In the 1920s, Russell Barr Williamson saw more opportunity than just design: he could finance, he could invest, he could speculate, and he did it well. In less than 10 years, he complete over 54 sometimes opulent projects, including his own in Whitefish Bay. Things began to unravel in July of 1927.
Why do the vintage American System Built Homes (ASBH) plans exist at all? Frank Lloyd Wright didn't plan to re-use or show them. Was his decision to store almost 1000 drawings based on nostalgia or pride, or something more practical?
I dropped the Fibonacci spiral on Wright's floor-plan for our house. To my amazement, the focus of the spiral - the balanced center of the nautilus - falls perfectly in front of the hearth, marking the most important place in this space.
In the wake of the failure of the American System Built Homes project, in which Wright and Williamson had invested over 3 years of mutual effort, the men never spoke again and, tellingly, erased the experience from their professional and personal Curricula Vitae.
The Forgotten Elizabeth Murphy House has been hiding the clues that explain why Frank Lloyd Wright cancelled the American System-Built Home program and covered his tracks - never speaking publicly about the designs again. Read more.
The Elizabeth Murphy House 