Wright Chat

An optical illusion or is that shrubbery in the carport? Wouldn't be surprised considering what the current owners apparently have done to the place.

I see a painted curb in front of the carport. (I also see a knocked-over mailbox plinth -- but that's another matter.) Perhaps the carport is being used as a covered patio ?

Here's Storrer's plan and (only) photo. We see a lighthouse -- which will make the location of the house easy to spot on an aerial view, at least !




© 1993 by William Allin Storrer

4 Manor Ct, Staten Island, NY 10306

The Staten Island Range Lighthouse is about a block away to the NE. The Google image is from 2007, when the Mail Box was intact. The image of the Carport is murky, but it looks as if it has been enclosed with window walls. The original Family Room was quite small; perhaps when they remodeled the Kitchen, they moved it into the old Family Room and expanded the FR into the Kitchen and Carport?

What I wonder about is the door from the lower terrace under the upper terrace. What do you suppose that is? It predates the pool, so it can't be a pump room.

When FWLBC met in NYC in 2002, they considered including Cass on the house tour, but after seeing its condition, they decided not to bother. I seem to recall the presence of wallpaper in the house. ik

Looking at it all in situ, the house seems salvageable, and the neighborhood is excellent. The architecture is not exemplary, but it's very high-end, which speaks to stability. The landscaping is fulsome, and the location of the house gives it a good view of New York Bay. I would move the west edge of the driveway eastward to as narrow an approach as possible, change the paving, restore the carport, get rid of a couple of outdoor areas to the SW which seem to be redundant ... and remove the wallpaper.

Funny
That shot from Storrer does not look like a Wright house to me.

One aspect of the house in that view is the mixture of flat-topped volumes and pitched-roof elements. We were talking recently about the Sherman Booth project of 1912; it marks an early appearance of this mixture of forms -- in both the unbuilt and the built versions of the design, despite the many other differences between the two. Wright returns to this mode after the (second) war; more than a few Usonians are built thus, including the first Erdman design.

SDR

Tom- I thought the same thing until I looked closer. If you look at the west (left) side of the plan, you'll see that the photo is showing the family room and kitchen. The fenestration (different windows on the prefab) matches that wall. The living room is inside the sloped roof portion and the upper terrace is concealed by the vegetation at the right of the photo directly below the lighthouse.

To take that further, one aspect of the flat-roofed element is that, from the earliest Usonian examples, a masonry core rises to the top of the roofline and, eventually, above it; the core includes the chimney(s) and kitchen (workspace) elements, at a minimum. In the case of the Erdman #1, this masonry-clad core includes fireplace, kitchen, family room and, at Iber, a half bath.

SDR

That Storrer pic of Cass always reminded me of Mies' early '30's brick houses...remove the sloped roof bit and lose the lighthouse...

https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/x7nIU7 ... lf.1.0.jpg

Tugendhat has a corner window writ large; I wonder if any of the brick designs do.

https://thecharnelhouse.org/2016/12/18/ ... usel-43030

https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2 ... emann.jpeg

SDR

I don't think Mies used the corner window in any of his brick houses. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haus_La ... aus_Esters

In the cropped black and white photo, the Erdman prefab house almost looks more like vernacular Pueblo than Wright.

Wright's Erdman corner window is the only thing distinguishing the elevations seen in Storrer's photo -- I think. Of course, we would celebrate (if not devour) an outhouse or phone box if designed by Mr Wright !

SDR