The Frank Lloyd Wright-Joseph Eichler connection

According to a fascinating article by Colin Flavin that appeared recently on Houzz, there is a strong connection between the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Eichler-built homes that are so revered by mid-century enthusiasts.

In 1943 Joseph Eichler, then working in the family egg and butter business, rented one of Wright's Usonian homes in the San Francisco suburb of Hillsborough.

Sidney Bazett House
utahstyleanddesign.com

Interior of Bazett House
eichlerforsale.com

"Usonian" is a term Wright coined for the series of homes he designed in the 1930s at the height of the Depression. They were built to be economical, custom homes for the middle class, and they were typically single-story dwellings which had no attics, no basements, no garages and little ornamentation.

Eichler loved the Bazett House, but he and his family stayed there for only two years, as it was sold to Louis and Betty Frank. However, the time Eichler spent in the FLW home had a profound influence on his life. He left the family business and in 1949 founded Eichler Homes Co. Over the next 20 years, his company built more than 11,000 houses, and those still standing are in great demand for their iconic mid-century design.

Wright's influences on Eichler's homes include floor-to-ceiling glass which provided openness to nature, street walls containing almost no windows, radiant floor heating, and carports.

Eichler innovations included post-and-beam construction, glazed gables, central courtyards, and open kitchens incorporated into multipurpose rooms.

Typical Eichler exterior
eichlerforsale.com

Typical Eichler interior
homes-in-anza.com

Spaces: No-name room

Since renovations to the house are ongoing, I don't have any final full-room photos to share...and may not for a while. In the next few posts, I thought I'd show you a few corners, walls, and nooks and  here and there throughout the house.

These shots a room between the formal living room and the family room/dining area. We haven't decided quite yet whether to make it an office or a breakfast room. but for now it holds some of our favorite things.

My Remploy dropfront desk, full of pewter and silver treasures

Frank Lloyd Wright brass picture, vintage gooseneck lamp,
Bitossi bird, studio pottery, mid-century "flash cards,"
and various Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian pewter and silver

My daughter's vintage camera, Carstens floor vase,
and repro George Nelson clock

A favorite Ib Kofod-Larsen chair

Corner built-ins with some favorite Scheurich pottery,
Festivo candleholders, Frankoma pieces, along with
 vintage glass beaker and mortar and pestle
from my grandfather's drugstore

Dorothy Liebes and Frank Lloyd Wright

In June of 2013, I posted about the textiles of Dorothy Liebes. Not long ago, I ran across an interesting article about her by Alexandra Griffith Winton entitled "Color and Personality: Dorothy Liebes and American Design." The article is worth a read. In it, Winton, who is quickly becoming a recognized expert on Liebes, explained how the artist got her start creating one-off pieces for architects. The first of these architects was Timothy Pflueger, who commissioned Liebes to do a series of drapes for the Pacific Stock Exchange building.

It was also through Pflueger that she met Frank Lloyd Wright. The story, as Liebes described it in her unpublished memoir, struck me as charming.

Tim Pflueger telephoned one day and said he was bringing Mr. Wright to the studio. I went into complete panic. I had rather associated him with the Bauhaus school, the “less-is-more” group of architects who scorned the fur-belows and gingerbread of the Victorians. I felt sure that a “hair shirt,” as I would have described Mr. Wright, erroneously, would absolutely hate the vivid colors and extensive use of metals in my fabrics.

I swept up my bag and prepared to flee. “Tim is bringing Frank Lloyd Wright here,” I said. “I can’t bear to see the disaster. Call me when he has gone.” In the hotel, I waited for the phone to ring, picturing one of the world’s most celebrated architects wrinkling his nose in disdain at everything he saw. A half hour passed, an hour. Then the telephone rang. In whispers, Ruth said, “You’d better come down here at once. He’s ordering everything in the place.” Unbelievable!

Far from rejecting my designs, he liked the metal threads and the desert-Western look of the weaving. Gesturing toward the tall stack he had chosen, he said, “Ship it all to Taliesin.” When he had gone, I said, “I can’t really believe he means it. Let’s wait and see.” Two weeks later a curt telegram came, saying, “Where are fabrics? Ship without further delay. Advise. FLW”

According to Winton, that was the first of many orders from Wright. He remained a customer and a friend until his death in 1959.

From academia.edu

Leibes's studio (Liebes standing behind the man on the right)
academia.edu

Example of Leibes's work
academia.edu

Good watch: $19 Million Frank Lloyd Wright House On A Private Island

We return from a couple of scheduled series posts back to vacation mode...sharing great articles and videos I've enjoyed lately.While not a "good read," this is an amazing YouTube video of a man who learned of an unbuilt Frank Lloyd Wright home designed for an island near his hometown, so he bought the island and built it himself. You won't believe how the design incorporates the landscape!

youtube.com - Plum TV

Fawcett Home by Frank Lloyd Wright

Original owners Randall "Buck" and Harriet Fawcett met Frank Lloyd Wright while taking an architecture course at Stanford University. In 1954, they commissioned Wright to design a home for them on 80 acres in Los Banos, California, and the home was completed in 1961.

It is a U-shaped structure with the living room at the base, looking onto a garden through a wall of windows and French doors. Each wing opens at a 120 degree angle, with a row of bedrooms on the north side and a kitchen and playroom on the south. It has a low-pitched roof, banded with a copper fascia and is built of cinderblock and mahogany. The concrete floor is scribed with equilateral triangles, and this motif is repeated in cut-out wood screens, light fixtures and the patterned fascia. The focal point of the family room is a 6-foot-high and 12-foot-wide fireplace.

The home has 6 bedrooms, 4.5 baths and is approximately 3700 square feet.

From sfgate.com
All images from homedsgn.com

Fallingwater

Fallingwater is probably Frank Lloyd Wright's best-known design, but I never tire of looking at pictures of it.

Fallingwater
wright-house.com

Built as a country getaway for Edgar Kaufmann, Sr., his wife Liliane and their son Edgar, Jr., over a 30-foot waterfall in the mountains southeast of Pittsburgh, it was a modern marvel that captivated the nation when it appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1938 and still has the same effect on us today, in spite of design problems that necessitated a major renovation in 2001.

Southeast terrace
wright-house.com

Close-up of opening over the falls
worldofgeometry.pbworks.com

Interior
digsdigs.com

Interior
digsdigs.com

The multimedia presentations on the official Fallingwater site include architectural tour, a seasonal tour and looks at Fallingwater furniture and sculpture are just a few of the features included on the site. A Serendipitous Synergy: The Story of Fallingwater provides text and images that give a fascinating look at the clients, the architect and the construction of this spectacular home.