Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home • Hacker News Board

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#31

Post by shooker435 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 9:01 PM UTC

frantathefranta wrote: post #27

shooker435 wrote: post #26

> Wright left Oak Park and separated from Tobin Wright in 1909. Before leaving, he divided the studio and the home, allowing Tobin Wright and the children to live in the studio wing and rent out the house for income. Wright sold the property in 1925 and later owners divided the building into six units and neglected to preserve the historically significant property. This is a really generous interpretation of what hap…

FLW almost always gets very generous interpretations of his intentions. I've been to 5 of his houses (including this one) and I've not heard anything negative about him on the tours. I say this as someone who likes his houses a lot (and considers themselves as someone who's gotten over the "FLW is overrated" hump).

Agreed. I'm a huge fan of his work and have spent some time in Oak Park as well.

That being said, the most accurate/honest depiction I've seen is a 2-part series on PBS. I think it does a great job of capturing the genius alongside the troubled hubris.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#32

Post by fortran77 » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 9:17 PM UTC

yacthing wrote: post #29

No idea why he's so famed. I've been to a few of his houses and they are completely impractical to live in. So focused on making things look good, but spent no time thinking about people actually living in the houses.

He wasn't even a licenced architect. He couldn't leagally sign off on drawings or incorporate as a business with the word "architect" in it, etc.

https://codygatlindesign.com/2024/09/28/why-6-of-the-worlds-...

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#33

Post by rconti » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 9:38 PM UTC

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #9

burkaman wrote: post #5

I know houses used to be cheaper but I was still struggling to understand how a 22-year-old from what doesn't sound like a very rich family could have afforded this. His foundation website says "he negotiated a five-year contract with Sullivan in exchange for the loan of the necessary money" and then "it was not long before escalating expenses tempted him into accepting independent residential commissions". I guess y…

At age 22, FLW was specially trained, working at the equivalent of a frontier AI lab (the most important architect in Chicago) and in the most booming city at the time (Chicago, especially where construction was concerned- due to the Great Fire rebound) He's not a random, there are a lot of factors working for him

> equivalent of a frontier AI lab

Except frontier AI labs basically consider the entirety of human creation, multiplied by 100, to be their total addressable market.

The most important architect in Chicago could only ever be able to capture a small fraction of a single city's architecture business.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#34

Post by goldlimetea » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 10:23 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#35

Post by f1ay » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 10:39 PM UTC

I went on the tour of this home / studio early this year.

The tourguide didn't mince words, and came at FLW pretty hard for scams and philandering. My understanding is that FLW was kind of a grifter. Outside of being famous for just not paying his employees and designers, he was working on the side to put up houses that were explicitly against his contract after being paid huge cash advances by his friend / employer. He also famously hoarded his designers' and sculptors' ideas and claimed them for himself.

There's some fascinating ideas at play in his houses, and the fact that he designed the furniture for the rooms they would go in is fascinating, even though I didn't care much for his style. The concept of 'compression and expansion' came through well, when you'd walk through a somewhat narrow offset corridor before entering a grand room. It definitely had an impact.

That house was basically a prototype for a bunch of random ideas he had, including a stage for his children and his wife's students to perform plays (she was a youth teacher) complete with a giant mural of a djinn iirc was inspired by one thousand and one nights.

It felt like a psychedelic church.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#36

Post by f1ay » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 10:50 PM UTC

f1ay wrote: post #35

I went on the tour of this home / studio early this year. The tourguide didn't mince words, and came at FLW pretty hard for scams and philandering. My understanding is that FLW was kind of a grifter. Outside of being famous for just not paying his employees and designers, he was working on the side to put up houses that were explicitly against his contract after being paid huge cash advances by his friend / employer.…

It's unfortunate they didn't include more photos in the AD article and doesn't really do it justice, even though a lot of his design aesthetic wasn't for me.

Specifically there was an octagonal drafting room without central supports, using chains linked across the room and held together by a giant hub to hold it together from the sides. Truly a wild piece of engineering I've never observed in any home elsewhere.

I tried photographing it, which was essentially impossible but here's the best version I could find. https://www.instagram.com/p/DOZxFBoEdMb/

Since the home was also a studio, he would take people on a bit of a wild tour through his home before leading them to my favorite room on the tour -- and also octagonal 'deal room', which is the room most representative of all of his ideas within that house, with hidden drawers, and drafting boards hidden everywhere. https://martinhouse.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/flw_studi...

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#37

Post by tptacek » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 10:54 PM UTC

Zigurd wrote: post #15

I grew up in Oak Park and I've been in the home and studio several times. It's a remarkably homey home, in contrast with Wright's reputation for art over practicality. It's also what you'd expect from a tech nerd's work at home home: it has a whole house audio system in the form of a player piano built into a central stairway.

I live in Oak Park, just a couple blocks from the studio. The Unity Temple is the thing to see. :)

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#38

Post by foota » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 11:11 PM UTC

twright wrote: post #4

It never ceases to amaze me how Wright's style was so ahead of the times. A lot of people immediately think the houses are mid-50's but they're in fact 20 to 30 years earlier! If you happen to be driving through somewhere near one of the houses that are under conservancy[1] they are well worth a stop. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Frank_Lloyd_Wright_wor...

Wow he was born a _lot_ earlier than I would have thought!

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#39

Post by bookofjoe » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 11:14 PM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #11

CGMthrowaway wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FLW created the times

There's something similar in cinema. For example, I was watching Terrance Malick's Badlands for the first time a couple of years ago and I could swear it felt like a film from the 90s or maybe early 2000s. But it was from 1973.

I think you would enjoy "The Sugarland Express," directed by 26-year-old Steven Spielberg and released in 1974.

https://youtu.be/JLSQBAXIKtk?si=Q8FP4c8v72PiZU93

Available here: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trailer+sugarla...

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#40

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 11:43 PM UTC

yacthing wrote: post #29

No idea why he's so famed. I've been to a few of his houses and they are completely impractical to live in. So focused on making things look good, but spent no time thinking about people actually living in the houses.

[deleted]