The famous Frank Lloyd Wright house near Pittsburgh is
Fallingwater. We had visited there a number of years ago so we went to a different park which has four houses, two by Wright and two by one of his students. I know nothing about architecture, but even I have heard of Frank Lloyd Wright. What makes
Polymath Park unique, is that you can stay overnight in the houses. We left it too late to book one, but the tours were fantastic. Two houses were built there and two were moved stone by stone, and rebuilt in the park. The houses were part of Wright’s Usonian design, the idea being you bought the plans from him. He would tell you how to orientate the building on the site. After that it was up to you to build it. The Duncan house is one of these. The plan cost $15,000 back in the day, but the final cost was $67,000. A lot of money then, so these houses were well out of reach of their supposed client group, the average family.
After touring three houses we had a lovely lunch and headed into the mountains to
Kentuck Knob . This was one of his last houses, and the owners got more concessions out of him than he normally allowed. He never visited the house. It is now owned by a Brit who has put red telephone boxes in the art park.
What did I learn about Lloyd Wright design? He loved the “compression and release “ concept, (low ceiling entrance into a high ceiling room). He designed for short people! He hated clutter, so there a lots of cupboards built in. He liked ridiculously narrow doors and he hated garages. The way the buildings sit in the landscape is lovely, and will never date. Next time maybe we will stay in one, just to see how liveable they actually are.
