It was a joy and a privilege to share secrets from the Elizabeth Murphy House at the Annual Conference of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Look for excerpts from the talk here soon. In the meantime, take in this lovely lecture hall and kind folks at Madison’s Monona Terrace, where the conference was held.
Oh, and the owner’s dinner was a hoot. These folks are on the front lines of historical preservation and we’re grateful to meet and learn from them.
Elements of Frank Lloyd Wright’s ASBH Model A203 design either never made it into the Elizabeth Murphy House, or, perhaps, were lost to reconstruction events sometime during her hundred year history. One missing element: decorative flower box cantilevers shown here in Wright’s drawings:
The details have been missing from the house since perhaps 1939 (the oldest known image), and certainly since the 1950s. It is unclear if they were included in the original construction.
In the drawings, the extended flower box crown is important to the flow of the facade, anchoring the main windows of the living area wall while stretching the edges of the built-in garden. The house looks boxy without it. We studied the drawings to find the geometries and proportions and matched the materials of the existing flower box trim (cedar) to construct new (or replacement) cantilevers.
Here is a before picture:
And an after picture:
The drawings show simple open extensions of the flower box crown with what appeared to be lateral braces. Were these braces meant for hanging baskets? With the project complete and some time to study its effects, we think that Wright’s main objective was to cast traveling angular shadows, lifting the house out and up, mirroring the louvres and art glass motif, and emphasizing, again, light, nature and the horizontal.
The Elizabeth Murphy House will be featured in a presentative at the 2018 Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy Conference: “Preserving Wright’s Legacy in Wisconsin” on the morning of Saturday Oct 13, 2018, between 9-11:30am.
The talk, entitled “How Wright Learned to Separate Art and Automation” will be part of the conference Education Series. From the abstract:
We will suggest, using new photographs of details, original
drawings, evidence collected during deconstruction in and around the house,
and historic references and timelines, that Wright orphaned the house and
left the ASBH program to preserve reputation and to buy time to think about
whether art and mass-production could coexist at all.
We hope to see you in Madison in the fall!
A condensed history of the Elizabeth Murphy House is now available at Wikipedia. Highlights include the story of her construction, transitions and adaptations, when her architectural pedigree as a Frank Lloyd Wright Designed American System-Built Home was lost, and how it was found again.
Expert contributors are invited to add resources and details.
We reported that 4th graders from Atwater School visited the Elizabeth Murphy House as part of an Experiential Learning Art Education Curriculum. Here is their report on the experience, and the amazing work they created during the project. Wait for it.
Court Case records available at the Milwaukee County Historical Society offer more clues to why Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t mention this house after sending plans to Elizabeth Murphy (via the Richards Company) to build it. Elizabeth, wife of Loan Broker Lawrence Murphy, would act as General Contractor, and hired a Carpenter, Herman Krause Jr, to construct the house. Quickly, the project was mired in payment disputes, liens and work stoppages that would take years to unravel in court.
Murphy agreed to pay Krause $3400 to build the house in 1917 and before it was complete, sold it to Arthur Kibbie for just over $5000 in 1919. Krause walked from the job before it was finished. The Kibbies bought an incomplete home from Elizabeth Murphy.
Moreover, knowing that the Murphys, speculators, paid something for the land, it wasn’t much of a return on investment. It is unclear if Wright was paid at all.
These must not have been good signals for the American System Built Homes project.
This will be the subject of another, longer post and a talk that we will give at the upcoming Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy Annual Conference, in October 2018.
Milwaukee Country Circuit Court Case No. 56129 is on file in the Historical Society’s Research Library.
After fourth graders from Atwater School visited the Elizabeth Murphy House, they returned to Mrs. Hayes’ Art Class to create Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired architectural tiles, and added their own flare. Two fine examples are on display at the Shorewood Library, in the Shorewood School District Art Show, which continues ’til mid-week.
We’re impressed with some of the important details. Here, a bank of windows creates a wall of light:
…and in this piece, horizontal lines are key elements, and the door is hard to find:
Frank continues to inspire.
