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BACHMAN-WILSON , from page 9

tacted Crystal Bridges, a deal was hashed out, and in early 2014, the museum announced the purchase. In partnership with J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. (Low- ell, AR), the house was trucked to Northwest Arkansas Re- gional Airport in thousands of meticulously labeled pieces and stored in a hangar. Then Hight-Jackson and Bill Faber Construction went to work. The biggest trick was to maintain the look and feel of 1954 while equipping the structure with the modern technologies it will need to function as an event and educational space. “We created new site plans to position our building at its new location,” says Shayan Dehbozorgi, a project manag- er with Hight-Jackson. “We also had to design a basement that is not visible to the public’s eye which contains all the mechanical units that were added to the house to provide desired thermal conditions. We also had to recreate the original imperfections that were a part of the original con- struction and correct some of the initial mistakes in the construction without compromising the final product.” Eccleston says there will be limited guest capacity each day to protect the interior. The house will also be subject to daily inspections and a protection services specialist will be sta- tioned in the house to monitor impact. The museum’s facili- ties team will be in charge of keeping the home clean and maintained. Known as a Usonian home, Bachman-Wilson was designed for a middle-class buyer. In keeping with that philosophy, the house has very few luxuries and was built in large part with ordinary materials, such as cinderblock. As with other

Wright homes, the signature features are a wall of glass, an open ground floor, and a cantilevered balcony. Though the house was moved from its original location, it is perhaps more historical now than it was before. One of only two Wright houses that have been relocated, Bach- man-Wilson has the original plans, new plans by Hight- Jackson, and documentation of the deconstruction and the reconstruction. The Tarantinos also sourced new ma- terials, such as block and interior mahogany, and provided invaluable historical data to Hight-Jackson and Bill Faber Construction. Ron Shelby, the CEO of Hight-Jackson, was chosen to lead the project partly because of his connection to Crystal Bridges. He was key in the installation of James Turrell’s “The Way of Color,” a site-specific skyspace located on the Art Trail. He was also chosen because of his connection to legendary Arkansas architect Fay Jones, who apprenticed under Wright. “This was a project that took me back to the roots of my ar- chitectural education, very basic in its theory and detailing,” Shelby said. “It reacquainted me with Frank Lloyd Wright in a way that I had not done since my time in college. For that, it was very rewarding to me personally.

THE ZWEIG LETTER AUGUST 24, 2015, ISSUE 1117

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