Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home • Hacker News Board

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#41

Post by chasil » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 11:48 PM UTC

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…

You are omitting the murders.

Wright ended his marriage and took Mamah Borthwick Cheney to Europe. This scandal ended his Chicago career.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamah_Borthwick

After bringing her to his Talesin estate in Wisonsin, she and her children perished in the events explained in the wiki.

This particular home is not itself stunning. The Dana Thomas house in Springfield, IL is far more impressive.

In Chicago, the Robie house is the must see, followed by Unity Temple, leaving the Home & Studio a distant third.

I have personally stayed at the Cheney house (twice), which was a bed & breakfast for a time.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#42

Post by kasey_junk » Fri, Jul 17, 2026, 11:50 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #37

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. :)

You can see shows there, which is the right way to do it.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#43

Post by chasil » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 12:17 AM UTC

allknowingfrog wrote: post #16

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...

Isn't Wright sort of famous for designing structures that leak when it rains? My understanding is that Falling Water House is a beautiful money pit.

I thought the "move your chair" story concerned the Kauffmans of Falling Water, but it did not.

https://bpsfuelforthought.wordpress.com/2019/02/23/move-your...

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#44

Post by twright » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 12:39 AM UTC

allknowingfrog wrote: post #16

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...

Isn't Wright sort of famous for designing structures that leak when it rains? My understanding is that Falling Water House is a beautiful money pit.

Money pit indeed! At Graycliff, the one he designed before Falling Water, there are no gutters or downspouts. The tour guide told us that Wright didn’t want them disrupting the horizontal lines of the house. The roof is cedar shake and there’s some wonderful moulding just below the roofline that gutters would normally protect. It must be astronomic to maintain it.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#45

Post by brandall10 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:33 AM 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).

He's had a wild life with an arc similar to Steve Jobs. Taliesen West was basically an architecture cult where he frittered away for nearly a decade before landing Falling Water for his big comeback... at 70 years old.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#46

Post by halestock » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 2:49 AM 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.…

I also took the tour this year and I came away with the impression that he would have fit right in with today's "genius" entrepreneurs and CEOs for all the reasons you stated. He certainly had great ideas and was an excellent designer, but he was belligerent and bull headed and owes a lot of his success to luck and the people who surrounded him.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#47

Post by cavoirom » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 3:01 AM 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.

Some of the owners seem really happy: https://youtu.be/cJe-RXWohAE

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#48

Post by BobbyTables2 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 4:06 AM UTC

twright wrote: post #44

allknowingfrog wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't Wright sort of famous for designing structures that leak when it rains? My understanding is that Falling Water House is a beautiful money pit.

Money pit indeed! At Graycliff, the one he designed before Falling Water, there are no gutters or downspouts. The tour guide told us that Wright didn’t want them disrupting the horizontal lines of the house. The roof is cedar shake and there’s some wonderful moulding just below the roofline that gutters would normally protect. It must be astronomic to maintain it.

I read that as “molding” just below the roofline …

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#49

Post by bmitc » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 4:41 AM UTC

allknowingfrog wrote: post #16

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...

Isn't Wright sort of famous for designing structures that leak when it rains? My understanding is that Falling Water House is a beautiful money pit.

His architecture was generally very, very progressive for the time and pushed the bounds of construction and structural engineering.

As someone else mentioned, he was designing houses that look newer than they actually are.

Re: Frank Lloyd Wright’s first home

#50

Post by bmitc » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 4:56 AM UTC

halestock wrote: post #46

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.…

I also took the tour this year and I came away with the impression that he would have fit right in with today's "genius" entrepreneurs and CEOs for all the reasons you stated. He certainly had great ideas and was an excellent designer, but he was belligerent and bull headed and owes a lot of his success to luck and the people who surrounded him.

That's a bit of a silly comparison, in my opinion. FLW was an incredibly deep and original thinker. You can't say the same for today's "genius" entrepreneurs. FLW also experimented and created many new ways of designing and building. He couldn't possibly have been stealing that many unique ideas over basically his 70 year career.