The Kraus House, also known as the Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park, is a house in Kirkwood, Missouri designed by architectFrank Lloyd Wright. The brick and cypress house was designed and constructed for Russell and Ruth Goetz Kraus,[1] and the initial design was conceived in 1950. Construction continued until at least 1960 and was never formally completed. The owners lived in the house for about 40 years (Ruth died in 1992).
The house features parallelograms; indeed, the only right angles to be found in the house are located in the bathroom. Even the bed is a parallelogram and sheets must be custom made. The house itself sits on a parallelogram blueprint. The house features a carport, attached shed, and a workroom for Kraus, a glass work artist. Kraus heard of Wright's work and was so excited at the thought of living in a work of art himself, he wrote to Wright, who sent him the plans for his 'little house'.
Before it was built, numerous contractors declined the job as too difficult to construct. Its angles required custom bricks to be made. It was built by a young former Seabee named Lee Patterson.[1]
In 1997, the house was recognized with listing on the National Register of Historic Places of the National Park Service. Russell Kraus sold the house in 2001 to a non-profit organization formed for the specific purpose of saving it. The title was subsequently transferred to the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department, which maintains the 10.5-acre (42,000m2) grounds as Ebsworth Park. The house and park are open to the public by appointment only. Tours are available for a small fee.
It is located in a "tract of woods and rolling meadowland located on the east side of Ballas Road (120 North Ballas), south of Dougherty Ferry Road at the west edge of Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburban municipality near St. Louis. The house is reached by an 800-foot-long private driveway, which crosses a small branch of Sugar Creek across a small bridge, a non-contributing structure, then winds up a hillside through a deciduous woods. Just short of the crest of the hill, the woods give way to meadow, revealing this unusual house, sitting in the center of a grove of tall, slender persimmon trees. The house, though modest in size, is a masterpiece of geometric design, in Wright's unique style, using the 60-degree/120-degree parallelogram as the design motif."[1]
As of 1996 the house's cedar roof shakes roof had been replaced by asphalt shingles, and there was a problem of spalling of bricks: "The spalling problems seem to have been due to the nature of the brick, which is unusually hard and dense. The brick is laid in Wrightian fashion, with the vertical joints flush and the horizontal joints deeply raked to accentuate the horizontal lines of the single-story building, with its wide roof overhangs and extended cantilevers."[1]
The Winslow House is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house located at 515 Auvergne Place in River Forest, Illinois. A landmark building in Wright's career, the Winslow House, built in 1894–95, was his first major commission as an independent architect. While the design owes a debt to the earlier James Charnley House, Wright always considered the Winslow House extremely important to his career. Looking back on it in 1936, he described it as "the first 'prairie house'."
The Isidore H. Heller House is a house located at 5132 South Woodlawn Avenue in the Hyde Park community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The design is credited as one of the turning points in Wright's shift to geometric, Prairie School architecture, which is defined by horizontal lines, flat or hipped roofs with broad overhanging eaves, windows grouped in horizontal bands, and an integration with the landscape, which is meant to evoke native Prairie surroundings.
The George W. Smith House is a home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1895. It was constructed in 1898 and occupied by a Marshall Field & Company salesman. The design elements were employed a decade later when Wright designed the Unity Temple in Oak Park. The house is listed as a contributing property to the Ridgeland-Oak Park Historic District which joined the National Register of Historic Places in December 1983.
The Thomas H. Gale House, or simply Thomas Gale House, is a house located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The house was designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1892 and is an example of his early work. The house was designed by Wright independently while he was still employed in the architecture firm of Adler & Sullivan, run by engineer Dankmar Adler and architect, Louis Sullivan; taking outside commissions was something that Sullivan forbade. The house is significant because of what it shows about Wright's early development period. The Parker House is listed as contributing property to a U.S. federally Registered Historic District. The house was designated an Oak Park Landmark in 2002.
The George W. Furbeck House is a house located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park. The house was designed by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1897 and constructed for Chicago electrical contractor George W. Furbeck and his new bride Sue Allin Harrington. The home's interior is much as it appeared when the house was completed but the exterior has seen some alteration. The house is an important example of Frank Lloyd Wright's transitional period of the late 1890s which culminated with the birth of the first fully mature early modern Prairie style house. The Furbeck House was listed as a contributing property to a U.S. federal Registered Historic District in 1973 and declared a local Oak Park Landmark in 2002.
The Oscar B. Balch House is a home located in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The Prairie style Balch House was designed by famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1911. The home was the first house Wright designed after returning from a trip to Europe with a client's wife. The subsequent social exile cost the architect friends, clients, and his family. The house is one of the first Wright houses to employ a flat roof which gives the home a horizontal linearity. Historian Thomas O'Gorman noted that the home may provide a glimpse into the subconscious mind of Wright. The Balch house is listed as a contributing property to a U.S. federally Registered Historic District.
The Francis J. Woolley House is located in Oak Park, Illinois, United States, a Chicago suburb. The house was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1893. The Queen Anne style home is reflective of Wright's early designs for lower-cost, more affordable housing. The Woolley House is similar to the trio of homes in Oak Park that are widely known as the "bootleg houses." The design is heavily influenced by Wright's first teacher, Joseph Silsbee, and the Arts and Crafts movement. The house is listed as a contributing property to a local and federal historic district.
The Harrison P. Young House is a home in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois, United States. The 1870s era building was remodeled extensively by famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, early in his career, in 1895. The home's remodeling incorporated elements that would later be found in Wright's pioneering, early modern Prairie style. Some of the remodel work included setting the home back an additional 16 ft from the street and an overhanging porch over the driveway. The House is similar in some ways to Wright's other early work and was influenced by his first teacher, Joseph Silsbee. The house is considered a contributing property to both a local and federally Registered Historic District.
Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House, commonly referred to as Jacobs I, is a single family home located at 441 Toepfer Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Designed by noted American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, it was constructed in 1937 and is considered by most to be the first Usonian home. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2003. The house and seven other properties by Wright were inscribed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright" in July 2019.
The Frank J. Baker House is a 4,800-square-foot Prairie School style house located at 507 Lake Avenue in Wilmette, Illinois. The house, which was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, was built in 1909, and features five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and three fireplaces. At this point in his career, Wright was experimenting with two-story construction and the T-shaped floor plan. This building was part of a series of T-shaped floor planned buildings designed by Wright, similar in design to Wright's Isabel Roberts House. This home also perfectly embodies Wright's use of the Prairie Style through the use of strong horizontal orientation, a low hanging roof, and deeply expressed overhangs. The house's two-story living room features a brick fireplace, a sloped ceiling, and leaded glass windows along the north wall; it is one of the few remaining two-story interiors with the T-shaped floor plan designed by Wright.
The Quintin Blair House in Cody, Wyoming, United States, was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built 1952–1953. The house is an example of Wright's "natural house" theme, emphasizing close integration of house and landscape. It is the only Wright building in Wyoming.
The Charles L. and Dorothy Manson home is a single-family house located at 1224 Highland Park Boulevard in Wausau, Wisconsin. Designated a National Historic Landmark, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 5, 2016, reference Number, 16000149.
The E. Clarke and Julia Arnold House is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home in Columbus, Wisconsin, United States.
The Seamour and Gerte Shavin House is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
The Theodore A. Pappas House is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian house in St. Louis, Missouri. The Pappas house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, when it was only 15 years old. It is one of two houses in St. Louis designed by Wright, and the only Usonian Automatic in Missouri. Wright designed it between 1955 and 1959 at the Pappas’ request, and Theodore and Bette Pappas built the house together with the help of day laborers between 1960 and 1964. The Pappas house is a rambling four-bedroom house, and after the Gerald B. and Beverley Tonkens House, is the largest of the Usonian Automatics built.
The Eugene A. Gilmore House, also known as "Airplane" House, constructed in Madison, Wisconsin in 1908, is considered "a superb expression of Frank Lloyd Wright's mature Prairie school." The client, Eugene Allen Gilmore, served as a law professor at the nearby University of Wisconsin Law School. In 1973 the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
The Judge Charles P. McCarthy House is a two-story Prairie school duplex which was constructed in Boise, Idaho in 1913. It was adapted from a Frank Lloyd Wright design published in the April 1907 edition of Ladies Home Journal Magazine, where readers could purchase plans for a flat rate, or have them customized by Wright's office for a 10% premium. It appears as a classic prairie-style design with horizontal design elements, including a low-pitch roof with deep hipped roof overhangs.
The A. P. Johnson House, also known as Campbell Residence, is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Prairie School home that was constructed in Delavan, Wisconsin, USA, in 1905. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.
The 1905 Mary W. Adams House, is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Prairie School home that was constructed in Highland Park, Illinois. The Adams House is a two-story home with three bedrooms and two bathrooms with a light stucco exterior and wooden trim that emphasizes the horizontal.
The Louis Fredrick House is a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright at 19 W. County Line Road in Barrington, Illinois. The house was built in 1957 for Louis Fredrick, an affluent interior designer. The house's design is typical of Wright's later work, in which he adapted his Usonian design principles to larger homes for wealthier clients. Fredrick played a role in the design process as well, rejecting Wright's original plan on account of its concrete block walls and providing input on decisions such as coloring. The house's design includes a brick exterior, long horizontal window bands, a low roof covered with cedar shakes, and a large chimney.
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