Dynasty…
the whole point of it..

yup..
in fact, if he came to visit his house, he would move the furniture back where he designed it should be!! back then, at least, eccentricism doesnt get you a stay in the crank box with the padded walls… [ever notice they pad the ceilings too… I would love to read about the case that set that precident]

I’ve often wondered this myself. When your days are obviously numbered and you won’t be around to enjoy the fruits of your schemes and plots, why bother?

Y’all seem to have missed the obvious…
“Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
😉

R2L: very cool that you got to visit the Rosenbaum House while Mrs. Rosenbaum was still living there. I knew it was a relatively early Usonian but didn’t know where it fit in the list of Usonian houses until I looked it up. Coincidentally, it was built in the same year–1940–as the only FLW house in Massachusetts: the Baird House in Amherst (my hometown):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Baird_Residence

As far as I know, the owners have never allowed visitors to that house. Another similarity: both Stanley Rosenbaum and Theodore Baird were English professors.

There’s an excellent book by Franklin Toker about Fallingwater’s design, building, and promotion called “Fallingwater Rising: Frank Lloyd Wright, E. J. Kauffman, and America’s Most Extraordinary House.” The reason the house is so famous was no accident; both Wright and Kauffman were motivated to heavily publicize the house. Highly recommended.

Gregory Harper: “I think some people just really like telling other people what to do.” Yes, it seems some people just cannot leave other people along. Thomas Sowell’s book Conflict of Visions sort of addresses this with his concept of the unconstrained vision.

JJ on January 19, 2023 at 1:54 pm “…I tried to implement Wright’s principles, but budget and available materials meant not reaching the standard of a real Wright home.” Yes, same here. I think I came closest with my first attempt, but somehow even with my house having corner glass, wide roof overhangs, cedar channel siding, and selected brick piers and walls, there was still something not quite there in my results compared to what he did. Cost was part of it, but talent will out. Even so, I was pleasantly surprised how the moon shown through one of my south facing clerestory windows in the MBR.

Hubert on January 19, 2023 at 3:42 pm — and as you may know, the Rosenbaum house was a slightly larger version of the first Jacobs house in Madison, WI. Both houses were truly proper “Usonian” designs, followed by quite a few more. When I visited in 1979, Mr. Rosenbaum had passed, but Mrs. Rosenbaum was very gracious in letting a FLLW enthusiast take all of the pictures he wanted.

Geoffrey Britain on January 19, 2023 at 6:25 pm — but his use of concrete in Fallingwater was his way of calling out the modern Bauhaus style of that time, as being ugly and unnatural. He was saying “if you want or need to use concrete, this is how you should do it!! Use this fantastic compressive/tensile material the way it can really work for you, physically and artistically. And join it with nature, not in spite of her.”

If any of you do get to the Fallingwater area, you should also try to find the Kentuck Knob house he designed nearby, which also used cypress wood, stone, and glass, but with a hexagonal design theme.

And Fallingwater cost about $150,000 in 1935; so equivalent to $10M today? Provided many with a job during the depth (or height) of the Depression.

Barry Meislin on January 19, 2023 at 3:33 pm — referencing pursuit of happiness, Newt Gingrich wrote some years ago that in colonial times (at least for the upper crust) “happiness” meant “wisdom and virtue”. So the “American gentry” and any other responsible self governing citizens should wish to be virtuous in their personal and public behavior, and seek wisdom as “intellectual property” beyond the acquisition of mere physical property. Then again, George Washington was very concerned about his personal reputation, but was also a major land speculator/ investor. And Jefferson never got out of debt due to his acquisitiveness. [And Wright had a similar affliction.]

Lot of great comments in this thread, leading to more replies than usual.

I’ve known about the F.L. Wright house in Carmel for a long time. In the film the house is supposed to be a CA beach house which it is. What I didn’t know until recently is that the house in the first half of the film, which is supposed to be a beach house in Maine, is actually the LaPorte house in downtown Pacific Grove, about 6 miles as the crow flies from the F.L. Wright house.

Remember when it was cost effective to shoot location films in California instead of Canada or Georgia?

kerry does as well, recall when he started denouncing american servicemen in vietnam, even went along with those that sought to attack pro war politicians like Senator stennis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/01/19/the-fbi-is-offering-rewards-for-information-about-attacks-on-pro-life-clinics-and-centers-n1663272