Frank Lloyd Wright Has No Sense of Storage, But I Still Like His Houses

Going to a major university can sometimes have its advantages.  Like how today I got to go visit a Frank Lloyd Wright house, the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Florida, which happens to be right here in Tallahassee.  It was so bittersweet.  You see, the family he designed the house for didn't have a lot of money, and they still don't, so the place is falling apart, which is just so sad.  Some parts outside weren't even completed.  The place is called Spring House and it was built in 1954 over ten months with only six men building it.  The only way I can describe the shape is that it's very boat-like.  Here's a picture of the blueprints for a better idea.

The kitchen and the fireplace are round and on the bottom floor there is a bench that runs half the length of the building along the wall in a big open spacious room that pretty much takes up the whole first floor.  Across from the bench, the entire wall is nothing but windows.  We got to meet the daughter of George and Clifton Lewis, the people who had the house built.  Her name is Byrd and I got to sit and talk with her by the round fireplace while I got warm from walking around outside. She told me that when she was in college, going to FSU, she used to sleep down there on that bench.  She said it was beautiful in that room at night when there was a full moon. 

If I could, I would put up a million pictures just to show you how great this place was, because I took a lot.  Honestly, I probably took more than a hundred.  But Byrd's mother, Clifton, who is still alive by the way, doesn't want anyone to publish any pictures.  I can understand that so much, so I'm going to honor her wishes.  I did however, find photos on the Spring House Institute website, so here's some of that.


Vintage picture from the 50s when the house was still fairly new.


The family, way back when.  The girl next to the woman is Byrd.


The entrance nowadays.


The window wall, from the second floor.


The second floor, where all the bedrooms are.  Beneath this is where the bench is.


And for all of you who don't know who Frank Lloyd Wright is, here's a little spiel



Frank Lloyd Wright is a very famous American architect who built the house in the above picture, known as Fallingwater (Oh, and he designed the Guggenheim, but no biggie).  I like to call it the Cantilevered Wonder.  Wright was into organic architecture and Usonian homes (phrases he coined himself).  Organic architecture is basically the blending of buildings with nature so that everything is harmonious.  A Usonian home is characterized by simplicity and practically no storage.  My mom couldn't live in one of these houses.  In fact, I don't think she and Frankie would have gotten along very well.

So what was the point of all this?  Spring House was recently put on the National Register of Historic Places, and the Spring House Institute wants to restore and update it and they need our help raising the funds for it.  They would like we, the students, to create pieces of art inspired by Spring House.  These works will then be auctioned off at a big pricey fundraiser event, with the student receiving half of what their piece was auctioned for, and the foundation receiving the other half.  Whoever came up with this was awesome.  I will definitely be keeping everyone abreast of how my piece, whatever it turns out to be, is coming along. 

 When I have kids, we'll be fieldtripping to this place for sure.


If you want to know more, see more pictures, or donate, you can go here: www.PreserveSpringHouse.org