Frank Lloyd Wright was nothing if not prolific. The great American architect was both a workaholic and a natural self-publicist, pioneering the use of elaborate conceptual schemes to draw attention to his studio and his work. Over the course of a long, long career, Wright reputedly designed over 1,100 buildings, of which around 46 per cent were actually built. A substantial number of these were houses, ranging from hilltop mansions to World Heritage-listed sites of global importance, and more modest, out-of-the-way buildings.
The main living room
This house in Michigan is one of the latter. For sale through Signature Sotheby’s International Realty, the Samuel Eppstein House dates back to 1953, when Wright was very much in the twilight of his career (he was 85 when the house was completed). Nevertheless, the house, in Kalamazoo County, is a finely realised example of his ‘Usonian’ vision for middle-class housing, often located in pre-planned housing developments and intended to be a more generous and creative response to the homogeneity of suburban design.
The main entrance
The Eppstein House is modest in scale, at 2,500 sq ft. Containing five bedrooms, four of which are little more than compact sleeping cells, the house saves its powder for the primary living space at one end of the linear plan. Set beneath a soaring monopitch roof above an array of glazing leading out onto a terrace, this room stands in stark counterpoint to the rest of the single-storey, low-slung structure.
In common with the majority of the Usonian houses, the Eppstein House is made from monumental concrete blocks, visible both outside and in. Largely modified – and certainly not extended – it survives as an expression of the original architectural vision.
The surrounding areas are also pretty special. The plot is located on the Galesburg Country Homes community, a 70-acre spread of land half way between Detroit and Chicago that gives each house a unique rural outlook. In fact, it’s one of four Wright-designed houses at ‘The Acres’ – the others include the Weisblat House, the Curtis Meyer House and the Eric & Pat Pratt House. All follow similar design principles, animated by the use of sculpted building blocks, bespoke joinery and linear floor plans.
The main living room
The main living room
Joining the community of Frank Lloyd Wright owners is not for the faint-hearted, such is the demand for information, rentals and photoshoots. If you have the enthusiasm and passion for one of the true masters of modern architecture, then it’s good to know there are still opportunities for ownership.
Samuel Eppstein Residence, 11090 Hawthorne Drive, Galesburg, Michigan, USA, $2.1M at Signature Sotheby’s International Realty, SothebysRealty.com, @SothebysRealty