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Okay! Whoever the bozo is that runs that Frank Lloyd Wright Road Trip web site FINALLY got off his lazy butt and posted photos of the interior of the Turkel House. I'm allowed to call him a bozo, since I know him well.
Background: Because of the web site I've found that people tend to send me stuff and ask me questions. A friend that I've made over the net recently sent me these photos about a month ago. I've been working my tail off at the office, taking care of 3 people in the hospital and trying to train for a mountain biking trip to Colorado at the end of April. Other than that, I've been sitting at home nibbling on bonbons.
Without further delay.... I present to you.....
The living room
The Hall
The Balcony
There are about 60 photos on the site. You can find them by clicking HERE.
Peter, thank you for posting these very detailed pictures of Turkel to the blog. Judging by the pictures, this home has suffered some extensive water damage through the years. I foresee major restoration costs awaiting the new owners.
Peter, what would we do without you? The house actually looks better today than it did in 1989. Someone must have done a lot of work on it. Probably Monaghan. But a lot more needs to be done, obviously. At least the lurid blue carpet has been removed from the living room.
While you are in Colorado, there has been a rumor for years that a FLW Usonian was built without supervision in the Boulder suburb of Longmont. An article was written about it in the local newspaper. Check it out and post the pictures! That's a good boy.
Rgrant, I was wondering if you could share a few more details of the Usonian house in Longmont, CO? Do you know an address, subdivision or area where the house is located? The Colorado readers are anxious to check this out!
I have to go into my vault again to dig up the article from the 80s. As soon as I have it, I will pass it on. I suspect nothing will come of it. So many houses by FLW have been spotted across the land through the years, only to turn out to be something different entirely. For instance, there is supposedly a prefab in Beloit, WI, never found; a log cabin in some other town in WI built by an engineer who did some work for FLW and based on sketches not at Taliesin; someone I knew saw three Prairie-style houses in Ogden, Utah, that have never been verified or debunked. The Heath ripoff in Dallas was listed in a book as FLW, when clearly it was not. They are all worth scouting, nevertheless.
The story about the house in Longmont was published in The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 1984, Leisure & Arts, "Mr. Radinsky Rebuilds His Dream House" by Julie Salamon. In 1948, Mr. & Mrs. Earl Winters, wealthy, prominent citizens of Longmont, purchased plans for a Usonian house for $4500. They built it on a "three-quarter acre plot at the intersection of two tree-lined streets" in 1950 for $75K. This should be enough information to locate the house through permit records. The article doesn't go into detail about the look of the house, except to say that from the exterior it was "deceptively small and boxy ... partly because much of it is tucked away in the small incline on which it sits." In area it is 3800 s f on 4 levels. The Winters did not seem to like the finished product much, and soon jazzed it up with shag carpets in pink, orange, rose and rust (this was the 50s, after all). To set the kitchen apart from the main rooms, they had a divider made of wroght iron and filled with plastic flowers, then painted the kitchen pink. (Avacado, harvest gold, turquoise or coral would have been more in the mood of the times.) This must have satisfied them, because they stayed in the house until they moved to Arizona in 1979. It stood vacant for 4 years, and was finally sold to David Radinsky in 1983 for $225K. He restored the house. Since he was retirement age when he bought the house, I doubt he is still living; he is not listed in whitepages.com.
The more I read the article, the more convinced I am that this was actually not a FLW house, but possibly one by an apprentice. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to know what it's like.
it should be a fairly simple endeavor to go to the public library and look at a city directory (not the phone book) for the mid 80's and find the address
This is going a little off subject but it helps one understand how word gets out that a unknown Wright home is discovered in a community where none was ever built. The local paper where I live mentioned in the police blotter a short time ago that a Wright designed home fell victim to a attempted breakin. The notice said that a alarm went off scaring the suspect away and when the police checked the home out they found that the back sliding doors had been forced. I don't recall Mr. Wright ever using sliding doors going to the exterior of a home (but I could be wrong). I did check out the street mentioned in the notice (no street address was given) and I feel safe in saying that this was not a Wright designed home. I also find humorous how often I see homes listed for sale in this same local paper that are Wright designed homes.
