AULDBRASS 2021

[Tom]

LC Sister 1

LC Sister 1

[Tom]

"According to lore, Frank Lloyd Wright was approached by the Ford Motor Company in the late 1930's with a revolutionary idea in product placement. Ford was interested in creating an advertising campaign stating that the twenty most prestigious Americans all drove Ford Motor Cars. Frank Lloyd Wright was on that list. The only way Ford could guarantee that all these twenty Americans were driving a Ford Motor Car was to provide each and every one of them with a brand new car all manufactured by Ford. Mr. Wright's response was understandable, of course, he would accept the offer but since he had two residences he would require two automobiles. When Ford was confronted with his proposal their response was simple, "That's not the deal." Wright's response was equally simple. "Then I'm not interested." When Ford finally agreed to the two-car option Wright responded saying, "Okay, here's the color I want you to paint the car."

[SDR]

Thanks for the photos, Tom. Could you supply us with the source of that quote ?

Here is our previous discussion on the topic. http://wrightchat.savewright.org/viewto ... f=2&t=8781 I don't know if an anecdote about Wright ordering two Continentals and, as he left the showroom, announcing that he didn't intend to pay for them, is mentioned anywhere in this thread---but in rereading Richie Herink this morning I find that he claims that during his lifetime Mr Wright "purchased 19 Ford Motor Company-built Ford, Mercury and Lincoln automobiles" (p 3). Herink's book was preceded in publication by "Frank Lloyd Wright & His Automobiles," by Mary Jane Hamilton.

S

[Tom]

LC Sister 2 Zephyr Cabriolet

LC Sister 2 Zephyr Cabriolet

[Tom]

"The 1940 Cabriolet was only the 16th one built in December 1939. It was the first Continental to be delivered through the Milwaukee Wholesale branch. It was damaged early in its life by one of Mr.Wright's associates when it rolled over in a foggy Wisconsin night. When he realized the cost of replacing the convertible top and the damaged windshield, Wright decided he could better redesign the car anyway. The car was customized at Kayser Motors in Madison Wisconsin and Wright did all those things that he was known for, even eliminating the rear window completely. "I'm only interested in where I'm going, not where I've been," while adding two silly half-round opera windows on the sides and taking out the roof over the driver completely.
The second car -the 1941 Coupe- was pretty much stock, with a couple of Wright adjustments. Both cars were painted the same Cherokee Red color, and have been restored to the way they were when Wright owned them, to the best of our ability."

[Tom]

LC Sister 2 Zephyr Cabriolet

[Tom]

The captions in quotations come from a sign in front of the Zephyr Cabriolet. No attribution beyond the last sentence was given. I don't know for a fact but I think there is an Auldbrass staff and organization under Silver's direction that maintains the house and grounds 24/7. The cars are probably another one of their special projects.

[Tom]

Front yard. Very cold and rainy morning. Entry gate to the right and just under and way beyond the small arch made by the tree limb.
Uplights at bottom of the trees - I bet this place looks pretty cool at night. A docent told us there are 6000 ft of underground utilities in the complex.

[Tom]

At the point on which this shot is taken a stream passes under the slab and tributes to the stream seen in the shot. Here, the building separates and the slab becomes a small bridge and a circulation pass thru. This is not the main house. Entry to the property is stage right.

[Tom]

Standing in the same spot and moving the camera to the left the ground is level to the slab.
Down from the top left-hand corner is Wright's Lincoln facing the screened-in porch of the kitchen end of the main house the north end.
To the right is the front of the property and entry from the road. To the left is the back and the depth of the property where the lake is. The lake is just behind the Lincoln.
This is the spot where they stopped the fire. Behind the camera everything burned. They chopped down the roof above so the fire could not jump the gap and all buildings in front of the camera were saved.

[SDR]

Thanks ! Great stuff. What did it smell like, and sound like, there in the rain . . .?

S

[Tom]

Well, until this visit I did not realize that these "ornaments" actually function as downspouts or rain chains. I simply thought they were abstracted hanging moss ornaments there for their own sake. You know you are an unreconstructible Frank Lloyd Wright nerd when you are excited to be standing in the freezing cold in the rain to see these marvels in action. And yes, the sound of the water from these spouts and the edge of the roof was a real presence - no question. In some cases, not all, the spouts drained into hexagonal grates in the ground. This shot above is taken in back of the main house (lakeside) - the interior behind the glass is the livingroom, to the right is a side entrance to the master suite.

This shot is taken on the front of the main house. The area behind the glass is the passage between kitchen and the central part of the main house. Kitchen is to the left, main house entry to the right. The vertical white thing behind the copper hanging moss spout is a tent pole. They had tents set up to keep us dry while waiting around.
Originally these copper spouts were not manufactured due to expense and wood substitutes were installed which proved too heavy and so poles were added that supported them from the ground. Silver has had all of the original spout designs manufactured in copper and installed.

[Tom]

Mechanics "Shed"
No interior shots are allowed but this room is unenclosed.
A similar skylight is done at TWest but the triangles there
meet at the point and not on their sides as here at Auldbrass.

[Tom]

Poolside. In the background, you can just see the small marvelously scaled copper-roofed "arch" or inner "gate" or ceremonial entrance to the precinct of the buildings proper. It's just to the right of the distant tree. It is visible as a small opening or break in the horizontal line of the building, almost (but not quite)dead center of the shot.

They had fires going. First time in my life I've ever been in a Wright home with fires in the fireplace (all gas at Auldbrass).
The fire in this shot is in the small study just behind the livingroom. There is a gorgeous glass and metal lamp from the Heath House hanging from the ceiling there. The tall rectangular brown door in the brick wall left of center in the shot is a utility room. This is the door directly over which one of those large steel cantilevered beams rests and which the tie down splits into two steel rods inside the brick on either side of the door.

[Tom]

It probably should be pointed out that except for the famous large steel beams in the living room the structure of this building is utterly and totally exposed everywhere you look.
On the thread Auldbrass Wall Sections, SDR has posted drawings showing the wall panel construction where the boards on the interior are angled in the opposite direction to the boards on the exterior. Thus the wall panels provide X-bracing to the surrounding frame. It's brilliant. I didn't realize this until after leaving. Looking at the photographs it's hard to tell if this is actually the way the house was built. I have made this mistake each time I've gone down there. I will not make that mistake again. Next time I go I'm going to make sure I know everything I possibly can about this place. Without doing that it's like going to Rome and not having a clue what you're looking at.
One thing that concerned me was observing the water from the rain approaching the bottom edges of the walls at the slab. The rain soaked the slab all the way under the eaves, but in many places, there was a dry margin of about six inches away from the wall. You can see it in the bottom shot. Hard to think that is by design. In several spots there was no dry margin, the bottom of the wood was soaking in the water.
Finally one of the highlights of the tour was a chandelier at the end of the small hall in the main house just outside the last bedroom. The docent said it was from the Pearl Palace. I don't like the Pearl Palace, but this piece was beautiful and it makes the wood glow. It's a sphere the size of a basketball, like a giant pearl, made of white frosted glass, clear-cut glass, and thin pieces of stainless steel. The lines are Wrightian of course and resemble the leaves of a closed bud before it blooms very similar to the chair backs in these shots.