finding original furniture & original plan set for the charles l. manson house, wausau wisconsin

[davidm]

my partner and i are the latest owners of the charles l. manson house in wausau wisconsin, completed in 1941. in doing some research on the house, we identified that the contents of the house were sold through a chicago auction house around 1990. the auction sale had a couple original chairs from the house, along with what was described in the auction listing as the original plan set. no record of the sale was available, as the auction house has changed ownership in the ensuing years.

as the new owners of the house, we are very interested in restoring the house to it original condition, and were we able to retrieve the original plan set and a couple of pieces of the original furniture that belonged to the house, we would be excited to have them.

i don't know of any specific dealers of wright furniture to even ask, though i did speak with someone at wright auctions in chicago, who were helpful and sympathetic to the spirit of the search, but were unaware of anyone having the furniture from the manson house.

i thought that i would post this in case anyone has had a similar experience, or if anyone out there has in their own collection, anything from the manson house.

thanks!

david.

[DavidC]

Hello David. Welcome to the Forum and congratulations on now owning a wonderful Frank Lloyd Wright home!

After a quick search, the only auction information I have found for Manson House furniture is a chair that was sold through Rago Auctions back in 2009 - (and, apparently, it didn't sell back then). You could try contacting them to see if they might have any further information on the piece.


David

[SDR]

In searching for items from the Manson house I came across this document. Perhaps it would be of interest to David M, if he has not seen it already. How many Wright houses have been inspected by the National Park Service ?

https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/16000149.pdf

Were prints of the original drawings conveyed with the house ? Do they include the furniture designs ? Dining chairs were shown in photos of the house when it was offered for sale; are they copies of the originals, or something designed and executed by others ? Are there any original furnishings present, other than the built-in table in the living room and the as-yet unseen clothes-drying rack in the kitchen ?

The chair at Rago Auctions is most unusual---a unique Usonian piece. I haven't seen another with a seat like that. I'd love to see the back. These plywood chairs sometimes were intended to have a seat cushion; I wonder if this is one of them . . .

S

[DRN]

Welcome David.
My wife and I own Wright's Sweeton house in Cherry Hill, NJ. Most of the furniture for our house had left the house by the time we bought it, leaving us with only one original chair....and a wayward hassock that was graciously donated "to the house" a couple of years ago.
As we had a full plate with our restoration of the house itself, the funds were not available for us to seek out and acquire the original furniture at the prices the market seems to "demand". We chose instead to have some pieces made using the original drawings. We had 3 hassocks made, and we are now in the process of having a table made. Our goal is to represent what was intended by Wright mixed with our own mid-century modern furniture. Objects of clean line, warm tone, and natural materials look good in the space, but Wright's own designs seem to sing in the spaces due to their modularity with the elements the make up the rooms themselves..

Reproduction of some pieces from the drawings and old photos, if you can find them, may be an option for you if having "the original" is not an absolute must.

[SDR]

Sound advice. I haven't made a study of auction prices of Usonian furniture pieces, but I would bet that accurate copies in appropriate materials could be had for less than the cost of retrieving original chairs---at least. What say, Dan ?

S

[DRN]

I was able to find auction results for most of the pieces from the Sweeton House. The sum of the sales for the first sale of the pieces (some have sold multiple times like commodities) totaled over $80,000.
It should be noted that the Sweeton furniture made in 1950-51 was more humble than many Usonian pieces...it was constructed with veneer plywood, much of it offcuts from the construction of the interior partitions and cabinets of the house.

[Tom]

Would love to see shots of those plans posted here on Wright Cha if not too much trouble.
Congratulations David on your new house.
I've been up to WahooSahoo to see it.
We hiked through the Porcupines and the coast of Lake Superior.
Wisconsin is gorgeous.

[peterm]

Congratulations! If you can’t locate the originals, contact Stafford Norris lll, who could make you exquisite replicas. The only problem? They will be better constructed than the originals.

[SDR]

Taliesin might have developed and maintained the practice of photographing every completed building, including whatever Wright-designed furnishings that were constructed, in a uniform or at least a consistent manner. As far as I know, that didn't happen. AT various times, Mr Wright dispatched Pedro Guerrero or others to photograph a particular building; in some cases an apprentice would take it upon himself to take photos. Today, every office commissions photography of completed projects . . .

The Manson furniture drawings could, it seems to me, be displayed here with appropriate credit [© The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)]. The copies of drawings that accompany the house are the property of the owner. The Foundation typically instructed house owners to whom they sent copies of such drawings, not to display them with legible dimensions, I believe.

Worst case: I (as the presumed displayer) am asked to remove them. I would be happy to show whatever the new owner of the house chooses to send to me.

S

[dancedark]

I can't help you with this, but would like to add a small bit of info. When the Manson House was listed for sale in 1973, the listing said that the furniture was in storage and included with the sale.

[SDR]

We'll take any scrap of info, dance ! Thanks . . .


So, we have this chair as the only piece of original Manson furniture available to look at---and this one photo of that chair. Does anyone have other images of this or any other "lost" Manson pieces ?

[SDR]

This is certainly an unusual Usonian chair. I don't believe there's another that has a three-plane seat and back. And, I'm trying to guess the purpose of the vertical gap (if that's what it is) that is seen near the rear of the leg panel.

S

[toddlevin]

I owned a pair of chairs from the Manson House similar to the Rago example shown by others here that I purchased from Sothebys around 1995 - I believe I paid $4125 for the pair at the time. They were in rough shape and after conferring with the FLWBC I found a conservator who stripped and reassembled the chairs as well as creating period correct cushions. I think I sold them through Sothebys around 2004 or so...

[SDR]

Further evidence; thanks, Todd. Were there other Manson pieces on offer at the same time ? Was there any literature which you retain ? Did you take a picture of your chairs ?

I'm hoping to persuade David that he might display a furniture drawing here, as a contribution to Wright furniture studies . . .

SDR

[toddlevin]

Apologies, it was too long ago, so documentation is long gone. There were one or two other pieces of furniture by FLLW from the Manson House in that 1990's Sotheby's Day Sale, but nothing significant... T