Lloyd Lewis sections

[DRN]

Bringing this thread forward from the outage abyss....
Keywords: Lloyd Lewis, Little St. Mary's Road, Libertyville, Harding Partners

[SREcklund]

Hard to believe they haven't fixed this place yet. It's as if they're hoping we'll all go somewhere else - and it appears many have.

[SDR]

The latest little hiccup: I missed being notified of activity on threads I've posted to, a few times in the past week. Seems okay now . . .

SDR

[g.dorn]

Ive started to a look at this lloyd lewis building

It seems to have changed in parts a bit from the drawings as posted.


Have a look at these 2 photos -spot the difference - one has 5 boards to the dining balcony - the other 6 boards!





the drawing (dining room section) indicates 7 boards, whereas the elevation indicates 5 boards

so I gather windows were lengthened?

[g.dorn]

I found this blueprint of the Mat, Floor and roof Framing

shame the clarity is not that good, making it difficult to read the notes.

[Roderick Grant]

At some point close to the end of construction, Lewis complained about the balcony railing being too high, so FLW had one board removed. The above first photo may be the first ever taken of the house with the offending board still in place.

[SDR]

I thought the offending parapet was the one outside the living room, not the little dining-room balcony.

It seems unlikely that the dining-room windows would have been altered; if so, when ? And if not, then the extra board occurs at the bottom, not the top---despite the top board being of a different color in the larger photo ?

The section drawings on the first page of this thread may be of help. If they cannot be enlarged sufficiently, I will repost them at greater size. The initial point of the thread, of course, is that there are inconsistencies between the two published sections . . .

S

[SDR]

I am still unable to upload to my web host.

In Section 1, the living-room parapet is drawn at six boards (recall that the house vertical unit = 9"); its top aligns with the top of the brick pier separating the living and dining areas. The dining floor is c. 12" below that of the living room. In this drawing the dining exterior wall is 7 boards (thus, 7 units) high.

In Section 2, although large portions of the drawing are missing, it appears that the living-room parapet is now lowered by one unit; the outside face of the parapet would thus be five boards (units) high. Most of the dining-room section at upper right is missing; however we see that the bottom of the exterior wall now extends below the underside of the floor plate by two full boards.

S

[g.dorn]

looks like they constructed living balcony with 6 boards - as seen on this alama photo




this alamy photo also shows the 5 boards dining and 6 boards living to decks




where did you get Dining floor 12" below Iiv floor ?

On the revised April 1940 Living room section, looks like the dining room floor is on a unit line - which makes it 9" , which also means that the board coursing also matchs - note; the bottom of the board ( at FFL) is on the( vertical) unit line



This Getty interior shot shows internal septs - looks like 1" nosing and say 4" riser board which sorta equals 2 x 4 1/2 " risers

This photo also show the 4 boards to the inner face of the balcony balustrade

From what I can gather there is 3 brick courses / 9"unit

[g.dorn]

interior steps and planter box

another aspect I find a bit funny is the Entry , interior stairs, planter box, stepped wall bedroom balcony and roof over etc .

Of the photos I've seen , none really indicate how this was resolved.

a long view - can just see the entry roof - what does the balcony balustrade wall butt into?




interior view shows planter - is there a gap between the planter and the wall - what is that dark square beyond - a window, flyscreen door?
is there a step in the roof line?

[SDR]

All section drawings clearly show three bricks = 9 inches. Photographs show that this was carried out---more or less. The rowlock cap course pulls the boards up from alignment, very slightly, at the living-room terrace parapet.

All photos of that parapet show six boards---don't they ? Looks like the architect won that fight, anecdotal accounts notwithstanding.

Here is a series of photos by Yukio Futagawa, published in the 1980s:














The published perspectives show six boards to the living and dining parapets:

[Matt2]

Was the extension wing always part of the home, or added later?

[Roderick Grant]

You are right, SDR, the entry was not where the board was removed from the top, but at the bottom. The distance from the sill of the dining room window to the top of the pier is the same in both images (counting bricks), so the board had to have come off the bottom, which probably had to do with head height in the entry loggia.

My guess as to the main balcony is that it was always a 6-board height, and to accommodate Lewis, the living room floor was raised 12". That way FLW could have his cake and eat it, too.

[Roderick Grant]

Matt, the bedroom wing was always part of the plan as it was built. Lewis is an enlarged version of Willey Project #1. As wonderful as Willey is as built, FLW obviously wanted the earlier project constructed, and got it at Lewis, improved considerably.

[SDR]

Well, that's an interesting set of circumstances. Do we take the Alamy (and Getty) black-and-white images to be early photos ? I had thought they might be recent, post-restoration shots---considering all the foliage present ? Note that, despite the view drawings which show a five-board parapet to the bedroom baclonies, they too are of six boards in those photos.

In both section drawings, the living room floor is elevated above the dining/workspace level; in the first drawing the difference is 12" (one and one-third units) while in the second it is 9" (one unit). That would account for the 4 1/2" riser estimation of G Dorn.

In the first Willey scheme the living room is elevated two or three risers above the dining/workspace floor; one might reasonably assume that this feature was a part of the Lewis design from the start ? I take the lowering of the living-room parapet by one board in Section 2 to be the solution to Lewis's complaint; that the built house apparently had 6 boards from the start suggests that he lost that argument. Do we know for a fact that Lewis got Wright to make the change ?

S