25
have been the next design in sequence (fig. 31).
Its plan consisted of relatively narrow wings
intersecting at 45-degree angles (fig. 32). Such
an unusual plan was perfectly suited to support
the new hip roofs.26 No doubt Wright also recog
nized the advantage gained in horizontal expres
sion by restricting the house to a single story.
Charles A. McAfee (November 1899) [Cat. 6]
(fig. 33). Intended, according to Wright, to be
erected on a narrow lot overlooking Lake Michi
gan in Kenilworth. Illinois, it more probably was
destined for the Edgewater section of Chicago's
north side. There is much about the house that is
reminiscent of the Devin house, beginning with
FIG. the octagonal billiard room, later changed to a

31 . Project: Henry Cooper house, La Grange, IL, 1 899. Frank L. Wright, architect. Front elevation.
library, that was to be covered by a flat roof and
skylight like the library and dining room of the
Devin house (fig. 34). There are also the corner
windows rotated 45 degrees so that they project

as diamond shapes that occur in the Devin house
as well (see figs. 46-48). But the McAfee design
also looks ahead to the houses characteristic of
Wright's mature style of the next decade. As
such, it is the first house to have the new hip roof
applied to a substructure of only two stories.
Only one other building displaying the new-
type of hip roof need be discussed as part of

this investigation into the evolution of Wright's
signature hip roofs. This is his design of a house
that he offered to build at relatively low cost for
readers of the Ladies' Home Journal, a design Wright
termed "A Home in a Prairie Town" (September
28
1900) [Cat. 7] (fig. 35) . It was to be configured
in plan as a T, a form most clearly evident in the
plan of its second floor and in the hip roofs of

29
low pitch that were to cover it (fig. 36). Wright
later resurrected the design in 1903 and, while
FIG. 32. Project: Henry Cooper house. Plan of house and elevation of barn. enlarging and modifying it somewhat, built it in
brick at Buffalo, New York, for Darwin Martin
But the "Home in a Prairie Town" was of much
greater significance than as the predecessor of
22 ■PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

FIG. 35. Project: "A Home in a Prairie Town," Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
11 Perspective.
FIG. 33. Project: C. A. McAfee house, Chicago, IL, 1 899. Frank Lloyd Wright,
architect. Perspective from the southwest. Rendered by Louis Rasmussen.
FIG. 36. (left)
Project: "A
Home in a
Prairie Town."
Plans.
ft
FIG. 34. Project: C. A. McAfee house. Revised plan
1i

(December 1902) (fig. 25) }l It was only after
designing the Martin house that Wright began
to exploit the precedents offered almost four
years earlier by his River Forest Golf Club and
further developed in 1900 in the project for "A
Home in a Prairie Town."
The first house of the new era was designed
by Wright for Jacob Walser (February 1903) and
built near Oak Park in the Austin neighborhood
^2
of Chicago (fig. 38). Beginning with the Walser
house, which incorporates a linear, open plan on
FIG. 37. Project: "A Small House with 'Lots of Room in It"' Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Perspective.
its ground floor and a long narrow hip roof of

low pitch with widely overhanging eaves above
the Martin house. Like the one-story golf club Epilog its second floor, Wright no longer considered
house, it became the paradigm for the two-story alternative artistic pathways as he had during the
Although this study has focused on the evolution
houses of the architect's maturity. In this building previous decade. From then on, during the first
of Wright's mature hip roofs and the plans from
the evolution of Wright's new kind of hip roof decade of the twentieth century, he remained
which they were generated, it must be remem
was complete. fully occupied in exploring, manipulating and

bered that an artist like Wright rarely if ever finds
Once again, however, Wright seemed oblivi refining the artistic vocabulary first codified by
his way to a personal vocabulary of plan, form
ous to the implications of his latest design. Not him in his River Forest Golf Club and "A Home
and detail in a linear fashion. Often it takes con
immediately recognizing the example it provided in a Prairie Town."
siderable experimentation while testing other
as the basis of a personal style, he continued to
aesthetic possibilities
explore various other aesthetic pathways for
before the artist finally
several more years. For example, during 1900
recognizes the inevi
and 1901, Wright devoted considerable effort
table stylistic conclu
to designing houses with gable roofs, the best
sion toward which he
known being the Stephen Foster, B. Harley
or she is heading, then
Bradley, Warren Hickox, Arthur Davenport and
embraces it. Wright's
Susan Lawrence Dana houses, and the "Small
period of experimen
House with 'Lots of Room in It'" (fig. 37). 30
tation ended with the
And when designing the roofs of these houses,
last vertically accen
Wright carried the ridge beyond the eaves in the
tuated three-story
manner of Japanese houses and Buddhist temple
house, designed and
buildings. FIG. 38. Jacob Walser house, Austin, IL, 1903, Frank Lloyd Wright, architect.
built for William
Photograph from the southeast.
Martin in Oak Park
24■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

NOTES 5 On the front elevation of the Winslow house. Wright 25 feet of lot 12 but by then the house had been standing for
Archives 9305.06, Wright sketched a roof line of even lower a number of years; CCRO doc. no. 3720383.
1
The parentheses surrounding a month and year substitute
pitch, about 5 in 12, but so far as can be determined from
12
for the phrase "designed about." My aim has been to discover measurements made using photographs of the Winslow roof, Exactly how Wright and his contractor managed to
as closely as possible the month when Wright would have support the side walls of the narrow third floor in the house
the roof was built at the higher pitch of 75 in 12.
made the initial design for a building. The result is to provide as built is not known to me.
j framework for organizing Wright's work in as nearly
6
The pitch of the Baldwin roofs is 4 in 12.
The pitch of the Heller roofs is 4.5 in 12
chronological an order as is feasible, thus making it possible
7
to discern with greater precision patterns of development Wright Archives 9508.08.
14 The pitch of the roofs of the Winslow stable are 6 in 12.
in his architecture. Of course, these dates are not meant to 8
The reason for the long time separating the Baldwin
be absolute, and are subject to change as new information 15 For the structural
and Furbeck houses is because Wright had few residential system supporting the side and rear
appears. Nonetheless. I do not anticipate that the dates walls of the second floor, see drawing 9305. 13 in the Wright
commissions during that period due to the deep economic
ottered are likely to be changed radically as they are derived Archives
depression that seriously limited construction in the mid-
from dated documents of various
kinds. Unfortunately space

18905. 16
limitation does not allow me to explain the rationale for Another similar design exists in a published plan and
every "designed about" date given in this paper. However, the 9 The overall width two perspectives. In his 1900 article on Wright, Robert
including the porte cochere is 54 feet.
reader will be able to discern the methodology employed by The measurements are taken from William Allin Storrer, Spencer identifies both designs as studies for the house of
-.tudying the eight examples keyed to the buildings modeled Mrs. Robert Eckart, Waller's daughter Therefore, it is likely
The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion (Chicago: University of
by Professor Kruty's students that appear in the appendix they are different versions of the same project; Robert C
Chicago Press. 1993). 40. Storrer also reports that Rollin
of the "The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright." Architectural
Jr.
at the end paper. Furbeck acquired the property from Judson Wapples, Spencer.
though my notes show the correct spelling is Whaples. The

Review (June 1900): 66-67. 72- The one that was carried
7
2
The standard method of describing the slope or pitch of a
through working drawings the more important in rela
is
latter sold the property not to Rollin but to Rollins father.
roof is to give the rise in inches per foot of length horizon tion to the evolution of Wright's roofs and the plans that
Warren Furbeck. on 16 June 1896. Cook County Record
tally also in inches. Thus a roof that has a slope of 45 degrees underlie them.
ers Office (hereafter CCRO) doc. no. 2404670. Warren
rises 12 inches for every 12 inches of horizontal length and
then transferred it to his son, Rollin, on 23 Sept. 1896. doc. 17
is said to have a slope of 12 in 12. Moderate slopes of the Wright Archives. 9805.01-06.
no. 2447263.
type Wright would favor for his mature work after 1900
18
10 Spencer. "Wright." 66. Wright did build one house with
tun from 4 in 12 to 6 in 12. Pitch measurements have been The size of Heller's lot was determined from a property
this type of roof in 1895 for Chauncey Williams on the lot
determined for Wright's designs from elevation drawings map in Tract Book 350B and verified by a 1905 Sanborn
just north of where his Eckart house was to be erected.
where they exist. Apparently Wright employed a slightly Fire Insurance Atlas.
different system for describing the slope of a roof: the rise in 19
11 Wright Archives. 9805.04.
inches per 2 feet or 24 inches of horizontal length. The result As built, the width of the house was reduced to about
321 1 feet because the first design, including the entrance 20
is the same, however, as I discovered in measuring the slope Third floor billiard rooms were commonplace in houses of
of the Walser house (1903). I calculated a pitch of 4.5 in 12. walk and offset on the north side, exceeded the fifty- foot the well-to-do
in this era For example, Greene & Greene's
then noticed that Wright had indicated the pitch on one of width of the property. Indeed, if one looks carefully at the Gamble house, built in Pasadena. CA, in 1908. topped
is
the drawings for the house: "Pitch of Roof 9 in 24." which of early plan, Wright shows a wall extending south across what with similar room
a
course is the same as 4.5 in 12; Frank Lloyd Wright Archives. would become the entrance walk, a wall with a portion left
21
out, indicating that it might be even longer if sufficient room The roof pitch was to be in 12
6
Taliesin West (hereafter Wright Archives) 0306.05.
could be provided. In short, when Wright drew the plan he
22
!
Dimensions are given on the elevation of the house; Wright The pitch was in 12
4
anticipated that Heller might be able to purchase all or part
Archives 9406.01. of lot 12 adjacent to Heller's lot 13 on the north side. But 2' Henry- Russell Hitchcock. In the Nature Materials (New
of
Heller apparently was unable to obtain the land and Wright
4A of the Winslow house with dimensions survives; York: Duell. Sloan & Pearce. 1942). 30
plan
had to redesign the house to fit the constraints of a fifty-foot
Wright Archives 9305.03. wide lot In 1905 Heller succeeded in purchasing the south 24 The pitch was in 12
■
25
25 This house has previously been dated 1887 and 1890
The arguments for the correct date will be presented in a
separate article.
26
The roofs of the house were to be pitched 5 in 12
27 The fashion for the

one-story house- the "bungalow." as
it came to be known- was just beginning: see, for example,
Robert Spencer's article. "Three Bungalows." House Beauti
Jul 22 (Aug.1907): 33- 54. where Spencer shows three single
story houses and notes "the increasing popularity of the

ground floor type of dwelling," not only in California and
in the South, but also "in northern cities." Wright's most
famous foray into the type is the Cheney house of 1903
28
Ladies' Home Journal 18 (Feb. 1901): 17.
29 The intended
pitch was 4 in 12.
JO "A Small House with 'Lots of Room in It ," Ladies Home
Journal 18 (July 1901): i5 As the text explains. "The average

home-maker is partial to the gable roof. This house has been
designed with a thorough, somewhat new treatment of the

gable with gently flaring eaves and pediments, slightly lifted
at the peaks, accentuating the perspective, slightly modeling
the roof surfaces and making the outlines 'crisp'."
'' The period of experimentation also may be said to have

ended stylistically at the same time with the first scheme
of the Larkin Building (December 1902). as this was the
last instance of Wright's returning to Sullivan's work for
ornamental prototypes, as can be seen especially in the
ornamented arched entrances of the entrance pavilions.
'2 The first mention of the house is in a letter from Darwin

Martin to Wright, 21 March 1903: "With this letter 1 return
"
the sketch of the J J. Walser house Martin would later
select the Walser plan to be revised for brick construction
and would build it on his property in Buffalo for his sister
Delta and her husband, see Martin Diary, 18 May 1903.
both FLW-DDM Correspondence Collection. University
Archives. University Libraries, State University of New
York at Buffalo.

APPENDIX: DOCUMENTING THE DATES OF DESIGN
OF EIGHT UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
PAUL E. SPRAGUE
CAT. 1 • ORRIN GOAN HOUSE The date when Wright designed the Goan house as 1
Robert C. Spencer. Jr.. "The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright."
(April 1893) proposed here (April 1893) is based on the following Architectural Review 7 (June 1900): 63; and Frank Lloyd Wright
documents. According to Goan, who wrote to Grant Archives, Taliesin West, Scottsdale, AZ, 9406.01.
The Orrin Goan house is known only from a render
Manson on 28 May 1940, he sold to his friend Robert 1
ingand plan that appeared in the article of 1900 by Grant Carpenter Manson. Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910:the First
Emmond the land on which the latter would build his
(New York: Reinhold Publishing Corporation,
Robert Spencer about Wright's early work and from Golden Age
Wright-designed house in 1892.5 It was to be the first 1958). 74-
m elevation of the house that survives in the Wright
1
house built on the block owned by Goan on the east
Archives (figs. & 39). Neither is dated. Moreover,
2 ' Ibid.,
39.
side of Eighth avenue in La Grange, Illinois. Goan
the name of the client in Spencer's article is misspelled
planned to build a second Wright-designed house for
4 Including the editors of the catalog to the most
as "Goare." Grant Manson, when conducting research recent comprehensive exhibition of Wright's work,
himself on several lots immediately south of Emmond.
tor his thesis about Wright's early work, discovered held in 1994 at the Museum of Modern Art, New
Goan sold the property to Emmond on I July 1892 York; see Terence
that the name was Goan and corresponded with Goan Riley, ed., Frank Lloyd Wright, Archi
and Emmond mortgaged it on I Nov. 1892. Goan

himself in 1940. But in his book, Frank Lloyd Wright to
tect (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1994),
mortgaged his lots on 19 May 1893.6 Thus the Goan 114-16. An exception is William Allin Storrer. The Frank Lloyd
1910published in 1958, where he wrote correctly that
house was designed after I July 1892 and before 19 Wright Companion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
"the mysterious, unexecuted Goare house design [was]
1993). 23. 27
May 1893. Presumably Wright only presented Goan
the immediate forerunner of the Winslow house,"
5 Grant C. Manson Collection,
with preliminary drawings, as the two had a falling out Oak Park Public Library
he repeats Spencer's misspelling.2 Elsewhere in his
over the house soon after Wright showed the plans to (hereafter Manson Collection).
book Manson correctly dated the Winslow house
Goan. This suggests that Wright did not design the 6
Property records at CCRO confirm that Goan sold lot 3
to 1894, thus if the Goan house was the precursor
house more than a month or so before Goan mort and the north 25 feet of lot 4 to Emmond on 1 July 1892.
of the Winslow house, it had to date earlier, though
which he must have done based doc. no. 1695427 and that Emmond mortgaged the property
gaged his property,
Manson does not suggest a date.3 Although Wright 1 Nov. 1892, doc. no. 1765642. Goan mortgaged his property,
on Wright's cost estimate rather than on contractor's
himself never seems to have mentioned the Goan lots 5, 6, 7 and s. 29.9 ft of lot 4, which gave him a frontage
figures, as no working drawings were prepared. This
house, he does say correctly that the Winslow house for his new home of 116.90 on Eighth avenue, on 19 May
dating (April 1893) means that Wright designed the 1893. doc. no. 1874785.
was "Built in 1894" on the pull-out plate of the house
Goan house while still at work for Adler & Sulli
in Spencer's article of 1900. Had this been the end 7 Letter from Orrin Goan to Frank Wright, 28 May 1940.
van, making it one of Wright's so-called "bootlegged
of the matter, the correct relationship between the Manson Collection. See also my chapter "Who Designed
houses." Goan did build a house on his lots in 1895, the Charnley House, Louis Henry Sullivan or Frank Lloyd
two houses would likely have prevailed. However,
however, it was designed by another architect. The Wright?" in Richard Longstreth. ed.. The Charnley House:
Henry- Russell Hitchcock, in his In the Nature of Mater
Goan family moved in the spring of 1896 into their Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Making of Chicago's Cold
ials of 1942, dates the Winslow house 1893 and the
new home/ Coast (Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2004), 151-52,
Goan house 1894, and most subsequent writers have where I incorrectly date the design to June 1893, instead
perpetuated this error.4 of April 1893

1 Manson,
CAT. 2 • JESSIE BALDWIN HOUSE Wright, 215. CAT. 4
• REBECCA [MRS. ROBERT]
(May 1895) ' Wright Archives 9508.06. ECKART HOUSE (December 1897)
According to Wright, the Oak Park lawyer. Jessie 4 Real Estate and
building Journal 37 (8 June 1895): 540. Few writers have mentioned the Eckart house since
Baldwin, first approached him about a house in his 5 1900 when Spencer published two different ren
Wright Archives 9508.06.
office at the Schiller Building in downtown Chicago.1 derings of the house and a plan of one of them.1 In
which would place the meeting sometime between 1942 Hitchcock explained that "as Mrs. Eckart was
1893, when Wright rented the office, and 1896, when CAT. 3 • ISADORE HELLER HOUSE I
Waller's daughter both probably relate to a single
he moved out.2 Grant Manson remembered seeing (March 1897) potential commission" and dated both of them 1899.
a ground floor plan of the Baldwin house when at Hitchcock and Manson both date the Heller house The legend on the working drawings gives Edward
Taliesin in February 1940 dated May 1895, a date that to 1897, which is correct (figs. 14-17). However, on C. Waller as client because it was he who commis
cannot be found on the existing working drawing of the pull-out drawing of the house in Spencer's article sioned the design and presumably was to pay the cost
the ground floor in the Wright Archives.' Nonethe of 1900, Wright claimed that the house was "Built of construction (fig. 22). But why Hitchcock dated
less, that date may have existed on a drawing now in 1896"1 and he continued the error in his Wasmuth that design 1899 cannot be explained, as the working
lost. According to a notice in Real Estate and Building portfolio. The result has been that writers since then drawings are dated March 1898. Because the other
Journal of 8 June 1895, "Architect Frank L. Wright was have dated the house between 1895 and 1897. There design is known only from the rendering and plan in
engaged the other day to prepare plans for a residence are few useful documents relating to the development Spencer's article, this scheme must have been rejected
to be erected on Kenilworth avenue, just north of of the Heller plans. Grant Manson discovered a build by the client. As a result, it probably dates a month or
Elizabeth court, Oak Park, for Jessie A. Baldwin, ing permit dated 13 July 1897.2 Four days later, the so earlier than the one for which working drawings
attorney. 99 Washington street."4 This entry was Chicago Economist reported that "Frank L. Wright has were made. In any event, the concern here is with
discovered a decade ago by Paul Kruty. who recently designed for Isadore Heller a three-story house."3 If the latter design, which presumably was conceived by
assigned a paper on the house to his student, Michael working drawings were complete in July as the acquisi Wright at least three months earlier than the March
Waters. As the first step Kruty directed Waters to the tion of a building permit implies, then allowing 2' i 1898 date on the drawings or about December 1897.
Cook County Recorder's office in search of the lot on months for the preparation of preliminary plans for
Kenilworth avenue "just north of Elizabeth court." It the built design, their acceptance and making working
1
turned out to be Lot 5 in Block 2 located, as suspected, Spencer. "Wright." 66. 67.
drawings, this would make the date of design as built
on the west side of Kenilworth (figs. 40-41). The about May 1897. Allowing another six weeks to two
present address of the lot is 323 N. Kenilworth avenue. months for preliminary drawings of the first scheme CAT. 5 • ALINE [MRS. DAVID] DEVIN
Baldwin soon commissioned Wright to design a house and its rejection, suggests March 1897 as an approxi HOUSE (August 1898)
for him (figs. 9- 10). Baldwin never built the house; mate date for beginning the first design.
The Devin house is said by Henry- Russell Hitch
but lest it be supposed that he intended to erect it as
cock to date from 1896, a date probably given him by
an investment, which was not the case, there is a room
' Wright, as no other credible source provides a date for
in the first floor plan labeled "Mr. Baldwin."5 Spencer, "Wright." after 72.
the design of the
house (figs. 26-27).' The client was
1
Manson Collection.
Aline Devin. Her husband, David, opened his own
' Economist 18 agency, D. T. Devin & Co.. in 1894 after
1 Frank
Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York. 1932); (17 July 1897): 80. insurance
reprint Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed.. Frank Lloyd Wright Collected working as an adjuster for other firms in Chicago,
Writings. 5 vols. (New York: Rizzoli, 1992), 2. 190 although he continued to serve as western represen
tative of several Eastern firms.2 After some success

ful years, he may have thought himself ready for an thus crucially dependent upon when the studio was the parcel on which she might have built Wright's cottage
if he until 24 Sept.1909. Deeds Book 591, 402. She recorded a

expensive home on Lake Michigan. But was so finished, before which that meeting was impossible.
mortgage 14 April 1910, Mortgages Book 573, 524, when
inclined, why did Wright identify the client both as The famous addition was announced to the world in a
she began to build a cottage, but not Wright's. It is possible
Mrs. David Devin and as Aline Devin? Perhaps Mrs. printed brochure designed by Wright, a brochure that
that Devin paid dues to. and presumably occasionally visited,
Devin was well-to-do in her own right and preferred was mentioned by a reporter for Construction News on 9 the Green Acre Fellowship, a hotel converted into a Baha'i
to be the managing partner of the house project, a pos Feb. 1898.Although that reporter mistakenly supposed retreat center, located near the property she would buy in
sibility suggested by her approaching Wright again in that the structure had already been built, it was not 1909. This is according to Mark Reinberger, "Frank Lloyd
A building Wright," A Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Maine (1985).

1906 to design a vacation home near Eliot, Maine.' even begun.5 permit was issued to Wright
who adds that "the National Baha'i Archives [have] records
Whatever may be the answer to this question, by the Town of Cicero for a frame dwelling to cost
indicating that Mrs. Devin visited the founder of that faith
there are strong reasons to believe that the design $1800.00 just prior to I March 1898.6 By 2 July the in the Holy Land in 1907." Also according to him. Devin
tor Mrs. Devin, or Mr. and Mrs. Devin, was made in building was either finished or nearly so. for it was erected "a two story vernacular cottage on the site which
1898. not in 1896. Most important is Wright's recol then that contractor C. B. Foster filed a mechanic's bears no resemblance to Wright's design."
lection of the first time he showed Mrs. Devin the lien against the property.7 Wright responded by mort 4 Wright.
Autobiography, Pfeiffer. 2. 180-81.
plans for her house: "There was a balcony around the gaging the property on 8 July and, presumably, paying
5 Construction News 6
(9 Feb. 1898): 121
draughting room reached from the corridor . ..One the contractor his fee with the proceeds.8 These docu
6
day a fashionable, fastidious client from the North ments imply that Wright was probably able to move Manson Collection.
Side, Mrs. Aline Devin. Her first visit to the studio. into the new building by about the end of July. 7 CCRO, doc. no.
12471.
Sitting together at the big central office table, facing It is likely, then, that Wright showed Aline Devin
8 CCRO,
doc. no. 2710050.
the corridor — I was about to show her plans to her the preliminary drawings for her house as early as
for the first time—always a strained situation--when 9"David T. Devin Is Dead," Chicago Tribune. 15 Oct. 1898, 5.
August 1898 when interrupted by the four-and-a-half
That the Devin house was designed during the summer of
I saw the door open a little and saw Catherine's curls, year old Catherine, but no later than early October,
1898 is also suggested by the photograph of the interior of
mischievous eyes, and dirty little face. A dirty little before her husband passed away on 13 Oct.1898 from
the studio, presumably taken shortly after it was finished,
hand was on the door jamb.. ..Mrs. Devin was highly a self- inflicted gunshot wound.9 After the shattering in which the perspective of the Devin house appears; "An
amused. And so must I have been, or worse, for I've experience of her husband's untimely death, Mrs. Architect's Studio." House Beautiful 7 (Dec. 1899): 42.
never forgotten the moment."4 Wright's description Devin presumably would not have been in the posi lo
For the same reason, it seems unlikely that she would have
of his daughter Catherine, born in January 1894. as tion to continue the development of her building approached Wright for the first time after her husband's
a mischievous little girl convincingly refers to a child project.10 death, at least not immediately
at the age of about four or five, not as the two-year-

old she would have been in 1896 had the house been
1
Hitchcock. In the Nature of Materials, 109.
CAT. 6 • C. A. McAFEE HOUSE
designed in that year. Nor does it speak of the twelve-
1
(November 1899)
year-old Catherine, who in 1906 would not likely have Chicago City Directories, 1887-98.
Another puzzle concerns the dating of the house that
interrupted her father when he showed Mrs. Devin ' Apparently it was Hitchcock, In the Nature
of Materials, 11$,
the drawings of her Maine cottage. Wright claimed in a legend added to a perspective of
who concluded that the summer cottage was designed in
There is a second fact revealed in Wright's account. 1906. probably because it was "exhibited in 1907" at the
it that the house was "Designed June 5, 1894 for C. A.
His clear memory of the moment when Catherine annual exhibition of the Chicago Architectural Club, no McAfee. Kenilworth" (fig. 33). the latter a well-to-do
"
426. "Mrs A Devin. Summer cottage. Eliot, Me Of course. northern suburb of Chicago on Lake Michigan.1 But
suddenly appeared on the draughting-room balcony
Wright might have given him the date. However, the land this is not the only reference to McAfee, for Robert
places him and Mrs. Devin in the new studio attached
records in York County. Maine, record that Mrs. Devin,
When Spencer in his article about Wright's early work of
to his house. exactly the meeting took place is whose full name was Ida Aline Shane Devin. did not purchase
EIGHTMODELSOF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRICHT■ 29

1900 says that the house was for "C. H. McAfee" Only three drawings remain of the McAfee house.
moving the dining room partly into an
by
revised plan
and that it was to be built, not in Kenihvorth but There is the perspective signed in the lower left corner
alcove labeled "demi tasse" on the preliminary plan,
in Edgewater, a northern section of Chicago along "L. R ," for Louis Rasmussen. a free-lance artist who
thus providing space for butler's pantry and staircase
a
Lake Michigan. 2 Finally, a preliminary drawing for worked for various architects, including Adler & Sul
to basement kitchen, both within the main body
a
6
the house exists which identifies the owner as "A. livan (fig. 33). It is on this rendering in the lower right
of the house. reasonable to conclude that the
is
It
C. McAfee" (fig. 44). Although, according to city corner that appears the curious legend stating that the
preliminary plan, made in room 435 of the Rookery
directories, there were no "A. C," "C. H." or "C. A." house was designed for C. A. McAfee on 5 June 1894.
building sometime between October 1899 and April
McAfees living in Chicago or its suburbs between However, this drawing itself was made five years later.
by
1900, was improved in the second plan published
1884 and 1903, there were, however, both a "Charles Its text ends with "Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect," a
Spencer in June 1900. What this means that the
is
H." and a "Charles A." McAfee. 1 The former was a title he did not begin to use until the end of 1899/
house for McAfee shown in the three drawings not
is
minor architect (his vocation presumably the source It replaced "Frank L. Wright."8 Also applied to the
likely to have been designed earlier than September
of Spencer's confusion about the real client), who
legend is Wright's new monogram, a Greek cross in a

1899 and probably not later than January 1900, the
if
rented rooms; he is not likely to have commissioned circle in a square, that apparently he first used in the
perspective and new plan were to be ready for inclu
an expensive house. The latter appears only once, in brochure he prepared to announce the opening of his
sion in Spencer's article published in June 1900.
the 1899 Lakeside Directory of Chicago, where he is studio in 1898.9
Why would Wright insist that the design was made,
listed as a contractor residing at 2447 S. Ridgeway A second McAfee drawing is only known from
not only in 1894, but on June of that year? The one
$
(old no. 1182S). Because data for each year's directory publications. Its first appearance is in Spencer's 1900
explanation that accounts for everything presented
was collected in May and June, this means that he was article about Wright's early work.10 It is a floor plan,
thus far that both Wright and Maher submitted
is
actually in the city during May or June 1899 and had apparently specially drawn either for Spencer's article
designs in 1894 to James McAfee for house to be
a
left during or before April 1900. Thus, if Charles A. or for the 1900 Chicago Architectural Club exhi
built in Kenilworth, which McAfee built from Maher
s
came to Wright for a house, it would necessarily be bition (fig. 34). The third drawing, a preliminary
proposal. And. appears. Wright later wanted to
it
in 1899. floor plan, as opposed to a working drawing, has a
establish precedence for his design, which must have
Also complicating matters is the mention by legend that reads: "Residence for Mr. A. C. McAfee-
been rejected. Maher house was built at 336 Essex
's
Henry- Russell Hitchcock in In the Nature
of Materials Kenilworth— Frank L. Wright— Architect— 43$ The
road in Kenilworth on lot quite far from Lake Michi
a
11
that "a slightly variant plan [of the A. C. McAfee Rookery— Chicago" (fig. 44) Note here that Wright
gan. James was first listed as living in Kenilworth in
house] for James L. McAfee also exists."4 If such a gives the exact address of his office. According to
May 1895.13
plan existed in Hitchcock's time, it has disappeared. Grant Manson, Wright occupied this office only
Because the three surviving drawings for Wright's
Nonetheless, James McAfee did exist and did build a between 25 Sept. 1899 and 30 April 1900;12 thus,
McAfee house can be dated to 1899, date that
is
a
house at Kenilworth in 1894.'' While it is not known this drawing was made between the end of September
confirmed of the
by
the visual evidence designs them
if he was related to Charles, Wright's insistence that 1899 and the end of April 1900.
selves, one wonders how Hitchcock came to believe
he had designed the house shown in the perspective Yet internal evidence suggests that this last drawing
that there existed variant drawing for the James
a
for C. A. McAfee for Kenilworth in 1894 suggests was the first of the three surviving drawings. That it
McAfee house, drawing not mentioned
by
Manson
a
there was a relationship. The last piece of the puzzle is a plan in evolution is suggested by the floor levels,
and one that does not exist in the Wright archives?
It
relates to the architect of James McAfee's house. It was which cannot be made to work properly. This problem
must have been Wright himself who told Hitchcock
not designed by Wright but by his former associate was corrected in the other plan, which must be a revi
about the 1894 commission and the variant drawing
of Joseph W sion of of
it,
by
in the office L. Silsbee, architect George the addition staircase in the entrance
a
which, existed in 1940 when Hitchcock
if
was at
it
Maher. hall. Also the complex arrangement of service quarters
work on his book, In the Nature Materials, cannot be
of
beyond the living and dining rooms improved in the
is

■
30
located today. But even if such drawing or drawings with an intertwined followed
by
an "del" for delinea
R
a suggest that Wright well may have made design for McAfee
a
did exist, the building depicted cannot have looked tor in June 1894. design that McAfee rejected and then turned
a
to Maher for plan. Maher's design was built in 1894-9$.
like the one that Rasmussen of its
a
rendered, because Wright of "Lloyd" on drawings occurs on
by
The first use
7
gas was turned on in June 1895 and McAfee moved in
by
advanced style and its long low hip roofs. the plan of the Stephen A. Foster house, plan that dated
is
a
May 1895. the month when material for the Chicago city
In summary, it seems likely that Wright did design "January 1900," Wright Archives 0003.02.
directory was gathered
a house for James McAfee in 1894. The plan was
8
Wright last used "Frank Wright" on his drawings for
L
14 That Charles McAfee wanted to
build on lot in Edge-
a
rejected and McAfee built his house designed by the remodeling of the Edward C. Waller house, drawings
water rather than in Kenilworth seems the more reasonable.
George Maher in Kenilworth well away from Lake dated Feb. 1899. Actually, as will be seen, the last time he
of the
by
Judging Wright's perspective McAfee house, was
it
used "Frank Wright" was on an undated drawing for the
L.
Michigan in 1894-95. In 1899 Wright offered a to be built on flat land hardly elevated above the lake, which
McAfee house made after September 1899 Wright seems
version of the same plan to Charles A. McAfee, the case in Edgewater. located approximately between
is
a "
Frank Lloyd Wright" at least as early as the
to have affected
person he might have known through the trade or Berwyn and Devon streets, well north of the Loop. At
date of the brochure announcing his studio, which can be
Kenilworth bluffs separate the flat land of the town from
perhaps through James McAfee, if the two were
traced with certainty to Feb. 1898 in Construction News
(9
6
Lake Michigan. Edgewater also probably the place where
is
related. But as Charles McAfee wanted to build in Feb. 1898); 121. Why he did not at once change the "L." to
Mrs. Devin was to build, not only because of the level land
"Lloyd" on his drawings unknown.
is
Edgewater directly on Lake Michigan. Wright had to hardly higher than the lake but also because this about
is
revise the plan significantly and in doing so also made the only place from Chicago north where Sheridan road
9
possible that Wright invented the monogram for The
It
is
is
the house conform to his latest planning concepts and House Beautiful, an art folio that he, Chauncey Williams and roughly 200 feet from the edge of the lake. Unfortunately,
a
William Winslow designed and printed between 1896 and surveyof the land lying along the lake between Berwyn and
visual vocabulary.'4
1898. Its appearance in the book was not. however, on the Devon streets at the Cook County Records Office did not
printed pages but on the backs of "a booklet of gravures find either McAfee or Devin owning land in the area
' affixed to the front flyleaf of" the book, according to John
Wright Archives 9407.01
Arthur, The House Beautiful (California: Pomegranate Press,
- CAT. "A HOME IN PRAIRIE TOWN"
A
7
•
"Wright," 61, 72. 1996), 10. Thus possible that the booklet was made
is
Spencer,
it
! The closest candidate for "A. C." is
toward the end of the process, that is, in 1898 at about the (September 1900)
Angus G. McAfee, who,
same time the studio brochure was printed or even later.
however, disappears from the city directories in 1895. His The only firm date associated with the design when
is
10
firm of A. G McAfee was known for its decorative painting Spencer. "Wright," 61.
by
was published in February the Ladies' Home
it
1901
and wallpapering "
Wright Archives 9407.02. Journal (figs. 35-36).1 However, the time required to
4
Hitchcock. 109. 12 make the plans and renderings, then submit them to
Manson Collection. The information contained in
is
a
'
McAfee is listed in city directories in 1890 through letter of 1} Dec 1939 to Manson from Mary Harner. who
the production schedule of the magazine, would be at
James
1892 as a salesman, then a clerk. In the years 1893 and worked in the Rookery and examined their lease records least five months. Thus design date of September
a
1894 he is absent, but in 1895 he reappears as a salesman, for him 1900 though might well have been
is
suggested,
it
home Kenilworth; in 1896 he has become a designer, home several months earlier. Its immediate in
13
Carrie McAfee purchased Lot 4. Block on May 1894 predecessor

7.
E
Kenilworth; after that he is no longer listed.

on the same day, CCRO. doc. nos plan but not elevation Wright's Hickox house at
is
and executed mortgage
a
Patrick Pinnell supposed that the monogram in the lower 21 32780 and 2132781 The McAfee house, built at 336 Essex Kankakee. Illinois, though the plan itself goes back
of the perspective (not visible in road, Kenilworth,
fig
left corner 33) was that was illustrated in the Inland Architect 28 to the Emmond house of 1892. The working draw
of Robert Spencer, describing as "an entanglement of R. (Jan 1897) according to Susan Elaine Karr, "The Work of
it
ings for the Hickox house are dated June 1900.
It
and JR;" see "Academic Tradition and the Individual W Maher (1886 -1 897) "73.
S,
Silsbee (18831897) and

L.
C.
J.
also likely that Wright designed both the "Home

is
Talent," in Frank Lloyd Wright: Primer on Architectural Principles, Masters thesis. Dept. of Art, Univ. of Chicago, August 1969.
a
McCarter, ed. (New York: Princeton Architectural Karr also reported that the illuminatinggas was turned on 30 in Prairie Town" and the "Small House with Lots of
a
Robert
Press, 1991), n. 36, 295. However, the monogram June 1895 (Sears Records) and that the house was occupied Room" (fig. 37). published in the July 1901 issue of the
is
actually
sometime during the year previous to May 1895. These dates Ladies' Home Journal, at about the same time. The latter
■
3I
is derived from Wright's Bradley house in Kankakee,
which stands next to the Hickox house, its drawings
also dated June 1900.
'
Ladies' Home Journal 18 (Feb. 1901): 17
CAT. 8• VICTOR METZGER HOUSE
(September 1901)
Although the design is consistently given as 1902
because the working drawings in the Wright archives

are dated "January 1902," the date of design is obvi
ously somewhat earlier (figs. 49-50).' That it was

probably September 1901 is certain from notices of
28 September and 5 October 1901. The latter reads:
"Architects Wright & Tomlinson, 17 Van Buren St., are
preparing plans for a residence to be built at Sault Ste.

Marie, Mich., for V. E. Metzger."2 Thus the date of
design was at least as early as September 1901.
1
Wright Archives 0209.06.
2
Economist 26 (28 Sept. 1901): 371 and American Contractor 22
(5 Oct. 1901): 24.

PAUL
KRUTY
ANNOTATED CATALOG OF THE EIGHT MODELS
Both born in 1859, and thus eight years older than
their architect, Orrin and Annabel Goan came
to Wright in 1893 for a house for themselves and
their three children, Adelaide (age 6) . Emily (age
The architect had already
2).
3) and Percival (age
provided plans to their friend and next-door
neighbor, Robert Emmond, and would soon do
so for Orrin's father, Peter. Emmond and Peter
Goan's houses stand today at 108 and 109
S.
8th Street.
During negotiations for Orrin Goan's house,
two traumatic events occurred in the young

architect's life: following tense discussions, he left
his employers of five years, Adler & Sullivan, to
establish an independent practice; and he got into
an argument with Mrs. Goan that resulted in his
ORRIN GOAN HOUSE losing the commission for the house. The Goans
went to fashionable local architect. John Neal

Orrin and Annabel Adams Goan
a
clieNTs: S.
Tilton, who created
hi 8th Avenue, La Grange, Illinois building that was vaguely
a
INTenDED location:
reminiscent of Wright's design, but included
DESIGNED ABOUT: April 1 89 3
model constructed BY: Laura Dean and Thomas Hagensick the necessary yellow brick and green shutters
scale: one-quarter inch = one foot so important to Annabel Goan.1 Although they
base dimensions: 29.5 x 37.5 inches
were able to move into their new house in 1895,
SURVIVING DRAWINGS:
the Goans did not stay long. By 1900 they had
settled in Irvington, New York.2
perspective
first-floor sketch plan That Wright's design had not reached much
by
beyond preliminary sketches revealed
is
a
main (west) elevation
CRUCIAL MISSING DRAWINGS: single surviving drawing (fig. 39). This unfinished
north, south, east elevations

elevation not only shows numerous erasures and
second -floor plan free-hand alterations, but has the remnants of

projecting pavilions at both ends, suggesting that
C-shaped plan was once contemplated. The
a
only other drawings to survive are perspective
a
and sketch plan published as single illustration
a
a
PRELUDE TO THE FRAIRIE STYLE
■
34
At the Goan house, however, Wright recessed the
entrance behind parapet walls marked on their

interior ends with free-standing urns, a spatial
element not present in the Charnley house.
Creating a complete model of this project

from such scant visual information necessarily
involved making educated guesses. Tom Hagen-
sick and Laura Dean have provided the following
account of a few of the problems they encoun
in tered:
"While the perspective (fig. 2) allowed us to

place the second-floor windows on two facades,
completing the remaining facades required
guesswork. The redrawn plan (fig. 6) was a
godsend, but the lack of a second-floor plan was
in June 1900 in Architectural Review, which appear

to have been specially drawn for that article (see
fig.
l)}
Wright's building was intended to be of brick
construction and stone trim, with plaster surface
a
in the frieze zone above the upper window sills.

The symmetrical facade with axial entranceway
articulated with three-arched windows sepa
is
by
rated colonettes that are set above large plate-

glass windows. The corners are terminated with
octagonal columns that rise from decorated
a
corbel at the level of the lower window sills to

the upper window sills, where they blossom with
luxurious growth of Sullivanian ornament. The
a
also decorated with bands of orna

is
entranceway
ment that frame two windows and the door in
the manner of Adler & Sullivan's Charnley house FIG. 39. Project: Orrin Goan house, La Grange, IL, 1893, Frank L.Wright, architect. Main elevation.
0(1891. building in which Wright was involved.
a
■
35
a major problem. Because the house is much However, its dining room is treated in plan as house provided the surest model. While its porch
narrower than the Winslow house and, in fact, a semi-circle whose roof slopes up to the frieze is presently treated with a large glass wall, early
contains the stairhall within the main volume of level. The Goan's half octagon complicates this photographs reveal that the elevation here was
the house, unlike the Winslow's projecting stair roof. The first Heller house project provided a broken up into panels of glass and brick piers,
case, the second-floor plan of the Winslow house second model. The roof of the Heller's octagonal which we duplicated on our model."
could not serve as a model for the Goan house. It dining-room bay is resolved with a parapet wall,
remained an unresolved challenge to determine similar to the bay window on the south side of
1The identification of Tilton appears in a letter from Goan
how the second floor functioned— and if there the Winslow house. Our conclusion was to use a
to Grant Manson, 1 April 1940. Manson Collection. Oak
is actually a good solution for it without produc similar parapet wall for the octagonal bay on the Park Public Library. This letter also includes the narrative
ing unacceptably small rooms or increasing the Goan house. A possibility that we finally rejected about Mrs. Goan's preference for a house with green shut
ters and yellow brick. For Tilton, see A. N. Marquis, ed . 71k
of the
depth house. was that this roof was actually flat to support a
Book of Chicagoans. 1911(Chicago: A.N. Marquis & Company
"The portion of the north -side facade shown balcony from a second -floor bedroom. 191 1) , 67 j. That the house is not merely a version of Wright's
in the perspective presents at least one incon "The one-story portions on either side of the design but was reworked is shown by comparing the outside
dimension of the two buildings: omitting the porte-cochere
sistency with the plan: the roof peak of the dining room— the kitchen and porch— presented
in both cases. Wright's house was to be about 60 by 32 feet,
porte-cochere ends just below the frieze level, another difficulty. While the similar sides of the
while the existing building is 49.5 by 34 feet; Wright's living
indicating the pitch of the roof According to the Winslow house have pitched roofs that terminate room measured 20 by 20 feet, compared with i5 by 21 feet in
roof is of
plan and the perspective, this centered in a wing wall that projects from the main mass the present room. At 116 9 feet wide, the generous lot would
easily have accommodated Wright's broader dimension
over the side entrance. But this causes the roof the house, the plan of the Goan house does not
*
to intersect the suspended rear corner column in indicate their presence. However, we assumed U.S. Census, 1900. for Irvington, Westchester Count)
New York, information taken on 14 June 1900. According
a very messy way— not visible on the perspective, that Wright's further development of the scheme
to the 1910 census, the Goans were then living on lo6,t!
but in plain sight on the model. would have produced these features, as they
Street in Manhattan, New York City.
"There is no indication at all of what Wright appeared during the development phase of the "
' Robert C of Frank Lloyd Wright
Spencer, Jr., "The Work
intended for the rear elevation. The Winslow Winslow house. Finally, the detailing of the porch Architectural Review 7 (June 1900): 63.
house provided the most useful comparison. in elevation was unresolved. Again, the Winslow

Jesse A. Baldwin (1854-1921), successful lawyer
and eventual Cook County Circuit judge, was
forty years old when he approached Wright
about a house for himself, his wife Fannie, and
their four surviving children, Louise, Theodore,
Norman and William Storrs, aged 15, 7. 5. and
2, respectively. Almost forty years afterward,
Wright remembered the day when, in his office
in the Schiller building. "Mr. Baldwin, another
Oak Park lawyer, had come in and laid a check for
$350 on the table as a retainer," adding, "He had
evidently heard from Mr. Moore".1 The latter

refers to the wealthy lawyer, Nathan Moore,
whose large house under construction on Forest
avenue Wright had designed in a convincing
Tudor Gothic style. Wright clearly meant to
suggest that Baldwin expected to get a similarly
styled house.
On 2 May 1895, Baldwin gained control of
a lot on Kenilworth avenue in Oak Park in the
JESSE BALDWIN HOUSE

same rectangular block on which Wright's house
0 stood (fig. 40). 2 Wright announced the house
client: Jesse A. and Fannie M. Baldwin
in a trade journal a month later, estimating its
INTENDED LOCATION: 323 N. Kenilworth Avenue, Oak Park, Illinois
cost at $12, OOO. ' Following a mortgage that
DESIGNED ABOUT: June 1895
Baldwin took against the property in Septem
MODEL CONSTRUCTED BY: Euisang Lee and Wooyoung Choi
ber, nothing more is heard about the project.4 In
scale: one-quarter inch = one foot
1902 Baldwin divided the lot into two unequal
BASE DIMENSIONS: 31.5 x 37.5 inches
parts and sold them to the neighbors on either
SURVIVING DRAWINGS:
side, effectively prohibiting the construction of
full set, including four elevations and three plans
a house between their two properties.5
HELPFUL MISSING DRAWING:
Wright placed the tall narrow house he
perspective
designed for the Baldwins on the northern part
of the 89 -foot lot, allowing only for a carriage
entrance along the north boundary, while retain
ing as much southern exposure as possible (fig.
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT ■ 37

house, the Baldwin house
41). Like the Goan
was to be constructed of brick trimmed in stone
with the frieze below the eaves made of plaster.
The third story, raised in the center and nearly
windowless on its long sides, created a second
band of plaster. On the street side (east), these

two plaster levels joined to wrap around the
octagonal tower. While the openings of the
porte-cochere and entrance porch that flank
the main vessel of the house have pointed arches,
there is little else about the house to suggest that
its origins were medieval. While Wright called

for diamond-paned casement windows on the
south bay and on the second and third stories
of the tower, he detailed them in a way that is
hardly Gothic, even if the form itself ultimately

derives from the English Gothic Revival. And the octagonal space above the parlor— this is lems to be worked out, other than deciding how
they were paired with enormous double-hung marked "guest's room"— but the other room with to express in model form the complex moldings
windows used on the ground floor. a fireplace, along the middle of the south side. that articulate the facades.
The odd arrangement and designations of the
Although there was only one daughter, fifteen-
room suggest that Baldwin had very particular
year-old Louise, there are two rooms to the rear ' Frank
wishes and that Wright did his best to follow his Lloyd Wright, An Autobiography (New York Long
labeled "girl's room," but these apparently refer
mans. Green and Co.. 1932). 127
instructions (see fig. io). Entry by the carriage to servants' rooms. There is also another guest
2
Baldwin seems to have gained control of the property
way or the covered porch leads to a stairhall, logi room to the rear, which would have accommo when he acceptedit as collateral for a loan (mortgage) of
cally enough; but the great octagon on this floor dated Louise well enough. The "boy's room" Sn.ooo to the owner of the property. Arthur Kirkwood;
is marked "parlor," recalling the old-fashioned was presumably for seven-year-old Theodore, Cook County Recorders Office (hereafter CCRO) doc
room kept shut until callers arrived. How the while the large nursery evidently was intended
no. 2217975
servants were to attend to such guests is not clear. ' Real Estate ef Buildingjournal
for Norman and Storrs, and any other Baldwins 37 (8 June 1895): 540
The enormous, cross-axial room in the center who might come along. The crowning space, on 4 The earlier
mortgage was never released. On 2 September
of the house, measuring nearly 14 by 30 feet
the third floor above the guest room and the 1895, Baldwin used the property as collateral for a mortgage
without the bay window, is marked "library." It that netted him $4000, apparently to be used for consrruc
only habitable space in the long attic (assuming
is not to be confused with Judge Baldwin's
tion of the house; CCRO doc. no.2271506.
study, windows were required), was designated as "play
s CCRO doc nos.
which lies adjacent to the dining room, itself only 3220486 and 87. The lot was only reas
room."
sembled in the 1950s when the existing ranch house was
half as large as the library. Upstairs the divisions
Because a full set of working drawings survive built on the site.
are equally quirky. The master bedroom is not
for this project, there were no particular prob

FIG. 40. Fire Insurance Map of Oak Park, IL, 1895, FIG. 41 . Detail of Figure 41 , with footprint of
uncorrected. Baldwin lot is marked "1," Wright house is Baldwin house superimposed on the vacant lot,
marked "2." by Paul Kruty.
EIGI IT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGFIT ■ 39

Isadore' Heller (1847-19??) was a partner in
Wolf, Sayer & Heller, described in 19 14 as "one of
the most prosperous independent meat packers
and dealers in butchers' supplies in the middle
west."2 It is through a business connection that
Heller apparently met Wright early in 1893,
when Adler & Sullivan prepared plans for a new
warehouse for Wolf, Sayer & Heller.' Although
Heller bought the lot on which the house stands
in January 1895. he waited two years to commis
sion a house for the site from Wright.4 At the
time the family consisted of Isadore (49 years

old), Ida (38) and their three children. Vinchen
(16), Eugene (12). and Walter (6).5
Wright's first version offered to the Hellers,
here designated as Heller I, was developed into a
set of preliminary plans in scale, accompanied by
a watercolor perspective (figs. 14 & 15). A surviv

ing elevation of the south facade is not more than
a sketch, perhaps intendedto guide the person
who rendered the perspective.6 Intent as he was
on developing his aesthetic preferences. Wright
apparently failed to realize that the width of the
clieNTs: Isadore and Ida Heller Heller's lot would not permit a carriage entrance
intended location: 5132 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago. Illinois on the north side, and that, in any event, the
designed about: March 1897 carriage house could be serviced by a rear alley,
model constructed BY: Ann Harrer and Sarah Lowe something not usual in most suburban lots. A
SCALE: one-quarter inch = one foot revised version was constructed shortly after this
BASE dimensions: 22.5 x 41.5 inches design was rejected. While the exterior of Heller
SURVIVING DRAWINGS: 11 was greatly changed, the plan remained much
perspective the same (fig. 17). The most substantial changes
side (south) elevation were the removal of the carriage entrance, and
plans at all levels the elimination of the square bays on the living
CRUCIAL MISSING DRAWINGS: and dining rooms and the balconies above them
west, north, east elevations as well as the second-floor loggia on the south
side.

For the exterior of Heller I, as shown in the the short facade facing the street (east), which detail reminiscent of the similar columns flank
elevation and rendering, Wright returned to contained the living room and master bedroom ing the entrance to Frank Furness' Pennsylvania
the Sullivanian vocabulary of the Goan house, above it, as well as the cross-axial dining room Academy of Design.
including the three-arched window in the frieze bedroom wing projecting to the south, contained While the surviving plans at all levels allowed
leveland corner columns resting on decorated the three-arched windows seen on the Goan a faithful recreation of the general massing of the
corbels and terminated with long Sullivanesque house. In place of the double-hung, plate-glass building, the lack of elevation drawings of three
capitals. The Heller scheme had a third story windows on the Goan's first floor that contrast so facades posed the major problems in making
rising above the two-story wings, presenting a awkwardly with the arches above, Wright devel the model. Although the perspective shows one
problem in using the Goan's corbelled columns. oped larger openings to match these arches and of these sides, the north and rear elevations are
Wright solved this in a clever way by adding a served as doors from the master bedroom and entirely missing.
second set of columns, arranged so that, com- the guest bedroom to their respective balconies.
1 "
Although Heller's first name is spelled Isidore" on Wright's
pined with the shed roofs on the long sides, He decorated the transoms above the columns
drawings and in construction announcements originating
they formed interlocking units from the ground with perforated stone tracer)' of a complex geo from Wright's office, the correct spelling appears to be
"
to theupper roof. Thus he created two frieze metric design that looks vaguely like a medieval Isadore." according to newspaper articles, legal documents
zones of equal height above two planar walls

and the U.S. Census taker.
quatrefoil. giving rise to the characterization
also of equal height. This was accomplished by of the whole design as "Gothic," which is not '"Merchant Ends Life With Shot" [Christian Wolf], Chicago
making the lower frieze plus the shed roof equal

Tribune. 13 April 1914, 1.
really the case.7 Finally, he cut out the corners
to the height of the upper planar wall. While of the bays below the balconies and inserted '"Among Architects and Builders." Chicago Tribune, 5 March
1893, 36. Though much altered, the building still stands at
there were no windows above the shed roofs. columns into the corner niches, a mannered
310-12 N. Peoria Street.
4 CCRO. doc. no.

2155786. dated 2 January 1895.
5 U.S. Census, 1900. for Chicago, Cook County, Illinois,
information taken 13 June 1900 Presumably "Vinchen" is

a misspelling made by the census taker (for "Wiinschen"?)
Born in Austria. Isadore Heller was a professor of math
ematics in Budapest when he decided to settle in America
rather than be drafted into the Austro- Hungarian army,
according to his son; see P Hampson, "The Road to Success:
A Sketch of Walter E Heller, I lead of Big Factoring Firm,"
Chicago Tribune. 1 May 1954, A5.
6 Published in Frank
Lloyd Wright Drawingsfor a Living Architecture
(New York: Horizon Press, 1959). 246. where it is incorrectly

identified as "an elevation sketch" of the Flusser house.
"
In revising this first scheme, Wright eliminated the bays
from the dining and living rooms, and the open balconies
above them; but he transferred the perforated quatrefoil
design to the undecorated lintel over the front entrance of
the house, where it was carved as an ornamental relief
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGIIT■ 41

When Dr. Robert Peckham Eckart (1867-1895)
died on 6 September 1895 of peritonitis follow
ing a burst appendix, he left a twenty-five year-

old widow, Rebecca (1870-1951), and two infant
children. Margaret, not yet two, and recently-
born Robert Jr.1 Rebecca's father, Edward C
Waller, a prominent real-estate developer in
Chicago and River Forest, as well as a friend and
client of Wright, proposed to give his daugh
ter the house her husband had not lived long
enough to provide for her. Waller apparently met

Wright through the Winslows, who lived east

across Auvergne Place from the Wallers. In 1895.
Waller had commissioned the Francis Apart
ments from Wright, built that year on Chicago's
south side, and he continued to engage Wright
for work during the next fifteen years.
Following a complex, picturesque design

H REBECCA (MRS. ROBERT) ECKART, II, HOUSE offered to father and daughter, here designated
CLIenTS:William H. Winslowand Rebecca (Mrs. Robert) Eckart as Eckart I , Wright prepared sketches of a more
INTenDED LOCATION: Edgewood Place. River Forest. Illinois formal scheme designated Eckert II that evi
designed about: December 1897 dently pleased the clients, for they approved
MODEL CONSTRUCTED BY: Sangwon Kang and Sung- Ah Park the production of working drawings, dated
SCALE: one-quarter inch = one foot March 1898. Nevertheless, the house designed
base dimensions: 26.5 x 29.5 inches by Wright was not built.
SURVIVING DRAWINGS: The symmetrical residence is approached from
perspective the street through the front porch, an element
full set, including four elevations and three plans that particularly pleased Robert Spencer. Group
CRUCIAL MISSING DRAWINGS: ing it with the similar, if more open, porch con
none structed for George Furbeck, he wrote that the)
"are reasonable and practicable outdoor rooms."
He particularly praised their aesthetic qualities:
"They are so strong and stable as the structures to
which they are so completely related and united

to form a satisfactory whole. They are not excres

cences nor dignified 'lean-tos,' nor pretty pieces These columns rose as a kind of giant order in
of foreign bric-a-brac in collision with rude, the central block to a third story.
native structures."2 Although the massing suggests the cross plan
The walls of Wright's proposal were to be of such buildings of Wright's Prairie years as the
brick up to the plastered frieze level, the change Walser and Barton houses, the plan only hints
m material signaled not by the second floor level at the possibility of uniting the three interior
but by the sill line of the upstairs windows, a tra spaces
—
dining room, hall, and living room — into
dition going back to Adler & Sullivan's MacHarg a single space.
house of 1 891, a house whose development With a full set of plans and elevations, build
Sullivan entrusted to Wright. Like the Goan ing the model presented no unusual problems.
of four years earlier, the Eckart house
house
featured triple-arched windows separated by 1

See "Death of Dr. Eckart," Oak Park Vindicator, 6 Sept. 1895.
decorated columns on the second floor above 4. For Mrs. Eckart, see "Services for Mrs. Rebecca Waller
Eckart," Oak Park Leaves. 26 April 1951, 62.
huge plate-glass windows on the ground floor.
2
Spencer. "Wright." 68.
EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT ■43

H ALINE (MRS. DAVID)
DEVIN HOUSE
clIenTS: Aline and David Devin
intended location: Sheridan Road.
Chicago, Illinois
DESIGNED ABOUT: July 1898
model constructed BY: Emma Colon and
Molly Cundari
SCALE: one-quarter inch = one foot
SURVIVING DRAWINGS:
head-on perspective
west (street-side) elevation
first-floor plan
second -floor plan
CRUCIAL MISSING DRAWINGS:
north, south, east elevations

third-floor plan
HELPFUL MISSING DRAWING:
angled perspective

revealed that Devin had retired "under a great
cloud." In fact, he had apparently embezzled
$7,000 from the company over the course of four
years. When this was discovered, Devin admitted
the wrong-doing and returned an equal amount
before his dismissal. He immediately went on a
hunting trip to Minnesota, where he accidently

shot himself in the side getting out of a boat, as
the papers reported, and died two hours later.
Following a hasty funeral, he was cremated in
Graceland Cemetery.5
Wright remembered Aline Devin as "a fash
ionable, fastidious client from the North Side,"6
whose visit to the Studio to see drawings of her
brick-and-stone house Paul Sprague has dated to
about August 1898. The sketches Wright unveiled

of
that day revealed what must have seemed one

Aline S. Devin 1930) was a promi
(1852-after and goings, including her return with her niece
the oddest houses Mrs. Devin had ever seen. As
nent socialite and volunteer in philanthropical from a summer spent at Mackinac Island.'
Wright later explained the challenge given to
organizations.' David T. Devin (1849-1898) Born near Springfield, Illinois, David Devin
him, "An arrangement was desired which should
was a successful insurance agent. Their house studied civil engineering at Iowa State University
respect the thoroughfare and locate the living-
at 3134W. Warren avenue (old 965 Warren) on and worked as an engineer before entering the
rooms toward the lake— that is. at the rear of the
Chicago's west side, where they lived with Aline's insurance business. While a student, he met Ida
The rear outside entrance is screened
building.
niece Alice, was often the scene of elaborate Aline Shane, a native of Ohio whose father prac
within the building itself, the library and dining-
dinner parties. In the years before approaching ticed law in Iowa, where they were married in
rooms looking toward the Drive and toward the
Wright about a new house, Mrs. Devin served 1872. The Devins arrived in Chicago in the late lake."?
as vice-president of the Home for Destitute 1880s and in 1893 David was appointed Western
In grappling with the problem of placing a
Crippled Children; was president of the literary General Manager of the Delaware and Reliance
house on a narrow but deep lot running to Lake
known as QJ.S.P, which, she reported to Insurance Companies of Philadelphia, a position
society Michigan, and with large houses expected to be
Chicago's Federated Womens' Clubs at a mass he held until his abrupt resignation in September built on either side, Wright naturally devised
meeting in Central Music Hall, "believed in an 1898, apparently while Wright was developing of connected rooms,
a long, narrow volume
education for woman which would make her an plans for the couple's house.4 Although it was covered with a single hipped roof. Flanking this
industrial power;" and lectured to the Menoken reported that "his serious illness of a year ago
main vessel, he added matching octagonal towers,
Club on "Mirabeau and the French Revolu left his strength and health greatly impaired and
whose flat roofs were protecting with parapet
tion."2 Society columns reported her comings complete rest has become a necessity," it was later walls (fig. 42). He punched runnel vaults through

the ground floor of the two octagons to permit A lakeshore lot actually
pedestrian traffic to the lake beyond. Wright owned by the Devins has not
clearly marked the main, axial entrance with a been found, so the size remains
massive arched doorway facing Sheridan Road, approximate. The caption to
and opened the living room wall to the rear to the plate published in the 1900
receive the lake view and provide for a grand catalog of the Chicago Architec
terrace. tural Club gives the dimensions
Finally, Wright proposed something extraor as "65 feet on Sheridan Road,
dinary: in order to provide access to the middle extending 200 feet to Lake
of the house without resorting to entrances on Michigan."8 Assuming this
the long sides, he raised the living floor up one dimension, the main rectangle
level and split the ground floor into two separate of the house to the outside walls
sections. This allowed a circular carriage drive to is approximately 72 by 24 feet,
pass underneath the raised floor. Visitors could or composed of three connected
ascend the grand staircase at this point and arrive 24-foot squares. The octagons
at the central hall above.
Although Wright never are approximately 16 feet in
built this house, and did not return to this con diameter. The result, while not
ception as a way of entering a long house, he was modular in the sense of Wright's
apparently immensely pleased with the raised plans made by Walter Burley
living space that resulted from this arrangement Griffin beginning in 1902, is
for he returned to it often. carefully ordered by an under
The panels surrounding the three arches were lying regular geometry that is
to be decorated with Sullivanesque ornament. unusual among the architect's

The squat, square columns dividing the second- residential designs.
story windows were similarly decorated and were Unfortunately, much of
surrounded by a heavily molded band, a motif the graphic material for this
that Wright had used on the Rollin Furbeck extraordinary building is
house (January 1897) and would repeat on the missing, or perhaps was never
William Fricke house (December 1901). On fully developed. Of three sur
the third floor, the bedroom casement windows viving floor plans, two show
were rotated forty-five degrees and cantilevered the same second-floor level,
outward, a detail he may have contemplated for while the third story is missing
the Husser house (see fig. 44) and repeated in (fig. 26). Superimposed on the
the McAfee house. ground-floor plan is the only
FIG. 42. Project: Aline Devin house, Chicago, IL, 1898, Frank L.
extant elevation, showing the Wright, architect. Plan of second floor.

"The only "While the windows of the side and rear
information available facades could be located by the two surviving
regarding the third floor plans, the articulation of these elevations

floor plan was the was a matter of conjecture. The second-floor
location of the rotated windows in the service wing and central hall are
casement windows similar in plan to the window composition over
in the Sheridan the Sheridan Road entrance. We repeated them,
Road facade. These with the addition of arches above. The main
windows are set per staircase would presumably have been lighted
pendicularly to the by more than just the second-floor windows, but

diagonal corner hip simply repeating the second- floor configuration
of the roof; because of on the third floor would have made the landing
FIG. 43. Project: Devin house. Elevation of main (west) facade. the similar hip on the visible at an awkward location. The form of the
Lake Michigan facade, wall where the carriage drive enters and exits
as well as the symmet presented another challenge. Because of the use
street facade (fig. 43). Rising above the inter rical nature of the entire design, it was decided to of circular forms for the main entrance and the
section of the main body of the house and the repeat the window composition on the lake side. pedestrian passageways to the lakeshore, well
as
flanking octagons are tall forms marked with the The rising of the chimneys and central staircase as the circular carriage and pedestrian routes on
conventional notation for continuous ornament. from the second floor located these elements on plan, we decided to span the carriage entrances
From the perspective drawing (fig. 27) ,9 it is clear the third-floor plan. The tall towers also could be with a single arch on each side."
that they are set at 45 degrees to the main axis. fitted above the similar walls of the second floor. These are only a few of a dozen educated
The assumption made here is that they provided We have proposed that on the third floor they guesses that were necessary to construct the
access to the octagonal balconies from the main serve as entrances to the balconies with para model of Wright's vision for the fastidious but
bedrooms. pets, treating the spaces that connect the living fashionable Mrs. Devin.
Emma Colon and Molly Cundari provided the room to the dining and reception rooms on the
following account of some of the other problems second floor as closets for the master bedroom 1
Devin's dates come from the 1930 census, at which time she
they encountered: on the third. Otherwise, the configuation of the was living with her niece, Alice Northrop, in Pass Christian.
"The drawings were scaled using 3' o" as the third floor is difficult to reconstruct. Because Mississippi. She apparently is absent from the census of
standard doorway, while service doors and cor the Devins had no children, it is possible that 1900, 1910. and 1920. As the niece also lived in the 1890s
with the Devins on Chicago's west side, it is possible that she
ridors were scaled to 2' 6". This produced a width Wright intended the entire space east of the
was also meant to live in the house designed by Wright
for the house of 65' o", which exactly fit the lot central fireplace, which overlooks the lake, to be
J"To Provide a Home." Chicago Tribune. 28 Jan. 189 3, 11; "For
dimension given in the Chicago Architectural Club a single, master bedroom, and to use the western
Little Cripples." Chicago Tribune. 22 Dec. 1893. 8; "Look to
catalog. The scale also produced floor heights of portion for a guest bedroom (or space for Mrs. Close Union," Chicago Tribune. 24 April 1894. 8: and "Of
8' o", 9' 6" and 8' o", which were used to make Devin's niece?) and servants' bedrooms. Interest to Women," Chicago Tribune. 22 May 1895. 12
the model.

' "Events in
Chicago Society," Chicago Tribune, 26 Aug. 1897,
IO.
-•"Insurance News." Chicago Tribune, 10 March 1893, 1O; and

"Insurance Affairs." Chicago Tribune. 25 Sept. 1898, 15.
5 "David T. Devin is Dead,"

Chicago Tribune, 15 Oct. 1898, 5;
and "Burial of D. T. Devin." Chicago Tribune. 16 Oct. 1898,
10. Although the newspaper reported that "his interment
will be at Graceland," in fact Devin's body was cremated
there on 17 October and the ashes returned to his wife
six months later; my thanks to Diane Fanigan. Graceland
Cemetery records department, for providing copies of the
records relating to Devin.
6
Wright. An Autobiography, 114. The Devins always lived in
Chicago on the west not the north side of town.
7 In
English translation in Studiesand Executed Buildings by Frank
Lloyd Wright (New York: Rizzoli, 1986). 17.
8 CAC,
1900, 81. In the Wasmuth portfolio, the dimension is
given as "lot fifty feet wide," but this is highly unlikely.

9 It should be noted that the

serving wing, including the
circular drive, was eliminated in preparing the perspective
drawing, creating a rendering which, while striking, is very
inaccurate. In addition, the towers in perspective were
apparently added when the image was redrawn for the
Wasmuth portfolio. They are absent in the perspective as
published both in Spencer's 1900 article and in the 1900
CAC catalog.

a C. A. McAFEE HOUSE
clieNT: possibly Charles A. McAfee
intended LOCATION: Sheridan Road,
Edgewater (Chicago) [or Kenilworth?],

Illinois
DESIGNED November 1899
ABOUT:
model constructed BY: Nolan Sit and
Vidhya Thyagarajan
SURVIVING DRAWINGS:
perspective
first-floor plan (three versions)
all four elevations

second-floor plan
L
The client, site, and date of this project remain
something of a mystery, as Paul Sprague explains
in his chronological entry. Understanding how
the house was meant to function is an equal chal
lenge. As with the Devin house, no second floor

plan exists. There are no surviving elevations,
while the perspective shows only two facades.
Finally, there are three versions of the first-floor
plan. While the latest is clearly a later revision
of the second version, these two differ substan
tially from what appears to be the earliest plan.
Taken together, these facts make it difficult to

understand the house fully and, to be sure, to
construct a model of it.
Although no site has been positively identi
fied for the house, it is clear that the perspective FIG. 44. Project: C. A. McAfee house, Chicago, IL, 1899, Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Sketch plan of
and western facades, with main floor.
shows the southern

Lake Michigan beyond the eastern front to the
right. Like the Devin house, but unlike the Husser

house, the main axis is perpendicular to the lake.
Entrance is from the north side, like the Devin
and Heller houses, which gives a southern expo
sure to the main rooms. The original plan and the
first revision show a covered carriage entrance,
which is omitted from both the perspective and
the final plan shown in Wasmuth. There is also
a north stair tower shown on all three plans.
Exactly how this functioned is unclear from these
plans.
The formal design, set on a molded plinth
and decorated with Sullivan ornament, using the
forms of the octagon and rectangle, represents
the final flowering of the Sullivanian designs
of 1898-99, which also includes the Devin and
Husser houses. The importance of the house in FIG. 45. Project: McAfee house. Revised plan of main floor.
5O ■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

to the basement. This created an opening on the of the second version of the McAfee house was
ground floor allowing passage on the north side used as the basis for the model.
of the house from the carriage entrance to the The windows on the second floor are set at
lakeside terrace. From the reflected roof plan it is 45 degrees, a mannered invention Wright used at
2r
clear that the second floor was to be cantilevered two other lakeshore dwellings, the Devin house
over this passageway. It should be noted that the of summer 1898 and a drawing that Paul Sprague
perspective works with either plan. dates to late 1898 and proposes as an early
For the Wasmuth portfolio, Wright had his version of the Husser house, perhaps rejected
assistants square the curved parapet that projects by Mrs. Husser (fig. 46)} Here it more logically
FIG.46. Unidentified drawing, possibly an early
from the covered walkway (fig. 45). This revision results from the two rotated towers that join the
version of Husser house. Microfilm print of lost
original.
Robert Spencer's view (and presumably Wright's)

is indicated by its appearance on the first page of
Spencer's essay on Wright's architecture in the

deluxe issue of Architectural The image is
Review.1
the only residential perspective within the body

of the article to span the page. Wright was also
concerned enough to design that, while the origi
nalplan appears in the catalog of the Chicago
Architectural Club, presumably available when
the exhibition opened in April, the revised plan
was ready to publish in the June issue of the
Boston magazine.
The original plan shows the living room
aligned axially with the dining room that gives

onto a terrace facing the lake (fig. 44) . Connected
to the dining room but separated from it by four

columns is a lesser space marked "demi tasse,"
presumably referring to the coffee to be served

after dinner in this area.2 In the revised plan (fig.
34), Wright shifted the dining room to incor
porate this space while using the remaining area

FIG. 47. Project: Aline Devin house. Detail of FIG. 48. Project: C. A. McAfee house. Detail of
for the butler's pantry and moving the kitchen
Figure 27. line drawing based on Figure 33.

octagonaJ library to the rectilinear body of the
house, in a manner that recalls the Devin house
(fig. 47). However, the towers here are truncated

and covered by a unitary hip roof, while their
second floors have casement windows to light
the corner rooms upstairs (fig. 48). This juxta
position gives justification to the rotated form:
the windows when closed parallel the walls of
the house while the diamonds between them are
actually extensions of the rotated towers.4

'
Spencer, "Wright," 61.
2 of the French word

1 can find no other instance of the use
for a small cup of coffee taken after dinner as the name of the
room where this event occurs. For a history of the word itself,
which in France would have seemed very old fashioned in
1899, see Clifford H. Bissell. "The Word Demi-Tasse." Modern
Language Notes 61 (May 1946): 340-43.
'
Sprague argues that the orientation with enclosed porch
at front and porte-cochere on the left side is similar to the
Husser house, as also are its brick walls and the profile of its
base course. The perspectivewas brought to Sprague's atten
tion by Peter Goss, professor of architectural history at the
University of Utah Apparently according to standard policy
at the university, it and several other drawings donated at the
same time were microfilmed (poorly), then discarded.
4
Wright used a rotated window at least once more, on the
upper floor of the Eugene Gilmore house built in 1908
in Madison, WI. Perhaps the magnificent views from the
upper floors of the Gilmore house suggested to Wright the
lakefront vistas he wished to enhance in this way a decade
before.

B "A HOME IN A PRAIRIE TOWN" In October 1900, the Philadelphia homemak-

ers' magazine, Ladies Home Journal, began a series

CLIenT: Ladies Home Journal magazine
called "Model Suburban Houses Which Can be
INTENDED LOCATION: none
designed about: September 1900 Built at Moderate Cost." It announced that "the
foremost architects of New York, Philadelphia,
MODEL CONSTRUCTED BY: Andrew Vogt and Douglas Pettay
Boston and Chicago will prepare the plans and
estimates for these houses."1 Eventually thirteen
base dimensions: 29.5 x 375 inches
houses appeared designed by Bruce Price, Ralph
SURVIVING DRAWINGS:
Adams Cram. Elmer Grey, and Wilson Eyre,
perspective
first-floor plan among others, the last proposal published in
November 1 901. Among these designs were two
second-floor plan
by Frank Lloyd Wright that appeared in February
and July as the fifth and the ninth installments
four elevations
in the series. Wright called the first of these two
"A Home in a Prairie Town."2
In the same issue that saw the first model sub
urban house, the magazine began a second series

called "Good Practical Farmhouses of Moderate
Cost," all designed by Wright's colleague, Robert

Spencer was already at work on his
r.?
C. Spencer, f
farmhouses in May 1900. when his connection to
by
the magazine was reported an Oak Park news
paper.4 Spencer, whose connections with Boston

and the publishers of Architectural Record, located
in that city, had produced the extensive article on
Wright's work that had appeared in June 1900,

was probably the link that gave Wright entry into
the Philadelphia publishing world well.
If
as so,
the architectural world owes Spencer one more

debt of gratitude.
In this design (see figs. 35 & 36), Wright finally

organized the constituent parts of his emerging
mature style into coherent whole, virtually
a
without ornamentation. Among the hallmarks

of his Prairie houses found here are the four-
part wall configuration, hipped roofs, casement the perspective nor on any of the four positions
windows, picturesque entry leading to the house set on the 'quadruple block plan.'
is
symmet
a
by
rical space, and rooms joined to form unified We resolved the problem basing our solution
a
interior. The text that accompanies the article, on the roof over the similar stair tower on the
Husser house, which immediately preceded our
by
presumably Wright, explains that, despite the

fact that the architect was offering to build the building."
house anywhere in the country, "[t]he exterior
recognizes the influence of the prairie, firmly

is
These editorial comments appeared at the head of the first

1
and broadly associated with the site, and makes design, Bruce Price's "A Georgian House for Seven Thou
feature of its quiet level." sand Dollars," Ladies Home Journal 17 (Oct. 1900): 15.
a
Andrew Vogt and Douglas Pettay have pro

2
Ladies Home Journal 18 (Feb 1901): 17.
vided the following observations:

Robert C. Spencer, "A Good Farmhouse for $3500,"
Jr
'
"Because the plans published in Ladies Home Ladies Homejournal 17 (Oct. 1900): 21. Spencer's seventh and
Journal are sketchy and the perspective shows last farmhouse appeared in June 1901.
only one facade, there are several places where May 1900, which noted,
"
R. C. Spencer
4
Oak Park Reporter,

3
Wright's intentions are unclear. This was espe has returned from Philadelphia Thursday. He was called
the editors of The Ladies Home Journal, and has been
by
there
cially problematic at the rear entrance and stair
them to write of articles on architecture
by
engaged series
a
tower. The roof of the latter not visible on

is
for publication."
PRELUDE TO THE PRA.IRIE STYLE

■
54
Born in Wisconsin in Victor Metzger was
1863,
city controller for Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan,

when he approached Wright about designing a
house for himself, his wife Mary, and their two
young sons, Lionel and Leland.1 Like several

other local figures wishing a pretentious dwell
ing, he turned to a Chicago architect.2 The house
Wright provided for Metzger would, indeed,
have been luxurious. In September 1901, Wright
reported that he was "at work on plans."' By
February 1902, he announced that plans had
been completed and bids were requested for a

house whose "extreme dimensions including
terraces will be in x 161 feet."4 The house, built
of "local stone," was to include 17 rooms and
cost $25,000. Finally, it was reported that "O. C.
Simonds of Chicago
has designed the landscape
□ VICTOR METZGER HOUSE improvements and they will be very elaborate."5

Whether Simonds, whose office records have
CLIENTS: Victor E. and Mary N. Metzger
not survived, actually prepared a detailed plant
INTENDED LOCATION: Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
not known. Perhaps the bids for the
ing plan is
designed about: September 1901
house were more than the client expected or
model constructed by: Molly Cundari
could afford, for nothing more is known about
the project.
BASE DIMENSIONS: 31.5 x 45.5 inches
Unlike most of the houses of the late 1890s,
SURVIVING DRAWINGS: full set, including plans, elevations, sections, several perspectives
however, Wright kept the Metzger house in the
canon of his important works. He exhibited a
perspective and site plan in 1902 at the Chicago

Architectural Club and submitted the design again
in 1907.6 He also published a redrawn plate in
the Wasmuth portfolio."
Metzger's lot sat on the crest of the hill that

overlooks the commercial center of Sault Ste.
Marie, home of the famous locks. On the site
thus perched above the town. Wright organized

the house on one long axis, with the three-story Retaining walls were necessary to provide 1
U.S. Census. 1900, Sault Ste. Marie, Chippewa County,
mass rising above the side wings, just at the point level ground on two of the sides. Wright added Michigan, information taken 8 June 1900. Metzger's parents
where the hill drops off
(fig. 49). The ground- buttresses set at 45 -degree angles to the corners were born in Germany Bruce Pfeiffer reports that Metzger
collected Japanese prints and was a member of a print group
floor plan is based on the "Home in a Prairie of the cross-axial wings, which he then used as
associated with the Art Institute of Chicago; Y. Futagawa.
Town," with its three principal rooms arranged a visual motif throughout the building. If these ed. and photographer. B B Pfeiffer. text, Frank Lloyd Wright:
perpendicularly to the main axis and intercon angled buttresses coupled with the great arch Monograph, 1*871901 (Tokyo: A D A.Edita, 1986), 214. Pfeiffer
nected through wide openings (fig. 50). Wright reflected the architect's preferences in 1901, then assumes that Metzger lived in Chicago and approached
Wright about a summer home, which is not the case.

placed the master bedroom above the central they must have seemed out of place when he
2
room and opened the wall facing town with a returned to the design in 1910 for he eliminated Among the mansions near the site of the Metzger house are
two houses designed by Wright's colleague and competitor.
huge stone arch. Directly above this was a billiard them from the drawings published in the Wasmuth
George W Maher: the Ferguson house (1906) at 801 Pros
room with views in every direction. portfolio.
pect and the Murdock house (1906) at 501 North Ravine

! Economist 26
(28 Sept 1901): 371. It was reported that the
building would be stone and cost between S15.000 and
S20.000. See also, American Contractor 22 (5 Oct. 1901): 24.
4 Economist
27 (22 Feb. 1902). 245. The project was further
reported in Construction News 13 (1 March 1902) and American
Contractor 23 (1 March 1902).
s
Although Walter Burley Griffin entered Wright's office
in the summer of 1901 and was working separately on a
landscape plan for the Eastern Illinois Normal School at
Charleston during the fall. Wright apparently was not ready
to entrust him with so important an undertaking as land
scaping the Metzger house. Wright's attitude would soon
change.
6
The Chicago Architectural Annual (Chicago: Chicago Archi
tectural Club, 1902). unnumbered plate: and Catalogue of
the Twentieth Annual Exhibition of the Chicago Architectural Club
(Chicago; Chicago Architectural Club, 1907), no. 436. where

"V H. Metzger."
the name is listed as
7 Wasmuth portfolio
(1910). Plate IX.

1
1

BY
FIG. 50. Project: Metzger house. Plan of first floor, redrawn by Molly Cundari.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT!

57
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
HISTORIC, 1900-1932. RECENT, 1942-2004.
\nnual
of the Chicago Architectural Club, being the Futagawa, Yukio, ed. and photographer, Bruce
book of the Thirteenth Annual Exhibition, Brooks Pfeiffer, text. Frank Lloyd Wright: Mono
1900. Chicago: Chicago Architectural Club, graph, 1887-1901. Tokyo: A.D.A.Edita, 1986.
1900. [Complete Works of Frank Lloyd Wright,
fencer, Robert C, "Brick Architecture in Vol.

Jr.
1.]
and about Chicago," Brickbuilder 12 (September Hitchcock, Henry- Russell. In the Nature Materi
of
Frank Lloyd Wright.
of
the Buildings
1903): 178-87 als: 1887-1941,
. "The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright." New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1942.
Architectural Review (June 1900): 61-72, and Manson, Grant Carpenter. Frank Lloyd Wright to
7
fold-out plates. 1910: the First Golden Age. New York: Reinhold
J
Wright, Frank Lloyd. "A Home in Prairie Town," Publishing Corporation, 1958.
a
McCarter, Robert, ed. Frank Primer
A
Ladies Home Journal 18 (Feb. Lloyd Wright:
901):
1
17.
"A Small House with 'Lots of Room in on Architectural Principles. New York: Princeton
.
It'," Ladies Home Journal 18 (July 1901): 15. Architectural Press, 1991.
An Autobiography. London: Longmans, Schmitt, Ronald E. Sullivanesque: Urban Architecture
.
Green and Company, 1932. and Ornamentation. Urbana: University of Illi

. Ausgejuhrte Bauten und
Entwurfe von Frank nois Press, 2002.
Lloyd Wright. Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1910. Sprague, Paul E. "Frank Lloyd Wright's First
Architectural Design," Nineteenth Century 24
(Spring 2004): 3-10.

. "Who Designed the Charnley House:
Louis Sullivan or Frank Lloyd Wright?," 129-
170, in Richard Longstreth, ed., The Charnley
House: Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, and the
Making Gold Coast (Chicago: Univer

of
Chicago's
sity of Chicago Press,

2004).
Storrer, William Allin. The Frank Lloyd Wright Com
panion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1993
EIGHT MODELSOF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK. LLOYD WRIGIIT■ 59

3 9015 06241 5677

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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Prelude to the prairie style: eight models of unbuilt houses by Frank

Lloyd Wright, 1893-1901 / by Paul Kruty, with an essay and chronology

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

This work is protected by copyright law (which includes

WITH AN ESSAY AND CHRONOLOGY

Designed by Gretchen Wieshuber. Studio 2D. Champaign. IL.

Printed by University of Illinois Printing Services.

Funded by the U 1 L'C Campus Research Board

First edition. All rights reserved

< 2005 Paul kruty

Front Cover Goan house [Cat. 1]

Introduction: Creating a Modern Style

The Evolution of Wright's Long, Narrow Hip Roofs

with an appendix documenting the dates of design of

Annotated Catalog of the Eight Models

1 Orrin Goan house, 1893

2 Jesse Baldwin house, 1895

4 Rebecca Eckart house, 1897

5 Aline Devin house, 1898

6 C. A. McAfee house, 1899

of unbuilt or demolished buildings

EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

teen students who created the models: Woo- 1

Kathleen F. Conlin, Dean, College of Fine and

2 ■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

southeast. Drawn by Louis Rasmussen.

EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT MOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT■

FIG. 2. Project: Orrin Goan house, use

an individual the 1890s the emergence of forms and details

of the personal, modern style, as Paul Sprague does with

4 ■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

less obvious way begins with the Baldwin house

Wright's resolution of the seeming dilemma of

EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

Sprague. "Who Designed the Charnley House Louis Sul

school. That is all I can say for it It has no historical style

University of Chicago Press, 1987), 98-99. For a discussion

of all Wright's (Spring 1989): 26-37.

6 ■ PRELUDE TO THE PRAIRIE STYLE

sensuality" of the Heller house;Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright

not his projects. 10

6 national magazine after Spencer's 1900 article, published

to the St. Louis Architectural Club, whose exhibition was 12

EIGHT MODELS OF UNBUILT HOUSES BY FRANK LLOYD WRKilIT■

Among the more charming yet typical char

his residences and a number of other build

of houses, some having hip roofs of high pitch,

The house Wright designed for a site in La

Grange. Illinois, for Robert Emmond (June

The most interesting house having the

southwest. Gilman Lane, photographer.

BY ERANK LLOYD WRIGHT

more, at the Winslow house, Wright began the

turesque inclinations both designing formal

measured about 60 feet wide 22 feet deep

(fig. 6). Even so, because of the 10 in 12 slope of

the roof, the ridge would have reached height

above the eaves of about 9V2 feet. As result,

even though the slope of the roof moderate,

can hardly be considered the kind of long and

narrow roof with which Wright soon would be

experimenting. There also another experimen

tal element in the roof design of the Goan house