Frank Lloyd Wright’s Last Ohio Home!

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Last Ohio Home!

Frank Lloyd Wright's Last Ohio Home!

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Today, when we talk about wanting an "open plan" in searching for a house, it was Mr. Wright who conceived and designed it first. Or today, when we get wistful over the thought of someday having radiant floor heat, he was already using it in 1937 in his Usonian construction. As we sit sipping our morning coffee enjoying the view of the garden through floor-to-ceiling glass, it was he who was the first to design a house bringing the outside inside. Unlike houses of today, in his Usonian designs for the middle class, the rooms Mr. Wright designed were used daily and engineered to bring the family together. There was no family room, separate dining room or large bedrooms. The family gathered in the one living room around the focal point fireplace and talked together. He clearly never envisioned computers and the changes in family life that would evolve. It was Wright who first conceived the flat roof, open-floor plan, the organic relationship between the structure and the landscape, and for those in warmer climates, the indoor-outdoor living space relationship.

In the mid 1950s, Louis Penfield and his wife commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design their Ohio Usonian home. Mrs. Penfield had gone to school with Mr. Wright’s secretary, so they had somewhat of an "in" to the famed architect. As the current owner, Paul Penfield, Louis’ son, pointed out, Mr. Wright made agreements by handshake instead of written contract, and a potential owner rarely heard anything until the plans arrived in their mail. At 6’8", Mr. Penfield wanted to make sure Mr. Wright took his height into consideration in his design. Mr. Wright studied his height and said, "I’ll get back to you." He later, with tongue in cheek, referred to Mr. Penfield as "a weed."

The home was completed in 1955 when Paul was a child. It consisted of 1,800 square feet of living space with three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths and the central fireplace included in all of Wright’s Usonians. There are two other non-Wright homes on the property - an 1867 cottage and a 1940 farmhouse. The three are being sold as a package on 18.45 acres. For more information.

Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian owned by two generations of the Penfield family, being sold in a package with two other homes just outside Cleveland, Ohio, now priced at $1.7 million.

Photography: Eric Hanson

Source: www.penfieldhouse.com