Hi all, a dream come true for me — my wife and I are the new owners and very lucky careful caretakers of the Goetsch–Winckler house. What a tremendous honor and privilege it is to steward such a beautiful work of art.
It took some time to get this account activated, so if you're a member of some of the popular Wright Facebook fangroups, you may have already seen my introductory post. I will use WrightChat primarily to discuss the finer details of the restoration, and leave social media up to promoting the end results and sharing photos along the way.
Here's where things with the home stand right now:
1. Condition. Structurally and cosmetically, all pretty good. Roof is in great shape. Plumbing is in good shape, if not just old. In-floor heating is working like a charm. The interior wood in the home is in OK shape, but it's also been through 84 years of occupancy, so one has to manage expectations here. The concrete floor has chipped in a number of places, but these should be able to be repaired. Everything is very dusty and likely has not had a deep clean in many years.
2. Paint. As others have mentioned, yes the paint around the house has been removed by the previous owner (at great expense), but this work is not entirely complete. The roof line above the alcove and the walls around the lanai area (including the inner lanai wall itself) will all still need to be stripped. My wife and I will start working on this in a few months when the weather is more amenable.
3. Bathroom fixtures. Although the home remains largely unbesmirched despite its age, the bathroom was indeed updated with modern fixtures last year. Although this was approved by the conservancy, I don't believe the update was necessary and, to me, does not maintain the architectural character of the home. Fortunately, I found the original fixtures in the basement (underneath the carport). We will clean them up and reinstall them back to their rightful place, then reglaze the bathtub from the new white back to its original color to match.
4. Lanai. The artificial turf in the lanai will be removed come spring, and we'll either replace with real grass, or possibly infill with Cherokee red concrete blocks, as has been done in the past (and looked pretty good!). We spoke to a couple landscapers who've worked on the property in previous years, and they mentioned that real grass does come with a few caveats. Apparently, the sun can reflect off the glazings on the Southern wall in the lanai in just the right way to burn the grass. There is also of course no easy access into the lanai from the outside, which makes mowing challenging. In any event, artificial turf has no business here! Previous owner also rebuilt the Western and Northern walls of the lanai (as well as patched the carport retaining wall), as there were boards that had rotted. Due to difficult in sourcing long redwood planks as would be required for this job, cypress was used instead.
5. Driveway. The red gravel on the driveway was also swapped out with a gray gravel to match the larger stones which line the planters. We plan on changing this back, but this is a low priority, luxury item on our list.
6. Landscaping. Over the years, the property has become increasingly "over-landscaped" and no longer feels "within" nature, and instead sits lonely on a grass lot with little to no organic growth. We have some ideas to ameliorate this, but no plans have been made. All I can say is that it's on our mind.
7. Pests. On the inside, there was a pretty bad carpenter ant issue at the Western-most end of the gallery hall, but we found where they were getting in, and where their outlet was on the inside of the home. Yesterday we baited the area and the ants quickly took to it. I am confident the colony will be dead when we return next weekend. There does not
appear to be any other sort of pests or rodents in the home, but that's of course what they want you to think
8. Screens. The screens are also in pretty bad shape. I'm told by the previous owner (who did not live at the home) that the occupant's dog did a number on them, particularly the screens along the French doors on the North side of the home. My wife and I will probably begin restoring those in a week or two.
9. Future plans. Lastly, this is not our primary residence. We already live in a lovely home designed by architect Francis E. "Red" Warner (a student of a student of Wright's) an hour or so North in Midland. So — big news! — when it's ready, we plan to open the home for overnight stays, as other Wright owners have graciously done. We hope that in doing so we can provide others with the opportunity to experience a rare slice of Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision for Usonia, while also subsidizing the very real and inevitable costs associated with preserving such a unique structure. This has not yet been announced widely, but I wanted to let WrightChat be the first to know. When ready, the news will be accompanied by a website and (hopefully!) some press coverage.
Thanks for reading, and I'm so happy to be a part of the community. I'll continue to post in this topic as we make progress or are in need of advice. Cheers!
