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BBuck is right about getting back to the business at hand, so here is a query that I would like to pose for group discussion because the early work is not my strength. I have been re-reading the Autobiographies and in the 1943 volume Wright talks at length about La Miniatura. The context is below (p. 241 in the old second printing my high school librarian kindly gave me when the school was dismantled).
The Millards had lived in a little wooden dwelling I had built for them fifteen years ago at Highland Park near Chicago. I was proud now to have a client survive the first house and ask me to build a second. Out of one hundred and seventy-two buildings this made only the eleventh time it had happened.
Recognizing, of course, Wright's occasional penchant for exaggeration:
What were those 11 clients and buildings by 1943 in Wright's career?
How many second time clients did Wright have in his entire career, including Projects?
1. The Littles
2. Darwin D. Martin
3. Charnley
4. Coonley
5. Edward C. Waller
6. Thomas H. Gale
7. E.J. Kaufmann
8. Herbert F. Johnson
9. The Jacobs
10. Stephem M.B. Hunt
11. Susan Dana
12. Robie Lamp
13. Mrs. Millard
14. Arthur Richards
15. Sherman Booth
After 1943:
1. The Lindholms
2. Carl Penfield
3. Max Hoffman
4. Harold Price, Sr.
That's a really quick go at it. I'm sure I've missed some, and some repeat clients straddle the 1943 date (Jacobs, Johnson, etc.). Feel free to edit and/or correct this list, and I'll revisit it myself when I get a bit more time to think about it and look at it again.
Last edited by Wrightgeek on Mon Feb 15, 2010 11:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
What are the parameters here? Are we talking about clients who built at least two residences for themselves? Two buildings of any kind? Must they be realized projects?
Barnsdall and the Kaufmans built guesthouses and commissioned various other unrealized designs but only one home for themselves. The Coonleys commissioned and built several structures in Riverside, but only one was their house. Booth was a developer; only one of the houses he built was his. This was also the pattern for Walter Gale, not mentioned in the lists above. Lindholm, Johnson, Hoffman and Price would also not qualify if only residential buildings count.
If non-residential and unbuilt both qualify, you could add the Adelmans (the younger ones, I believe), who commissioned a laundry plant, and the Morrises, who commissioned a house in addition to their store.
Wright's claim was that the Millards were the eleventh repeat clients as of 1922, which looks like his characteristic hyperbole.
Larkin Company- After the construction of the administration building they built the Jamestown Expostion Pavilion in Virginia (1907). They also commissioned a design for worker housing that was not realized.
William Heath - Built his Buffalo Prairie house around 1904, returned to Wright to commission an auto/chauffeurs wing in 1911. Directed the design for the Buffalo Filling Stations for Elmer E. Harris Co. in 1927.
Walter Davidson- Built his prairie house in Buffalo in 1907, returned to Wright in the late 1920's for the design of Co-op Farm units, Markets, gift shop, and canned goods graphic designs.
Arch Oboler- multiple projects
John Gillin- Dallas residence + unrealized designs
Donald & Virginia Lovness- initial residence + unrealized cottages
Wright also designed a branch bank building for Sherman Tonkens which was never realized. As I recall, the building, which was designed in the 1950's, included one of the earliest drive-through teller windows.
Several of the presentation drawings for the bank building are framed and on display in the gallery/hallway of the Tonkens Residence near Cincinnati.
Donald and Virginia Lovness initially had a "Studio" designed which they then built themselves and used as their residence.
Later, they built a near copy of the Seth Peterson Cottage, which Storrer does not catalogue as Wright's. This became an alternate living space.
Wright then designed three additional "cottages" for them which designs are part of the sale price of their compound.
Nesbitt hired Wright to re-design the interior of the Ennis house when he owned it. He also hired Wright to design a house (unbuilt) for him in Carmel.
Now that the computer is clean of double letter viruses, I can thank everyone for this thread. I find myself making lists and charts and assemblages of images all the time as I organize my thoughts...but this list was off my momentary radar. Thanks to everyone. I hope to make a visual component to the list sometime in the future unless someone beats me to it. Palli