Making Wright Right

This is the entrance from the Studio and driveway area. It is the northeast side of the house and you can see how access to the front of the house is via a tunnel through the berm. It is also a good vantage point to see the central tower of the house.

From the northwest, one can see the main section of the berm. To the north of the house there are only awning windows to bring light in under the over-hanging roof. To look out of these windows from the inside you must be standing up. The berm for all of its good impacts wall estimated to be 20% of the energy waste. Since it was determined that the above ground area was where within the double stone wall heat would be lost the most., only stone filled the section below the berm. The sections of stone wall which were exposed, were supposedly filled with vermiculite.

Well, its good to plan in advance. Where else would one live while restoring a Frank Lloyd Wright house? This was sometime in November. I remember watching the Brewers go for the World Series in this trailer.......

Several interesting things can be seen in this picture. The whitish color comes from extra heavy sweating of the concrete floor where it sits right over one of the original radiant floor pipes. The stonework is seen to be wonderful and then some. Also note that the pine and plywood furniture does not lend itself to be sold off to collectors. Unfortunately this house had none of Wright's wonderful condiments, neither windows nor furniture

What do you do with all of your stuff when you have to rip out the floor to your house? Storage of course.... This shots shows moving preparations and the long empty indoor pool.

This is the removal of the pine and plywood built-in which sat along the wall of the tower between the kitchen and the dining area. Unfortunately the upper two sections got damaged in storage. The piano was allowed to freeze too. Why? Well the time estimates were just a bit too short ( several months in fact ). Heat was not an issue in August, and later I was too absorbed to think about a piano....

It is clear in this picture that the front of the balcony over the pool is badly ( was :-) ) water damaged. Some of the people living there had once erected a "plastic" water fall into the pool. This is when you tack up plastic to guide the roof leaks into the pool.

The kitchen tended to be dark for several reasons. The window it had opened onto the tunnel through the berm and let in nice air, but little light. The stonework of the house curved around and enclosed the first 10 feet or so keeping south light out also. The cabinets were dark aged plywood with a dark aged pine ceiling. At night, the house takes on a whole new personality and this daylight encumbrance had no meaning. In point of fact, it was a friendly kitchen and was always full of people during parties and a nice place to chat with whoever was cooking.

At certain times of the day the kitchen would fill with light. This shot shows an empty kitchen just before we replaced the floor. Since the light is coming all the way into the east end of the house, we know its late afternoon. Notice how the grey floor does nothing to compliment the stonework. What I noticed was that the grey floor brought out the mortar, while the new red floor ( soon to be ) emphasized the stone. It started showing up much better.