Avery Coonley's grandson

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Mon Aug 07, 2017 9:19 pm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... Oct20.html

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 10:47 am

In the 1908 photographs of this house the little girl next to the tree and at the point of the terrace just above the water is this guys Mom.

Evidently the Coonley's bought 10 acres in Washington D.C. and built one of the first modern homes there in 1936.

jmcnally · Post by **jmcnally** » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:29 pm

sorry to hear he's still dead

SREcklund · Post by **SREcklund** » Wed Aug 09, 2017 1:04 am

jmcnally wrote:sorry to hear he's still dead

I think if he was going to rise from the grave, it'd have happened during the last 13 years ...

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:40 am

Actually, there was a recent siting here in the District.

DRN · Post by **DRN** » Wed Aug 09, 2017 9:08 am

An architect with tertiary ties to FLLW is the central figure in the coming of a zombie apocalypse? Let the myths begin!

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Aug 10, 2017 8:43 pm

Does anybody know why Avery Coonley's wife , Queene Ferry Coonley's archives would belong to the University of Texas?

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utaaa/00 ... 00102.html

One of the things I discovered was the reason the Coonley's left Chicago and their Wright house in the first place.
Avery became very involved in the Church of Christian Science and moved to D.C. to be involved in their national publication administration.
Avery died their in 1920.
His wife, Queene Ferry, died in 1958 also in D.C. - having never re-married.

Reidy · Post by **Reidy** » Thu Aug 10, 2017 9:07 pm

The University of Texas and Boston University have for years worked very hard to build collections of as many famous (or semi-famous) people's papers as they can get. Igor Stravinsky had no connection to UT, but his papers ended up there after a court fight because they offered the most money, so the heirs preferred them to UCLA, a few miles from where he lived for some 30 years and where he was fond of strolling.

I believe the Coonleys were already into Christian Science when they built their house in Riverside. The story is that she was a reader (in effect, something like a psychotherapist) practicing out of the house. He worked for some watchdog group that fought prejudice and misinformation in the media, something like the Jewish ADL.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Thu Aug 10, 2017 10:03 pm

I think the healing position in Christian Science is the Practitioner. The First and Second Readers share responsibility for conducting the church service.

S

DRN · Post by **DRN** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:41 am

Edgar Tafel recounted in his book Apprentice to Genius that he was on a road trip with Wright in the 1930's and stopped by the Coonley house. Wright got the housekeeper to let them in and Wright gave Edgar a tour. Wright apparently noted that the Coonley's, by then the former owners, were Christian Scientists and that "Christian Scientists are neither Christians, nor scientists."

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Fri Aug 11, 2017 1:07 pm

Christian Science affected the design of the house. In her official religious capacity, Mrs. would meet people in her living room. They would arrive at the main entrance, go up the north stairs to the living room, then after the meeting, go down the south stairs to avoid the next person coming up the north. What a felicitous situation. Imagine the house without both sets of stairs. Well, you can. I believe the south stair was removed when the house was subdivided.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat Aug 12, 2017 7:42 am

Interesting.
I know nothing about C.S.
I did attend a service in Maybeck's Church in Berkeley
I did not understand what was going on
... but I was looking at the building mostly.
Gorgeous place.

Evidently after Avery died, Queene Ferry established
a school in his name in Chicago which is well respected and still functioning.
The architect for the Avery Coonley school, Waldron Faulkner
married the Coonley's only child, Elizabeth.

I recently found that their son, Winthrop
designed a house for friends of mine in D.C.
It's a variation on what Ed Barnes did at Haystack.
Very pleasant house

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:50 pm

I'd like to see that Winthrop Faulkner house in DC. It sounds nothing like either of these examples:

https://dc.curbed.com/2012/6/28/1035687 ... p-faulkner

http://moderncapitaldc.com/1978-wynn-fa ... 5-million/

To Roderick's note, one thinks of other symmetrical Wright plans with a redundant stair; the Hardy residence comes immediately to mind. Nice to know that in at least one case there was a practical purpose to the second stairway.

SDR

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Sat Aug 12, 2017 2:45 pm

SDR, really appreciate the link to the three white houses by Faulkner.
I saw those on my trip and could not find much info online about them.
Did not think to search Curbed.
It's a decent project still holding it's own.

I have no pictures of the house he did for my friends.
But imagine the basic unit of Haystack mirrored symmetrically along the high side
and separated by a mid-height eight foot wide entrance hall/bridge with spiral stair : to the right side living, to the left sleeping.

SDR · Post by **SDR** » Sat Aug 12, 2017 4:14 pm

I like that sort of building. We see it more and more; there's a firm in Texas that has made some nice "bones showing" residences . . .

S