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
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