Unbuilt home--Ludington Michigan

[dkottum]

Unlike Massaro/Charoudi which was never developed to working drawings, Berdan has a complete set signed by FLLW. It is also a basic Usonian design not unlike many others Wright built in his lifetime. An easy build if built according to plan.

The authenticity issues are not whether it can be built correctly, but the change of site (although similar and nearby) and the understanding that it is a FLLW designed house built fifty some years after his death, whatever that means.

Excellent Usonian design, I would build it for us in a heartbeat if I didn't have so many other projects.

doug k

[RobertLever]

Both the Berdan and the Rentz house used louvers over the clerestory windows. There are no perforated screens over the windows. The entry hall is lit from skylights overhead.
I believe you would have trouble trying to build either the Berdan or Rentz houses today as the narrow one-module wide halls and stairways would not pass current code.
I made a modernized version of the Rentz House in SketchUp by expanding the unit module to 36 inches square, but it is no longer an authentic Wright design now.
The Berdan has one advantage over its predecessors -the Rentz and McCallum houses, these houses both have no windows in the entry hall, making it rather dark. The fact you descend a few steps to the living room level doesn't help things much. The Berdan house has a continuous row of skylights over both the entry and bedroom halls.

[SDR]

Among other favors, Robert revives this old and very interesting thread, which contains perhaps the most extended conversation I'm aware of at Wright Chat in re the replication and/or derivation of Wright's work, and at least a little (and contradictory) exploration of the ownership-and-copyright issues that the original poster's query inevitably raised . . .

S

[RobertLever]

There was an inverted plan for both the McCallum House and the Rentz House. Some drawings will exist for one version, but not the other. This led to great confusion when I was making my 3D Model of the Rentz. One version has the Entry Hall on the front of the house as in the Bachman-Wilson House. The other version has the Entry Hall along the rear of the house in line with the bedroom hall, as in the Berdan House. An alternate McCallum plan has the staircase along the front wall of the house as it would later appear in the Bachman-Wilson House. Tiny windows step up the wall along with the staircase, the stepping windows reappear in a Rentz elevation, but not the staircase.
The initial Rentz House is identical to the earlier McCallum House with the addition of a downstairs bedroom and a carport.
It appears that the inverted Rentz plan was done for a different site with a cul-de-sac behind the house, so the carport was changed to a drive through type. The inverted plan has the first floor all on one level. The Berdan House has the first floor all on one level and the site appears flat. It is a mirror image of the inverted Rentz plan.
I get the impression that tracings of the McCallum House were quickly whipped up for an immediate presentation to Rentz, and then the inverted plan was used to match the house to the site. I don't doubt that there may have been confusion, managing the work of two-dozen apprentices must have been like herding cats.
Here's the McCallum House:

Here's the initial Rentz design with two levels and window wall staircase.

This is the inverted Rentz plan:

Here is the Berdan House plan:

Note how certain elements carry on through from plan to plan, such as the fireplace/utility core and the 3 kitchen windows. The Berdan plan cuts holes in the carport roof to bring more light into the kitchen.

[SDR]

MCallum: https://library.artstor.org/#/search/Wr ... =1;size=24 T 3810

Rentz: https://library.artstor.org/#/search/Wr ... =1;size=24 T 4020

Berdan: https://library.artstor.org/#/search/Wr ... =1;size=24 T 4501

[SDR]

Note "Void" written on back of sheet

[RobertLever]

Thanks, SDR, for posting these drawings.
I had planned to upload comparative elevations as well, but I apparently exceeded an upload limit.
The top perspective of the Rentz house is the one I found on Visions of Wright and fell in love with. It's a beautiful drawing with the abundance of foliage sprouting from all the integrated planters. Thus began my misadventure trying to do a 3D model of a house based on the few low-rez, simplified, preliminary drawings that I could find. The final model has too much of me in it, but I hope that it still does some justice to the Wright original.
The inverted Rentz plan is open to the street, but a garden wall for privacy was planned. I notice that the two-level living room is shown in the inverted perspective, it did not appear in the site plan I posted. The upper terrace looks like it would confuse visitors approaching up the driveway. Perhaps the privacy wall would isolate the terrace from the driveway?
I understand that privacy wouldn't have been an issue with the Berdan House as its site was quite rural.

[g.dorn]

Its now 10 years since this original post , I wonder if anyone took up the offer and built the house.

Regardless this has been a fascinating thread and I'd like to thank Mr Robert Lever for taking the time to make up such a nice detailed sketchup model of Rentz house and posting a video on youtube of his version and story behind it. To me the upstairs bedroom has a very Wright prairie period sense about it.

My uncle engaged Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for his property just south of Ludington on Lake Michigan.

The house design is for a small--2 bedrooms and 2 baths--and quite simple house. It has two rooftop decks that seem quite cool to me. It was designed in 1945.

I am curious to know if the blueprints and renderings are marketable. We are not interested in selling the property that the house was specifically designed for, but have a similar parcel about 1 mile south on the lakeshore that we would sell.

If anyone has a sense of whether the plans (with or without lakeshore property) would be marketable please advise.