Frank.LloydWright.info

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867—1959)

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Okemos, Michigan 1939

Alma Goetsch & Katherine Winckler

The house, constructed in 1939, was originally intended to be built as part of Wright's first planned Usonian community. Usonia II, as it was called (Taliesin was Usonia I), was designed in 1938-39 as a cooperative settlement for teachers at what is now Michigan State University. The house for Alma Goetsch and Katherine Winckler is the only one of the group of seven to be built.

Though not the first Usonian house, this in-line two-bedroom home remains, according to Wright scholar Neil Levine, "one of the most elegant and streamlined versions of the type ever built. Featured on the cover of Henry-Russell Hitchcock's In the Nature of Materials (1942), it has ever since been regarded as one of Wright's most beautiful and significant designs of the last two decades of his career."

Frank Lloyd Wright came up with a scheme arising directly from the Broad acre concept, to be known as Usonia I: Seven Usonian houses and a caretaker's cottage surrounding a farm, fish pond and orchard held in common. Financing collapsed, so the Goetsch-Winckler house was the only one built.

The house is a so-called 'in-line Usonian', literally a house built in a straight line on 4-foot-sqaure house, with a gallery running along behind the two bedrooms, separated by a bathroom; both open out on to a veranda. At the other end of the living room is a brick wall that contains a fireplace and a chimney, creating an alcove with bookshelves; behind this wall is the workspace.

The house is located at 2410 Hulett Road, Okemos, Michigan 48864. If you are looking for publications on the 'House' or the 'Usonian Houses' click here.
 

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