Your photos are beautiful! Fantastic. Thanks for sharing. You've really captured the warmth and simplicity of the design. What a beautiful place. I'd love to hear more about the plants. And what of the house - is it open to tour through, or does someone live there, or what? Do you know what kind of wood he used for the interior walls?

Ah, I followed the link and see that the house is now a museum. I would love to go...

That's too cool... I didn't know there were any Wright buildings in Oregon. Your pictures came out GREAT! You've got a good eye for the architectural details.

The house was located on the banks of the Willammette, where it had been occupied by one woman, Mrs. Gordon, since its construction. When she died in the late 1990s, nobody wanted to live in it, and the land was highly desirable for residential development, since it was on the waterfront. The house was slated for demolition, and a group of Portland architects and philanthropists raised the money to move it to the garden property. It's open for tours, for $5.00. Actually, my friend Ann, who's pictured in the set, guides tours there.

As for the woodwork, it had been a dark, discoloured shade untill about two weeks ago, when it was "corn-blasted." this is apparently the best way to deal with this type of woodwork, and is far less harmful than sandblasting or pressure hosing. The light color of the exterior wood is what Frank intended it to look like.

Also note all the trim pieces throughout the building are cut at a 15 degree angle. This is carried through to baseboard mouldings and the edges of the counters in the kitchen. It is most evident in the ziggurat porches that project from the second level.

iconomy, I think that's cedar.

Gorgeous. The wood is beautiful. I have to go there!

I took two exterior shots last week of Beth Shalom synagogue, also designed by Wright. They're having a tour in a few weeks and I hope to go to see the inside.

I find it hard to believe that no one wanted to live in a Wright house. Crazy.

The problem with living in a Wright house is that they're typically extremely high maintenance. Wright was not a terribly good engineer, so cracked walls always need to be patched, and water penetration is a constant battle. If you're interested though, I heard there's one for sale just south of Seattle for about $1.2M

The other complaint people have had (historically) about living in Wright houses is that, while the design is beautiful, it's inflexible. Wright used a loooot of built-in furniture and at times even bolted his furniture right into the floor so it couldn't be changed. They sometimes lack privacy; though he artfully divided kitchens and bathrooms and bedrooms so that they feel private, he also designed homes specifically so that people would not retreat to private areas, but instead, socialize in the open commons.

And hey, thanks, Pie! I'm a huge Wright junkie. He is a god to me. I had the most mindblowing museum experience of my life touring Taliesin; and last year I finally got to visit Fallingwater, which is everything it's cracked up to be and more, but also Knob Hill, which is another Usonian House, still privately owned but available for touring. It's ironic that the Usonian houses were meant to be great design for the middle class, utilitarian and scaled-down from his designs for the very affluent. Now, of course, sales prices for a Wright-designed home are not within reach of most middle-class people. Then there are those maintenance bills!

But I'd live in one if I had the chance. His spaces are grounding. They soothe the soul. There is such an elegance to the way he considered how sunlight would fall and travel across a floor during the entire day, or how he situated rooms so as to catch and echo the sound of a nearby running stream.

Anyway. Wright wasn't just an architect or a quirky character; he was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, a groundbreaking and brilliant individual, right up there with Picasso or Stravinsky.

Durr, not Knob Hill, Kentuck Knob.

thanks for sharing...awesome.

Awesome house. I love all the Wright houses and would live in one in a heartbeat, high maintenance notwithstanding. Some things are worth a bit of effort.

I live about 25 miles from the only FLW Gas station

Fantastic photos, pie!

I'm a Wright fan since childhood because my dad has been a Wright fan. We both considered architecture as a career, too. I've probably been in at least two dozen (maybe three) Wright buildings, sometimes on special tours because they're usually private, thanks to my dad's museum career.

He owns one of two surviving catalog books from Wright's 1950s wallpaper patterns, a flop that led to most of the materials being destroyed. He got it out of the dumpster at the store when he heard, no kidding.

I know somebody who got her husband to buy her a Wright house (they're sorta plentiful in Chicagoland). I won't visit, they aren't nice.

Oh, funny story. My dad's first job was for an architect who had a job at the University of Chicago. They had recently acquired the Robie House and had no idea what to do with it (for many years afterward it was the alumni office). So they put this guy in the Robie House.

The irony is that the guy hated Wright passionately. But he had to work there for about a year! For my dad, though, it was lots of fun and he gave many people personal tours (he had the key during that time).