Love Letters To A Frank Lloyd Wright House

by Maya Moran Manny 2. Loving a House p. 5 3. Nature p. 12 4. Seeing p. 17 5. Sounds p. 27 6. Scent p. 32 7. Taste, Touch, and Feel p. 35 8. More Labors of Love p. 38 9. People p. 42 10. Imperfections p. 50 11. Reflections p. 54 12. Afterword p. 61 13. Glossary p. 62

Living in a house can be a love affair, be it a long-lasting or a short, superficial one. Sometimes e go house-hunting and fall in love immediately with a house. Other times people are not at all of the relationship between abode, occupant, and surroundings, even though dwellings have red mankind for eons. At times, love for a place is immediate and sometimes it grows slowly. Love letters usually are written to a person, not to an object, such as a house. Words, made up of letters, will have to do to express sentiments, even to a house that has given rise to many. Love have been around for centuries; love itself... for much, much longer. Love is the common theme nd so appears in the text in red. Love Letters to a Wright House is a compilation of my memories, diary entries, and observations. ore than a quarter of a century, I lived in a house that the architect Frank Lloyd Wright had ed for Emily and Ferdinand Frederick Tomek in 1904. My first seven years in that house were d with a husband, a very busy, skilled cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. Sadly, that marriage in divorce, as so many other Wright homeowners and doctors’ wives have experienced. My last rhagic stroke, followed by sband’s passing half a year A few years went by and I d at my writing attempts and thought of the question as most often asked when I n the Tomek House: d with my second husband, H. Manny, a highly ted architect and retired or of the Graham ation for Advanced Studies Fine Arts. My “Love Letters” ned a manuscript for years se I had to deal with a

This book tries to answer that question. I lived there and, with the occasional help from my four fine sons, kept this architectural gem standing while trying to restore it. Many people came to visit. “I’m just a housewife,” I said laughingly to Professor Spiro Kostoff when he came to film the documentary America by Design. “Oh,” he retorted, smiling through his beard, “but, what a house!” This was another man who urged me to publish all the information I had gathered and who later would inscribe his own book to me: “To the Enlightened Priestess of a Wrightian Temple.” Having entertained many guests and visited many a Wright house myself, even staying overnight in a few, I was fortunate to experience them through different seasons and times of day and night. I delighted in finding what Mr. Wright had carried over from previous work into subsequent designs, from Prairie House and Usonian, to west coast architecture and his later creations. At the beginning of my first marriage, our 1040 IRS form listed my husband as “medical student” and my occupation as “secretary.” Then, I was listed as “housewife/artist,” which later became “lecturer/ writer.” Now it says “retired.” However, I am far from retired, still “keeping house” and while cleaning up the attic I started to tackle more than six decades of diaries. I discarded some of them so my offspring had been on the National Register since 1970. The Tomek House became a National Historic Landmark in 1999, one of the few private homes on that selective list. However, This led to much reminiscing about my life and loves, and love in general. I edited and translated these observations for my four sons, who have been the delight of my life, and for my “Wright” husband, Carter, who himself had been an apprentice of Mr. Wright at Taliesin for a short time. He also saw and felt the magic of this very special prairie house that

ised of steel beams supported by brick pillars inside, thus allowing windows to abut in the corners house. The cantilevers, a novelty and a technological liberation, also allowed for continuous rows dows, one being a twelve casement “window-wall.” The house has all of its original 64 art glass ws, woodwork, and some original plaster. It IS a work of art. My readers Kim Bixler, Kathryn Smith, Anthony Alofsin, Wim de Wit, and John Zukowsky not only y thanks for their helpful suggestions, but unending admiration for what they have written over the Barbara Gordon also deserves thanks. My son Michael helped enormously with editing the early of the manuscript and the layout of the book. I am indebted to my good friend and editor Maureen who helped me in cutting down my long, Germanic sentences that would go running on and on, ggesting a glossary, and for aligning my punctuation with standards used in the United States. For es, my son Tom, the professional photographer, and I, the amateur one, attempted to catch the m. His photos MAKE ook! They probably can ate the text better than ords and we would like re them. Moran Manny afael, CA 2024

Some people have to live without a partner, but not always without love. Some people fall in love often, also out of it. Some get married and some do not. Some have one marriage, others have more than one. (My mother and I each had two.) One can also love a certain place or a certain house very, very much and my mother truly loved her house. I was well aware that where she lived was high on her list of priorities. As a teenager, I vowed that I would be different, and live where my future husband would work. However, I had not counted on genetics. I was to inherit not her beauty, but a certain trait: to be able to really love a house, besides one’s children. My mother also loved her family and her hometown. My father wanted to remain in the United States after his stays at Cal-Tech in Pasadena and then in Princeton, New Jersey, but my mother convinced him to return to Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Much, much later, her second husband offered her a bigger residence in a far prettier location, but she refused to move. Her house, by the well-known Dutch Bazel and Lauweriks, had captivated her, and her garden was her joy. Having obtained a degree in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture before marrying, she had settled down on a corner

lot with her first-born and brought two more children into this world who all have a love for plants. She lived there for more than half a century until she died of a stroke after gardening.

, yet most of us know it can just happen, sometimes instantly, just like a fall, unexpectedly. We love can wither or become its opposite, but we also know that it can grow as one gets to know er. This was the case with me and the Tomek House. We bought the house on August 31, 1974 but t move in until January of 1975. Right from the start, I wrote about the effect this house had on a letter to my mother on September 17, 1974, I wrote: “It is as if I am breathing fresh air and my an stretch itself again.” This house became bewitching and cast its spell on me. It soothed me and welcomed me. In 1904, t-yet-famous architect had designed, with the members in his studio, this house in the village of ide, Illinois, which was laid out by Olmsted & Vaux in 1869, after they had designed New York's al Park and Prospect Park. This was to be one of the most fertile periods of Wright’s long career. Guests arrived along the edged carriage way, or, more likely, walked up the two long paths from m Road that join at the front door under a small cantilever. ( The Blue Book, printed in the spring 6, notes that Emily was “receiving on Thursdays.”) Once through the wide front door with its plate glass, a six-foot-wide staircase invites one to ascend to the entrance hall on the living level. he visitors would be ushered into the reception room after shedding their outerwear, umbrellas, asols, and leave their calling card on a plate. The maid would announce visitors after pushing

held portières: one separating the entrance hall from the living room, another on the other side of the fireplace, leading to the dining room. The other curtains were for the two sets of French doors to the porch. I found the bronze curtain rings in the storage area below the porch and recreated two portières : one a simple velvet one, and the other a collage of Tomek shapes and colors, a love letter to the house, a visual manifestation of my love for the house that ultimately became my sanctuary. I also sewed a large pillow for the house with the window pattern replicated on it. When one loves, one delights in anticipating the beloved one’s wishes and in giving gifts, such as appropriate items and clothing to wear. Love can be a one-way street where one partner just keeps on giving and the other takes, but one also can have traffic going both ways, as was the case here. When souls interweave, one wants to show this with some appropriate gifts, the right kind of attention, or the fulfillment of a wish, whether voiced or merely a daydream. After years of having gotten deeply immersed in the Prairie different color carpet remnants, a box-cutter, a large metal T-square, carpet tape, and a glue gun before adding the final touches: lines with broad and thin indelible magic markers to echo the different caming Burley Griffin (Wright’s right-hand man in 1904) and having read his views on plaster and rugs, I realized that the large, dark oriental carpet in our dining room absorbed too much light. A pale-beige rug would bounce the light onto the original multi-colored plaster in the ceiling panels as well as on the only large wall on that level of the house. I experimented with

d several new rugs after parting with tterned oriental carpets. I ended up ing runners and carpets for several houses, including the Coonley House e Coonley Playhouse by Wright, and the lous Bradley House by Purcell & Elsmlie ods Hole, Massachusetts which, like t’s Robie House in Chicago, is another ng of the Tomek House of 1904. For the Tomek hallway I designed an ce rug that would look appropriate in was incorporated in the new floor coverings. A local store lined and bound some of the rugs, but I lacked the y, skills, and time to “go into production” or to market this arger scale. I was merely wanting to give this house the er dress,” so it would be fitting and would show my love. A loved one enjoys giving to the other a beautiful sweater he right size), some favorite flowers, or a scent, a book, or tems that demonstrate one really knows that person. In my was the recipient of many gifts through the many years of in the house: a superb quality sketch pad, special ates, a pair of silver fish-shaped earrings, Orrefors wine s, many books, a splendid drawing of a “Villa Maya” home by an admirer (now in the collection of the Art Institute of go), a huge bouquet of white Casa Blanca lilies, sets of that Wright had designed for the Imperial Hotel in Japan, a se filled with Freezias, a tape made up of old French and an songs that a friend and I sang during our teenage years,

hallway, among other things. My second marriage came with a modest house (along with an 1830s log cabin, and a tiny guest house named "For-a-day") in Indiana. Many small bedrooms in that house were then converted to one good bedroom and a bathroom with a six-foot-long tub with a flat edge to sit on, a washer dryer, and an airy painting studio for me. All those and more were proofs of affection for me from others in my past. Ever since I started to sew as a teenager when I was unable to find the right fit, or the right price, I felt that if you wanted something badly enough you could make it yourself. You just had to learn how. So I designed clothes, son’s school project), and plant stands, all came into being. The porch table, echoing the shape of the porch, and lamps graced the house, later to be augmented by the breakfast alcove furniture (inspired by the one in the Robie House). I had read that Mr. Wright, wanting a Gesamtkunstwerk , had dresses made for the wives of his clients, but I only found one photo of Mrs. Martin in Buffalo, and a few of Mrs. Wright in dresses, supposedly created by her husband. woodworkers. The loveseat with an attached table that I had designed and was made by my first husband for a previous house was a good fit at the Tomek House, as was the homemade kitchen table with one leg. The “grandson” clock with its digital readout, a coffee table, two swivel chairs, a round table for the alcove (a son’s

g myself sewn blazers, jumpsuits, curtains, bed skirts, tablecloths, slipcovers, many bedspreads, othes, ski bags, and even an embroidered carry-all for a squash racket, among other items, I could sist making my “casement window-wrap-around dress” as well as a dress for a dance party in t’s Unity Temple with a necklace reminiscent of the wonderful lamps in that splendid building. were exhibited at the Cliff Dweller’s Club, at a Graham Foundation exhibit, and in the Rhymer y at the Art Institute of Chicago in a show featuring Wearable Art.”

from fine quartersawn oak with cantilevered arm rests. The wood framing surrounding the upholstered couch is also cantilevered. When we acquired the house there was little on the market in the way of Prairie style furnishings or light fixtures, only heavy Stickley furniture and Craftsman items. As in matters of the heart, it was clear one learns from every previous intimate encounter and experience. Even if you have made mistakes, there are lessons to be learned. One only has to remember them.

the same shape as the table, which repeats the

Being in the garden or watching spring unfold from the three different viewing levels inside the k House was a yearly renewal for my soul. Trees, shrubs, bulbs, and plants were more important to an lawn. THAT was for play and parties. The abundance of flowers, the luxuriousness of nature, me feel very wealthy while actually being financially squeezed with little money in the bank the 10-year-long divorce from my first husband. I took delight in arranging my wealth of flowers; white tulips with lavender and purple lilacs, tulips with the white lilacs. I was always making bouquets, nearly year around, different styles e different areas in the house that had their special demands. It dictated to me where to put what: luscious, bold bouquets for the dining room; sophisticated, simple ones for on the bridge, as we the overpass above the wide entrance stairs. It connects the dining room and living room and I mething “Japanesey” would be called for. There were compact posies in the ceramic vase in the e of the hearth facing it. For rch, I’d make a wild, natural ement. The kitchen table have a simple bouquet and weeds were in the hallways. e’s bounty was with us year- d. It wasn’t only springtime as enchanting; summer, , and fall were beautiful in wn way. Being single, without a er” for the larger part of the

hat I lived in this special I would talk about the ess bedroom" while giving a

to sleep there with the balcony door open from April through October. In that bedroom one had plenty of space to exercise on the rug that echoed the window pattern which I had also used for the bedspread. Three mirrors in the bedroom reflected the morning glories on the balcony, a spinnaker of heavenly blue in summer. The house was in harmony with nature surrounding it and would cast its spell when one could really see . Not everyone was as bewitched by the house, or perceptive, among them a young student who occupied in 1906, and not constructed in 1907 as previously reported in many accounts. Mirrors and toilets from the day are sometimes dated and were the last things to go in, some with a 1906 date. Records from William LeBaron Jenny's Riverside Hotel show the Tomeks awaiting completion of the construction of their home there in 1905, but not in 1906. Emily must have been “receiving” in the fall of 1906. She was mentioned in the spring edition of The Blue Book, a list of fashionable addresses. Missing from the landmark status nomination Tomek House ought to be nominated for National Historic Landmark status. (Homeowners are not allowed to submit a nomination for their own property.) This experience clarified for me how errors in architectural research and history can grow long legs. The young student submitting the application got some things right but overlooked my own book, Down to Earth: An Insider’s View of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Tomek House . This was a primary source where a few minor architectural myths had already been sorted

at this house e first Wright with steel construction rting its ve cantilevers- than those of re famous and er sibling, the House. I ption of the completion s house got propagated. The house was designed uilt with the front porch ever springing from the nmost wall of the house unsupported from that orward. Afterwards, or perhaps she and

theless, the application was approved with incomplete and erroneous information, and now I had nd experience with seeing how more myths are created on and for the internet. We know not to s believe what one reads, certainly on dating of design and completion. We know that people at nd the wrong ation and worked with her to t these errors and oversights, but ne my frustration when the final

Wright design pillars for under the front cantilever. This was NOT because the cantilever was deflecting. The same size cantilever at the rear of the house was not deflecting then, nor has it Service's National Register of Historic Places since 1970, along with tens of thousands of other places. An oval brass plate noting the house's National Register status was placed in the sidewalk on the Nuttall Road side of the house. The bronze plaque for the landmark distinction was mounted on a sturdy rock on a day that I was already trying to say goodbye to the house. My friendship for the house had grown into love because I It was a singular honor, though, to be one of the few private homes to be recognized by the Department of the Interior for its contributions to American front porch with sturdy pillars. They must have liked the feeling of solid security. They had never even seen an airplane wing or a plane in flight, and perhaps could not imagine so much surface National Historic Landmark. On the list of twenty-two hundred such special places, there are but a precious few still in use as private residences. The house had already been on the National Park unsupported.

charm. Love had blossomed and grown like a tulip, which still continues to develop once it has picked and placed in a vase. At first it starts unfolding, being tight and pointed, then opens wide, g and twisting its stem, following the light. The light pulls one in so many directions, up the stairs, out to the French doors, down to the large door, or towards the corners of the three upstairs bedrooms which have windows with no evident rt at the corners. Oh, those corner views, those fascinating panoramas unfolding like Japanese s. Nature enters one’s soul. Whether it is spring or summer, winter or fall, it is a place for all ns.

The sight of one’s dear one, be it from afar or close up, can raise one’s heart rate, blood pressure, or desire. Often I would straighten up while gardening and look, look, and look again at the house, at the setting and the details. My eyes would trace those long cantilevers stretching out, the greenery reflected in the windows, the transparency in the living room and in the large mistress bedroom. The bedroom overhangs would glow pinkish-beige where they hovered because of the red dining room roof below.

uous plaster ramed by a w string course. The one who and cleans t fail to see those and find delight m, as in the l features of a one. The ceiling ation flows along

een windows. From the driveway on Nuttall Road, edged by orange day lilies, it shows a very nt, far more revealing face- the three levels with another twenty-eight windows. ing in a relationship, such as being able to see the entire length of the house standing in the porch n the south side. If one is observant, one can look through the narrow glass strips on either side ilt-in sideboard in the dining room. Then, all the way past the room ceiling to the lit-up dining alcove and its light source: the arent bedroom balcony floor directly above the dining alcove is

into the alcove like a mihrab, a prayer niche in a mosque. There is no room molding in the corner where wall and ceiling come together. Instead, these flow into each other, a wide wooden band leading the eye around the living room, continuing over “the flying soffit” to demarcate it. A narrower stringcourse joins the one from the dining room and the living room along the bridge so the ceiling continues on. The light is everywhere in this house and it has a special power. When one is coming down the walled-in stairs from the bedroom level to the inviting hallway below, one is being pulled carpet for one to descend upon. In the entrance hall, one is surrounded by light everywhere. The six-foot-wide staircase down to the ground level cascades into the huge front door with plain plate glass in and above it, embraced by two clear side lights. Here, one gets a view of that long runner of the front flower bed, ever changing, or of the water that puddles outside below the front door after a heavy rain. Here is a precursor of Fallingwater, the splendid house Wright and his staff designed for the Kaufmanns. In Edgar Kaufmann's foreword to The Early Work by Frank Lloyd Wright he wrote: “Especially noticeable are the dramatic entrance stair and the main rooms it leads to in the Tomek House, all designed with a surer architectural touch than dining and living room, coming from three sides. For a few days a year, the low winter sun streaks through the French doors, spreading its watery beams through the

om windows would make me rise to look at rden below. In winter, the sunken paths and peated porch shapes would be clearly defined ite snow, or by black dirt, after the snow had d on the dark stones edging the flowerbeds utlining the walks. In spring, I’d see the white e tulips, like candles glowing. In summer and e front bed edged with white Alyssum is filled white Phlox and other flowers. Awareness and gratitude went hand in hand. or. ” Visual delights ntly enrich one, as well associations with other t buildings that followed peated similar features. Sitting in the deep old b, my eyes would trace

benefits from better materials and a finer exterior, especially expression of its subordinate parts; but in spatial essentials, y at night, one could still delight in the window pattern. Did the yellow pieces of art glass spell a there for Tomek ? I’d wonder… ed the date the house was built when it was installed. My eyes follow the tiles in the wall, sort out their pattern on the floor, re the different widths of caming of the bathroom window,

as if lingering with a lover, unable to say goodbye, and gazing just once more at the one that one loves. The large picture window at the end of the living room (a novelty in 1904), with a narrow art glass window on each side, would fill with a mass of pink and white blossoms in spring from the three trees I planted in the porch bed. These trees gave us some privacy while sitting outside during three seasons. The two sets of art glass doors swing out onto the porch, as all the casement windows swing outward, giving a feeling of freedom. Light is everywhere in the front stair hall, around the bend: the U-turn at the top of the stairs. On the bedroom level, one’s eyes could not help looking along the hallway toward the outside, to the elegant branches of the Ailanthus tree on the driveway. Before one moves towards the larger bedroom with its corner windows, the maple tree outside the bathroom window offers the awareness of nature. The long view along the hallway

ample window in the driveway door. When looking up the stairs to the bedroom level, one is captivated by the golden glow from the ochre walls. It was a daily delight to come up to the landing of the bedroom floor, throw a glance into the small bedroom, whose corner windows abut, thus enlarging the space. bedroom was never used as such. Emily and Fred Tomek’s son, Robert, only lived for nine months in 1892.) Arriving upstairs, first one has to go

ide’s streets be set lower than the surrounding parkways uce the noise of the carriages. The streets are separated green, beige, or white stretches of the long common, with trees, shrubs and areas for play. Only after feasting e there does one enter the short, dark, narrow passage on ht leading into the bright master bedroom with six large ent windows, and a window in the balcony door, ed in the three mirrors of the dressing room closet; light s is pulling one outward. Wright was well aware of the that dark compression and expansion into brightness d. A row of windows, like a satin ribbon in a nightgown blouse, weaves in and out, separated by small strips of trim surrounding the windows. With seventy-four ws and eight doors, all with glass, some of which were ing in the mirrors, the Tomek House is a “house of light” daytime, disproving that “all Wright houses are dark,” as ten heard people say. Obviously, they did not use a light whilst visiting here. book Vers une Architecture : “Architecture is asterly, correct, and magnificent play of s brought together in light. Our eyes are to see forms in light.” Having the light come in, not just through a hole in a wall, but in a continuous band, easily able to commune with nature. This is cial to one’s psyche, whether it is through ven large windows in the main bedroom or w of twelve in the living and dining rooms.

towards the sunken roads in the quiet village is soothing. It wasn’t only the house, but also the garden surrounding it, that was my delight. Seeing it from three different levels led to a deeper understanding of the interrelation of this unique house and garden, as well as the house to the village landscape and to the older houses nearby. I learned what had changed in the century before we moved there and then watched the changes speed up during the quarter of a century that I gardened there. As one ages and a relationship progresses, shifts take place. Change is inevitable. So it was with the Tomek house that had to adapt as it got older. It did so gracefully. The reception room with three different plaster colors had become a study; the coal room became a utility room and workshop. The servant’s entrance, now a mudroom, no longer was used for deliveries or by “the daily,” the girl who came and living room. Then, there was color that had changed, inside and who no longer resided in the maid’s room. Stereo speakers now sat on the protruding ledges in the dining roofs, lawns, grasses, and skies. They

g my garden through the seasons was another delight as was its transformation into a real t garden. The early morning sun would light up the study s walls of three different colors of plaster: dark ate, milk chocolate, and an orangey mixture of ax brown, rust, and beige. It was no longer a ion room where one would leave one’s calling hat, and coat before being led past the portière he living room where Mrs. Tomek was receiving. ain living level had been fitted with We needed more light in the living room besides the six wall lamps e arc lamp for which there was an outlet embedded in the floor. st husband had made an oak standing lamp with two different s, a narrow tall one with a glass shade and the other a larger ater, my d husband d a more priately tian light for the wall he entrance driveway.

Inside, one try different ons to set a and become

certain occasions, we would put a lamp on the bedroom balcony so that the skylight in the dining room alcove was illuminated at night. Great for dance parties! When physical pain and mental anguish besieged me, I felt it was the light that lifted me up, and that was before I knew that people in northern climates were diagnosed with SAD syndrome. Light has a great influence on one’s psyche. The reflections of the window patterns created by performing mundane duties. We all were enchanted by the play of light and illumination in this Wright House. The effect of the light is ineffable. With the laylights in the ceiling and the wall lamps in the dining room, up-lights among the plants in the living room, and with a smoldering fire in the large fireplace, one could create an intimate setting. The house shimmered at night and we’d often take a walk outside to see the house lit up, something the touring architectural historian usually does not

nados come by ht. Moonlight ade its own Wright wrote Natural “Let walls, s, floors now e not only one another: continuity in all.” Ein Gesamtkunstwerk is ete work of art with ments relating to ther. I've been to floors, not a herringbone pattern, and certainly not edged order that repeats the upper part of the window design. It is ealt in different , would want his to be special and ght incorporated our window from the upper f the window into the border ontains the gbone design.

One likes to listen to the voice of one’s beloved. Rain falling on the copper-clad parapets and hail on the alcove’s skylight are nature’s symphonies, as well as the sounds of birds and beasts. Beasts? Yes, from the Brookfield Zoo nearby, one could hear a lion roaring or an elephant trumpeting at times. There also was the soothing sound of water, falling from the corners of the huge main level roof onto the basins. At times, one would hear Those were the sounds to hear. There were also sounds to see. Goethe wrote: “Architecture is frozen music.” If you can read music, if you can listen and see, it is everywhere: in the floor pattern of the entrance hall, in the living and dining room, and in the window patterns. It is in the thin caming of the four divisions of a window square, repeated in the parquet floor. It is in the proportions, the narrow trim, even in the radiator grilles, the same size as the windows diagonally across from them in the living room. One finds it again on the wide ceiling trim or on the wooden supports separating the windows. This narrow oak strip can be found on the inside of the alcove

a gurgle in the radiators that made the house so comfortable during half of the year, especially if we kept the copper containers above them filled with water in winter to increase the humidity. Snow falling in silence, birds chirping, and doves cooing while sleeping with the balcony door open were delights that were not mentioned in the sales brochure for this house. Besides nature’s music, there was the music of mankind: the radio, the records, later the tapes, the CDs, or when

undersides of the ceilings of o tall bookcases with their doors in the living room. It rs at the bottom of the high s in the dining room alcove n the end post of the rade on the upper bedroom ases and one in the dining room are represented on the outside of the house as protrusions that t the long run of windows and visually support the roof. If one can sense beauty, proportion and rhythm, one lives in a veritable visible symphony, in a of art. ten a feast for the senses. ouse with its marvelous pattern, the two porch ays going to the ground the rear kitchen stairs and ge formal stairs dividing the room from the dining room, perfect for polonaises, the

ing patterns I had learned in uth in Europe, the ones they e in Vienna on New Year’s The beautifully inlaid en floors invited one to not to mention that long h between the French doors living room, over “the

pirouettes without an audience. (This bit of ballet was taught to me and Audrey Hepburn, the film star, by our teacher Mevrouw Müller-van Gijen.) These rooms were made for dancing and being joyous. In 1869, the landscape architects and planners of this early suburb determined that all dwellings would be set back at least thirty feet from the road. So, there are long driveways that all need to have snow removed in winter. No need to join a health club if one lives in a Wright House. Its maintenance required sweeping sixty-foot-long roof gutters, mowing cantilever, from the front porch, as well as from the upstairs balcony and dining room skylight, where Mr. Wright had inadvertently invented a transparent outdoor “bathtub.” If one allows snow to pile up on that balcony, it could melt and soak through the stucco. If it were to stay afrnodmlathterdtorivweawtearytahnedmk.eBeepsindgesththee washing of windows and storm windows, ordinary gardening and eighty steps of the house free of debris, wet snow also needs to be cleared from the front door

there for any length of time, it would eventually end up in the walls and drip down somewhere, causing deterioration.

n winter, covered with a h coat of snow, was a taking and restful sight. So he green or beige commons in her seasons, stretching out d all those windows. To be nded by snow falling softly, d through all those large ws is oh, so special. This scenic rom a prairie house, not y on a straight street but set ving roads among trees, was me in any season. The garden’s bone structure is ed in winter: its shapes, clearly

the semi-circular shape of the front porch and repeated the measurements of the parapets.

and achieved so well in the Tomek House. It became a successful marriage of nature, landscape and architecture, in contrast with the Robie House, which was not a successful residence for very long, and certainly not for its first owners. Its ceiling in the so very long, narrow living room reminds one of the throbbing repetition of railroad ties. Had Wright not left for Europe and instead kept an eye on the building of the Robie house, he might have made changes so it would have the repose that he sought, as one finds in the ceilings of others of his previous creations, but especially in those of the Tomek House.

We know well that scent plays an important role in ection of a mate and that scents can trigger ries, light up the olfactory bulb, and connect with mygdala that stores memories. So the sweet smell te Alyssum in my California garden often orts me to the past, to the long, front flowerbed at mek House, edged by these long-blooming, self- gating plants. When I was homesick or “garden- or the garden I had sold, the scent of Alyssum was “Autumn” painting, as was the row of daylilies the driveway and other features. I tried to capture ur seasons in the Tomek garden. Two voluminous, graceful Spirea bushes flanked ncy front door, and, when in bloom, their sweet me wafted up to the large south-facing windows they were open. I often sat on the windowsill of an window, bracing myself between the wooden posts, ng what was below, near or far away, never ng then that their scent was being imprinted on emory bank. The smell of Johnson’s or Butcher’s wax also still s the splendid quartersawn oak floors that we ed once a year. I got to know them well: the fine the “flame,” the coloring, every carefully laid like an abstract painting and different from its bor, but often reversed and related. A treat to the

the one near the billiard room. The brass doorknobs and switch plates for the push buttons that turned the lights on and off, when freshly polished, exuded their own special odor. Just like you want your child to look clean and combed, a pleasure to behold, so I liked the brass to shine. Polishing was work, but it also was caressing, be it doorknobs, or the brass handles on the generous pull- out-drawers of the linen closet. There were many: big round ones on the entrance doors, the medium-sized ones on the doors, the small ones on bookcases, cupboards and sideboard, and the satiny, large brass touch plate on the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room. The garden awakened one’s sense of smell depending on the seasons and, with all those windows, one’s awareness of nature was increased. Thus, one would notice that in Illinois, some seasons might be longer or shorter than the calendar indicated. The old lilac bush, seen behind a mangy evergreen in the old Wasmuth photograph, was still there 70 years later and came back to life after I “edited” it in 1974. Spring after spring, it brought such joy and scent, always on Mother’s Day, always on the days we would have the Olmsted Society’s fundraiser tours, bringing some 1,200 people in one day, or during gatherings, garden walks or garden parties. On warm spring evenings, we would have dinner with the windows opened, enjoying the cross ventilation that carried its lilac scent.

tscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright's Landscape Designs, this is how ht garden should look. As a student in 1947, Charles Aguar sited the Tomek property and noticed that the lot had been ided and the house was "completely obscured by evergreen and that the proposed privacy wall as seen on Marion ny’s drawing of 1907 was never built. Neither were the ted to see the transformation of the grounds into a garden that Lloyd Wright would have approved of. Architecture and nature een sensitively united in the restoration of the Tomek House.

The vegetable garden provided us with corn, mint, tomatoes, lettuces, butternut squash, herbs, and everything we were able to grow in that rich prairie soil. touching that I discovered the indentations behind the string courses, indicating where one would be able to hang artwork, be it a textile, a painting, or a Japanese print. The previous owner had left an old brass hook that still fits neatly in the groove. One often frets during a love affair. Will he phone? What does she want? Does one pull petals from a daisy to find out whether she loves me or he loves me not? Often a partner or fiancé wonders if they are doing the right thing. Should one take the big step with this one, or that one? (Steve Jobs needed the input of others to decide. Many others do too.)

think that our sixth sense is “ESP,” extra- sensory perception, but there are others such as pain sensation and proprioception, knowing how to touch your nose with a finger and eyes closed, knowing the relationship of your body parts. We get to know the shape of a loved one in the same manner as when one feels one’s way walking through one’s house in darkness, sensing it,

, I felt very ambivalent. As an artist, I the house and felt it. As the cleaning felt it too. But, as I wrote a friend in as a contractor, “I had had it,” sounding ugh I was fed-up and at the end of my However, when in the midst of the long- g divorce, it looked like I was going to be to leave the house, I realized how much d this place and that I wanted to find the uture owner. The survival of the Tomek was of great concern to me, especially .mAosdmatye lhoivsemfortotrhceycle collection. increased over the so did my feeling of nsibility. I would have an easement on the that no one would he stucco a bright r cover the plaster with flocked aper, or let it become own again and nearly ork we had already done to restore it, along with what I was still I wanted to get down to more of the original plaster that was Some we had uncovered laboriously, and later imitated in the hall,

Conservancy, an organization whose birth and infancy I had attended. It is now a prospering, well-run organization. I also worked hard to get a tax freeze because monthly maintenance payments did not appear regularly and necessitated more draining trips to the lawyers. Life was not easy, but the house, the garden, and my sons provided solace and motivation. We were so happy to be there together when we could get together.

One “hands-on” restoration project provided the answer to a question we still had after obtaining orking drawings on loan from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives at Taliesin. Was there a safety box eping of documents or jewels. The wall-to-wall stairway carpeting was removed, the work cleaned and stained anew, and metal rods were bought to own the new stair carpet. Then I made another low-budget r, embedding the Wright logo, the little red square in the riser peated on the upstairs hall rug, and it was this woodwork restoration on the upper that we found a safety box in one of the risers original plan had indicated. But alas, there othing in the box and we put it back behind er.

first step. A little red square is also is a feature in my old quilt made with strips of fabric depicting the logs in a log the red square in the middle signifying the hearth where e gathered for sustenance and warmth. I hung this beautiful made item at the end of the grand staircase: Did Wright take ed square logo from the Amish or Japan? I wondered if he ever sign a house without a fireplace. Wright believed the hearth to heart of the home. The house had had an intercom system, as s bells, and in the upstairs hall an indicator ned to tell the maid whether it was someone room 1 or bedroom 2 who needed her, the nursery not rating a designation. There also een a button under the dining room table to

those were the standards for a middle-class family at the beginning of the twentieth century. Love manifests itself in so many different ways. Seeing the face of a beloved upon coming home lifts one’s heart. Doing something for someone, even as simple as putting out his or her favorite knife for meals, cleaning the bathroom sink, knowing he will be the first to use it early in the morning, shows love. Likewise with getting a favorite daily calendar before the new year starts, thus anticipating a wish. The small, loving, daily gestures, that’s what counts, not the jewelry or outside and inside, like the protruding cantilevers of the bookcases repeated in the wide rims of the urns always filled with greenery. Being in the transitional spaces was pleasing: the entrances, the indoor or outdoor stairs, and especially sitting on the raised semi-circular porch. On the front porch we had two director's chairs with “WRIGHT” and “WRONG” printed on the back strap. The porch became our summer living room without walls, but with the large overhang providing shelter during the sudden rain storms in

Making bouquets to scale was one of my ways of showing my love for the house as well as celebrating life. Living in this house was a daily immersion in beauty, not just looking at or through the

y and the huge rear ever provided another area to admire what I the “reflecting pool” bed. Wright was well aware of agical interplay of water arth and he had planned a feature in his original for the Tomeks. It never e reality. I translated it, y suggesting it with low ometimes, after having tasted bliss, the magic fizzles, eparts and says “Goodbye. It’s been good to know You might then know what you really need and want! When we got the Tomek House (or it got us), I was ic. I saw all the work, the damage from past leaks, the opriately-remodeled, inefficient kitchen with metal ts, with the original windows having been stored in ne cellar. I saw the dirty cracked window panes, the labor of repair and cleaning. I saw no space for my “bFeadl ,l i anlgs oi nb leot vwee”einmtpwl ioe swa lskusdednedni na gc t i no na, pa osionmt . eOr sna ue il t hme ra ys ibde , , l ti ak lel “pl loavnet sa, t hfoi rl sl yt hs oi gchkts.,” sTuhnaf ltohwaedr s , ned to me before in 1960, with our 1740 Cape Cod house in Massachusetts. The prestige attached neglected) house designed by a well-known architect was not a reason to buy it, for me. Some e may buy a flashy car, fancy jewelry, or clothing to impress the object of their affection, especially courting , but this house was not an infatuation. With that kind of love, one desires and needs

sepvaecryewinhseirde. aI nsdawoutht ifsohr othuesier ngeaemdesd. hAenldp,gbaumteIshtahdeynohaide, athe usual baseball, football, croquet, lacrosse, the restoration would be unending and there would be no time for me to do my oil painting and pursuing my goal to teach. I did not see I would be carrying groceries up the made up, like improvising a frisbee golf course around the yard and across the gardens. Building a scarecrow or snowman, looking like Frank Lloyd Wright, was great fun. Walking on the narrow ledge of the water table surrounding the house required a daring leap near the front door. Skiing off the garage roof, sliding down or jumping up on the wide stairs, pull-ups on the beams in the living room… all became challenges and fun. The boys pulled each other on skis behind a motorcycle on the invented many a new game. Having bought the house was like getting married and wanting the marriage to be a success. When it is not, one keeps hoping, waiting for things to get better; one hangs in there, faces the reality, tries again and again, taking the good with the bad, while making allowances for the shortcomings (also one’s own) and praising the blessings. There were so many, thanks to this Wright house as well as the people that crossed my path. stairs, with a sore spine already misaligned. To get to and from the car in the garage in winter meant a slippery walk. I saw there was a very long driveway to shovel. Boys can do that.

The object of one’s affections is always a product of its past and its background and of many other butions. So it is with a house. Although there is no doubt about the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright, others participated to make it visible. The architect Marion Lucy Mahony, employed by Wright, in her three typed manuscripts of the The Magic of America, that she had been in charge of interior , which also included windows. In her drawing of the Tomek house, one bedroom window is Surely, Emily and Fred Tomek had had a say in the matter and they later added pillars under that huge cantilever so that it would be anchored down and resemble their cozy front porch of their low (now demolished) at 1147 South Ridgway Avenue in Berwyn. I had those unnecessary pillars

of the nineteen hundreds was the age of flight-- of the Wright brothers and Frank Lloyd Wright-- symbolized by the front and rear cantilevers together with their steel beams allowing them to soar freely for the many decades since construction. One can fall in love, whether head over heels, gradually, or fast. At first, some of us experience that “walking on air” feeling, then coming down to earth and settling down, followed by different stages as one ages. But, before family, colleagues, co-workers, the future father-in-law, or the next-door neighbor. Getting to know the Wright “family”--comprised of other Wright homeowners, Wright scholars, writers, curators, professors, admirers, students, photographers, journalists, aficionados, and sightseers-- nearly everyone enriched my life and at times my library. I could not afford to go out into the world very much, but the world came to me. Only twice in all those years did someone walk up uninvited, ring the bell, and request to see the house. One person came with his book in hand and became a pen pal. Some scholars put fancy sentences together or write hagiographies while making unfounded conclusions that do not go over too well with the one who swept the porch, steps, and gutters. He was not one of these. It made for lively letters between us and a few conversations. Other dialogues with other authors who were helpful and supportive also led to long-term friendships. Equally important were the workmen, the craftsmen who helped us make the house into what it became by 2001 when I parted from it. I really had a battle trying to dissuade the first editor of my

, such as altering “workmen” to “work people.” That seemed ridiculous, especially since all the men” had been male and I had been the only female involved, far outnumbered, as I always was family. The editor wanted me to explain what a “cantilever” or a “stringcourse” was. I reminded at my slim book was meant for architectural historians and that THEY knew what a cantilever was. days you can “google it” if someone does not know what it means. There were the architects, those who really helped, like my good friends John Vinci, John Thorpe, opher Rudolph, and many other insightful ones, such as Bill Dring and John Eifler, Eric Wright, harles Montooth. Many other Taliesin people also visited. Later, when the “Wright” wave really had ed momentum, there were the “famous” visitors as well, like Kiri Te Kanawa, a lovely woman and ned opera star who loved to sing Irving Berlin’s songs. Not being swept up in the celebrity mania

most, some seeing so well, others less so. Also, thanks to my wonderful neighbors, we’d have a progressive dinner or a dance party that we would all put on jointly. At times, we would just have a house tour with interesting and interested people attending. That always was most rewarding. Once, setting the dining table with the silverware my Belgian grandmother had chosen for me at birth (perfect for a Wright house), a Dutch friend dropped in and noticed that the silver needed polishing. “Who is coming for dinner? The King of Spain?” she asked, noticing the damask napkins, the Leerdam crystal, and the flower arrangement. “No,” I replied, “Vincent Scully.” She knew he was a well-known Wright scholar, a superb teacher and a marvelous speaker. “Well,” she said, “give me your silver polish. If you aren't going to polish your silver for Vincent Scully, who ARE you going to polish it for? The King of Spain?” and then she polished all the pieces on the table. A true friend, indeed! Early on in my stewardship of the Tomek House, with the help of another architect, I got in touch with the well-known Dutch architect, Hendricus Theodorus Wijdeveld, a friend of Mr. Wright. This many years, culminating in my receiving a gift from him after his 100th birthday. It was his small book entitled Mijn Eerste Eeuw : “My First Century .” He was a man with a sparkling personality, and some of our correspondence that I donated to the archives at Taliesin must now be in Columbia University's Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library in New York, which houses comprehensive records of Wright's work in their archives. My involvement with The Olmsted Society in Riverside also brought Walter Creese, who sat on that with marvelous photographs by Paul Rocheleau). H. Alan Brooks came more than once, admired my paintings and enjoyed my Dutch pea soup under those lovely laylights in the dining room, also admired by Neil Levine and once by my neighbor’s friend, Professor David van Zanten, during a dinner. Paul

nts and, oh, so many others livened up my days, as my bookcases uestbooks bear witness, whenever I remembered to ask the s to put their mark on them. I have one regret: while letting ake photos, I also should have photographed those pillars of ectural history as well as the superb photographers who came: g others, Alan Weintraub, Tom Heinz, Paul Rocheleau, and nder Vertikoff. There were the speakers or participants in conferences whom I put up for a night or two: Leonard Eaton, Jack Quinan, Ginnie Peter Reidy, curators, guides, students, and writers, some of became friends and faithful correspondents, such as Robert bly, Donald Hoffmann, and Bill Jordy. There were the journalists, Dutch one, Max van Rooy, who turned out to be the grandson Dutch architect and designer H.P. Berlage, who was a Whenever I had to leave for a short while, I relied on house sitters, among them restoration ects such as Don Kalec and John Thorpe. Like a child, the house could not be left alone, and after rried, I was having to split my time between several places. Thus some lovely young women tters for a Wright house.” The house also enriched me by exposing other Wright houses and their occupants. 3, I was courted in Wright’s Willey House. esat and entertained in the Gale House, advised on Wright gardens, or dug in getting dirty in them. I transplanted my ocks to the Heller House as seen in the original drawing of it. Consequently, I d in many a bathtub in Wright Houses. g at the Hollyhock House, after a

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