David Hunt House (unbuilt) 1956

[Tom]

Here is another house with single height space throughout (7'-6") except for workspace and utility:

https://library.artstor.org/#/search/ar ... e=1;sort=1

[SDR]

We would want to look at the fairly numerous built and unbuilt Usonian Automatic designs to see how common this common-height ceiling is. At Hunt the wall is 5 units (blocks) high, except in the kitchen core where it is 7 units. The block is 16" square. It is understandable (though not a foregone conclusion) that Mr Wright would want to stick to full-height blocks throughout the structure; he was in what I like to think of as "Lego mode" when designing for the UA system.

But---and particularly on a site as irregular in topography as Hunt's---nothing would have prevented him from raising or lowering floor levels from one place to another in the house.

S

[Tom]

Yes - very good.
... and you kind of expect what you describe by the impression given from the perspective up from the ravine where the main section has those strong verticals.
Would love to know why he didn't drop that living room floor at least a couple of steps? Possible out of character budget concern?

https://library.artstor.org/#/asset/286 ... 8997904977

So far we've got Hunt, Staley, and Winn.

[SDR]

There seems to have been, over and over, a striving for the most dramatic siting possible---close to a precipice, or at least near to the available slope---as shown again and again in the perspective views. One naturally thinks of the sorts of Chinese landscape paintings where a primitive hut or a temple is found perched or ensconsed in the midst of the wildest imaginable hill or mountain.

This is tempered, repeatedly, by reality---no doubt both financial and practical---in the final siting: those extensive masonry plinths that look so great in the rendering almost always gave way to a less dramatic (and less costly) interface with the land. Ennis, Teater's Knoll, Hagan are a few where the client bit the bullet and went for the gold. At Ennis it was likely unavoidable; at Fallingwater it was the very point of the exercise.

Given that, a foot or two of level change within a structure seems like a small sacrifice ?

S

[Tom]

"the most dramatic siting possible" - a definite theme in itself.
At Hunt the single height space doesn't seem to belong with the dramatic siting.
Even with such a modest house as Goetsche(sp?)/Winkler he pops the ceiling up
Curious
AND - it is very impressive what Wright could do with a single height space.
Isn't main level Fallingwater more than less a single height space?

[jay]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.

The absence of expanding ceiling volume is accompanied by the absence of a terrace of any sort. Grant Hildebrand found these to be essential elements of the Wright pattern. Regardless, this design still oozes with the 'prospect-refuge' theme, the cave built into the hillside.

One particular interest for me are those double-or-triple wide UA windows used in the living room to frame a horizontal view of the distant mountain range... In the Usonian years, I've only noticed Wright using a pronounced horizontal window scheme when a water view was present.

Perhaps Wright wanted to really emphasis this horizontal experience, like a 16:9 aspect ratio for a movie.
Here is a view of the range from nearby lot for sale:
https://images.estately.net/42_6201237_0_1625781656.jpg

And in looking for that view, I found that the lot of the Hunt house is (still?) empty:
https://www.google.com/maps/@33.5532168 ... 384!8i8192

The Staley house does have a heightened ceiling in the living room. But to add to the list, Laurent has only one ceiling height throughout.

[Rood]

If that's a photo of the Hunt site, where's the wash?

[SDR]

It would appear that the architect was interested in bridging the principal wash, and with the zig-zag nature of the north LR wall and floor, and with whether the house would touch the ground as a series of piers---or not.

The wash(es) run from south to north, or left to right, parallel to the road:




















© The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York)

[SDR]

There are several possible reasons for the shape of a residential window, and for its sill height; view is only one of them. Others might included furniture placement, privacy for occupants, even exterior architectural composition.

S

[Tom]

View of the range seems breathtaking from the shot.
Thanks for posting.

So Rood's question may be answered by the fact that the ravine runs parallel to the road. Which means the house is not oriented parallel to the range .... which means that the stepping out wall of the living room may take that form to open up and catch sight of the range. Very cool.

Finally - so should we exclude Staley from the list and be purists about it?
(The only real reason I thought to associate all these together was from my initial surprise with Staley realizing the the living room was the ONLY place in the house above 6'-7". That was a new thing for me in Wright's work - so I think I just bundled these all together instinctively.)
... or maybe just use a temporary loose association for the time being.
Do you suppose Staley is unique?

[Roderick Grant]

If the David Hunt House had been built as designed, it would have been the most spectacular of the UA houses, though, in the desert, it would be as hard to keep the temperature down as it proved to be with the Adelman House.

[SDR]

It's not unusual for a Usonian to have a higher ceiling in the main (largest, public, living) space than elsewhere in the house . . .

S

[Tom]

Further curious things.

First, there is no internal connection from the bedroom portion of the house to the living, dining, kitchen portion of the house. One must go outside to go back and forth between the two. The entire Loggia from carport to bedroom wing doors is open air.

Second, the roof projection out over the stepping living room wall is very large. Stopped me in my tracks when I just now noticed it. See dotted line on floor plan above -

[Roderick Grant]

Tom, the loggia is enclosed for 5 of the bays, but the only way into the house without going outside is to go through the kitchen. Also the bedroom to the left of the hallway/loggia does not show a door. Some very strange things going on here, but I suspect FLW was riffing.

[Tom]

Oh yeah - I see that now. The last 5 bays have glass. Yet there is no door (to plan west )enclosing the loggia - I mean at least as far as I can make out the plans. From what I can tell a person leaving the kitchen, stepping directly into the loggia is semi-outside - the doors to the bedroom suite are immediately to the east.

Line weights on this drawing are terrible. Typical doors into living room and bedrooms are very faintly drawn and seem to be double doors of glass and steel.

The lines of the unit grid are WAY too heavy.

P.S. Wait! Just took a closer look at the plan and elevation. Looks like those last 5 bays do NOT have glass - only a low block wall 3'-0" up from the floor. These 5 bays cover the span of the ravine.