This weekend, we are giving thanks for the friendships and the stories that continue to form about and around this historic, influential tiny home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Making Friends With Frank
A vintage wash basin for Frank Lloyd Wright’s water-closet
In a way, our quest to preserve this tiny home is like time travel. We want to understand what Frank Lloyd Wright intended at the time he intended it.
What We Can Learn About Historic Preservation from Frank Lloyd Wright
Though Wright designed over a hundred modest American System-Built Homes he quickly cancelled the program with only twenty or so built and filed away the drawings forever when he realized that his art would not be preserved if its occupants didn't themselves participate in the preservation.
Art by Committee
If you had created something, a piece of art, for example, that was subsequently altered by others in ways that you disapproved, would you want that object preserved?
Frank Lloyd Wright assumed that we would be kind to each other
Through features like the Place of Greeting, we can see that Wright assumed that working-class people - the people with modest means who would live in and visit his ASBH designs - were inherently kind, trusting and trustworthy.
Did Wright plan to furnish his American System-Built Homes?
Did Frank Lloyd Wright plan to furnish his American System-Built Homes? Evidence suggests that limited studio resources left most owners to their own decorative devices.
Caring for the Forsaken
We bought Frank Lloyd Wright's Elizabeth Murphy House with a plan to restore and care for her, but quickly discovered a curious and unexpected form of stewardship. Like nuns in a 19th century orphanage, we find ourselves caring for the forsaken.
Three contemporaneous Wright draftsmen, three fates
Antonin Raymond and Rudolph Schindler escaped Frank Lloyd Wright's wrath when the American System-Built Program was summarily cancelled and covered up in 1917. Russell Barr Williamson did not.
Correcting a Wrightian mistake – but at a cost
It is not a spoiler alert to say that after Frank Lloyd Wright sued Richards and cancelled the ASBH program in 1917, Richards and Williamson continued designing and selling Prairie Style homes around Milwaukee. Distinguishing those homes from Wright's ASBH work can be difficult. Here is a clue.
Plywood in a Wright-designed American System-Built Home, before “plywood” was a thing
Wright and Richards were exploring ways to ensure quality while lowering costs in the American System. So cabinet doors were built of "ply" fifteen years before "plywood" became a thing.
The Elizabeth Murphy House 