Frank Lloyd Wright

1950-1955 GROWING UP WRIGHT

DAVID AND GLADYS WRIGHT HOUSE 1950 - 1955


Set of 31 historic photographs. David & Gladys Wright House 1950-1955. Frank Lloyd Wright designed this home for his fourth child David, in March, 1950. Wright called the design "How to live in the Southwest", and was published in the June 1953, "House & Home." The lot was located in the middle of a citric grove, so Wright designed the living space to float above the tree line. David owned a company that manufactured and distributed concrete block. The decorative blocks were designed specifically for this home. Others were standard blocks manufactured by his company. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. As originally designed by Wright, when visitors approach the home from the drive, they walk under the main level, across the garden court, past the pool, under the master bedroom which cantilevers over the ramp, to the base of the ramp. To the left is the massive circular column which houses the bath/changing room. The second level of the column is the master bedroom fireplace. Although the column anchors the eastern end of the home,		the main level cantilevers past it and seems to float above the ground. As you continue up the ramp, the outer side of the circular ramp is enhances with one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most elaborate built-in planters. It follows the full length of the ramp, and includes built-in lighting and a babbling brook. As you reach the top of the ramp you reach the entrance on the main level. To the right of the entrance is a balcony and circular ramp, which wraps around the kitchen to the rooftop sundeck above the living room. Upon entering the living room, the floor to ceiling windows on the left open out to a balcony overlooking the garden court. The dining room on is one the right, and behind the fireplace on the right is the kitchen. The three floor to ceiling double doors on the right open to a circular balcony that wraps around the dining room and all three bedrooms. The gallery on the left lead to the three bedrooms. Windows open and overlook the garden court.

Ground Level.

Main Level.

1) Viewed from the Northeast, circa 1950-51. Footing channel can be seen in the foreground. Excavation has begun for the pool to the left. Supporting piers can be seen in the background. A couple can be seen in the center, female (seated, large hat), male (standing), most likely David and Gladys Wright. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-1)

2) Viewed from the North, circa 1950-51. Footing channel can be seen in the foreground for the storage. Supporting piers can be seen in the background. The ground floor Utility / A/C room is on the right. A couple can be seen in the center, male (seated), female (standing with large hat), most likely David and Gladys Wright. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-2)

3) Viewed from the Northeast, circa 1950-51. Excavation for the pool is in the foreground. Supporting piers can be seen in the background. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-3)

4) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1950-51. Work is underway on the circular ramp and storage room. Framework for the doorway can be seen at the end of the storage area. Excavation for the pool is on the left. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-4)

5) Viewed from the Southwest, circa 1950-51. Work is underway on the circular ramp and storage room. Framework for the doorway is set in place. The back wall of the storage room is seen in the background. 10 x 6 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-5)

6) Viewed from the Southwest, circa 1950-51. The utility room is in the foreground. The circular ramp and storage room are on the left in the background. Framework for the doorway is set in place. 10 x 6 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-6)

7) Viewed from the Southwest, circa 1950-51. Work is underway on the circular ramp and storage room. Framework for the doorway is set in place. The back wall of the storage room is seen in the background. 10 x 6 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-7)

8) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1950-51. Supporting pier is on the left. Changing room/bath and supporting pier is in the center. Above the bath on the main level is a fireplace, that continues up through the roof and becomes one of the two large round chimneys that extend above the roof line. Pool area and ramp can be seen on the right. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-8)

9) Circa 1950-51. Massive framework for setting the concrete slab for the floor of the main level. Seven decorative blocks that cover the edges of the slab are set in place. Two supporting piers can be seen below. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-9)

10) Circa 1950-51. Rebar is set in place, and preparation is made for poring the concrete slab for the "upper" main level. Decorative blocks can be seen on the left, which have been set in place and are designed to contain the concrete. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-10)

11) Circa 1950-51. A section of the concrete slab for the "upper" main level has been poured. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-11)

12) Viewed from the North, circa 1950-51. The walls of the pool and ramp are complete. The circular pool bath is in the center. Work continues on the concrete slab for the "upper" main level. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-12)

13) Viewed from the Northeast, circa 1950-51. The pool has been filled. The circular pool bath is on the right. The female standing in the center is possibly Gladys Wright. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-13)

14) Viewed from the West, circa 1950-51. The pool has been filled. The circular pool bath is on the right. Two males playing in the pool. One could possibly be David’s son David Lloyd Wright and a friend. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-14)

15) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1950-51. Work continues on the concrete slab for the "upper" main level. Circular slab to the left of center is the slab for the living room. The section on the right is the lower level storage area, doorway is visible. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-15)

16) Viewed from the North, circa 1951. The concrete slab for the "upper" main level is complete. Work on the walls have begun. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-16)

17) Viewed from the North, circa 1951. View of the master bedroom which cantilevers to the left. The concrete slab for the "upper" main level is complete. Work on the walls have begun. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-17)

18) Viewed from the East, circa 1951. View of the bedrooms, the master bedroom cantilevers over the ramp on the right. The concrete slab for the "upper" main level is complete. Work on the walls have begun. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. (S#0831.37.0614-18) Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family.

19) Viewed from the South, circa 1951. View of the bedrooms, the master bedroom cantilevers over the ramp on the right. The walls along this section are complete. The solid walls with the half circular windows are the bath walls. The main bath on the left, the master bath on the right. The floor to ceiling openings will be double doors that open outward to the balcony that runs the full length of the upper level. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-19)

20) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1951. View of the entrance. Work continues on the walls. On the lower level, the storage area is on the right. On the main level (upper), the completed wall on the left is the coat closet. The figures are most likely the Wrights and two additional female friends. The ramp on the right leads to the ground level. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-20)

21) Viewed from the East, circa 1951. View of the dining room (left), kitchen (center) and fireplace (right), from the living room. The three half-circular windows in the solid wall are in the dining room. The larger circular window in the center is in the kitchen. Work continues on the walls of the mail level. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-21)

22) Viewed from the East, circa 1951. View of the dining room (left), kitchen (center) and fireplace (right), from the living room. The half-circular window in the solid wall is in the dining room. The larger circular window in the center is in the kitchen. Work continues on the fireplace and walls of the mail level. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-22)

23) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1951. The walls and roof are complete. Waiting for installation of windows. The three openings on the left, on the main level are the doorways of the middle bedroom, which opens outward onto the long circular balcony. The solid wall with the upper half-circular window is the master bedroom. The master bedroom is on the right. Camelback Mountain can be seen in the background on the right. 7 x 3 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-23)

24) Viewed from the Northwest, circa 1953. Photographed from the entrance on the ground level. As visitors approach the home from the drive, they walk under the main level, across the garden court to the base of the ramp, up the circular ramp to the entrance on the main level. The lower level of the large massive column houses the bath/changing room for the pool. The second level of the column is the master bedroom fireplace. Although the column anchors the eastern end of the home, the main level cantilevers past it and seems to float above the ground. The master bedroom is on the left, the bedroom gallery is on the right. Photographed by Pedro E. Guerrero for the June issue of House & Home. 10 x 6.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#831.37.0614-24)

25) Viewed from the South, circa 1953. The circular kitchen is on the left of the main level. The solid wall with the three half-circular windows is the dining room. The living room is to the right. Three double doors open out to the long circular balcony. Between the living room and the master bedroom on the far right are two additional bedroom and two bathrooms. The circular ramp on the left, which wraps around the kitchen, leads from the outer entrance on the main level to the rooftop sundeck above the living room. Camelback Mountain can be seen in the background on the left. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-25)

26) Viewed from the South, circa 1953. The circular kitchen is on the left of the main level. The solid wall with the three half-circular windows is the dining room. The living room is to the right. Three double doors open out to the long circular balcony. A bedroom is on the right. The circular ramp on the left, which wraps around the kitchen, leads from the outer entrance on the main level to the rooftop sundeck above the living room. Landscaping is sparse. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-26)

27) Viewed from the Northeast, circa 1955. Landscaping is mature. The circular ramp in the foreground rises to the upper main level. The cantilevered master bedroom is on the left. Just to the right of the massive chimney are the windows in the gallery. The large windows to the right of the gallery is the living room. The entrance is to the right. 10 x 5.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-27)

28) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1955. The circular ramp on the right rises to the upper main level. The cantilevered master bedroom is on the right. Camelback Mountain can be seen in the background on the far right. 10 x 6.75 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-28)

29) Viewed from the Southeast, circa 1955. The outer side of the circular ramp is enhances with one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most elaborate built-in planters. It follows the full length of the ramp, and includes built-in lighting and a babbling brook. Hence the herons. Camelback Mountain can be seen in the background. 10 x 6.5 B&W photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-29)

30) Viewed from the South, circa 1955. The outer side of the circular ramp is enhances with one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most elaborate built-in planters. It follows the full length of the ramp, and includes built-in lighting and a babbling brook. Hence the herons. Camelback Mountain can be seen in the background. 10 x 6.5 color photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-30)

31) Viewed from the South, circa 1955-60. The circular kitchen is on the left of the main level. The solid wall with the three half-circular windows is the dining room. The living room is to the right. Three double doors open out to the long circular balcony. Between the living room and the master bedroom on the far right are two additional bedroom and two bathrooms. The circular ramp on the left, which wraps around the kitchen, leads from the outer entrance on the main level to the rooftop sundeck above the living room. Camelback Mountain is in the background. 10 x 5.75 color photograph. Courtesy of the David & Gladys Wright family. (S#0831.37.0614-31)

BACK

GROWING UP WRIGHT

(Note, due to the fact that the internet is constantly changing, and items that
are posted change, I have copied excerpts of the text, but give all the credits available.)

Growing Up Wright
by Jaimee Rose
March 14, 2009
The Arizona Republic

The house has its back to the street.

A circle on a street of squares, it is curled away from the world, keeping secrets.

It still says "Wright" on the mailbox. Tourists like to pose next to it and take pictures, entranced by the old-fashioned black stick-on letters that seem to say it all.

For 57 years, this was the Arcadia home of David and Gladys Wright. They had movie stars over for dinner, Japanese architects over for tea and their three granddaughters over for graham crackers and lemonade. In later years, the Wrights kept to themselves, shooing tourists away from the orchard and rerouting buses from the front drive.

Of the hundreds of homes Frank Lloyd Wright designed, just two were for his children. One is in Maryland, and this is the other, a 1951 spiral design crafted from concrete block and nestled in the Valley's citrus groves.

David - Frank's son - lived in the house until he died at age 102. His wife, Gladys, died last year at 104. They outlived their only son. Their three granddaughters have listed the house for sale for $3.5 million. To the busloads, the cameras and the curious, this isn't a home so much as an homage. David honored his famously fussy father, leaving the home pristinely original, right down to the custom-made kitchen trash can.

The house is an important piece of the Frank Lloyd Wright oeuvre, spiraling up like the Guggenheim to let breezes through, lifting the living room above a canopy of citrus trees that Frank called the lawn. This house, Frank said, was how to live in the desert.

Admirers walk through and note the original rug, woven with Frank's trademark bright circles and lines. They sigh over the dining-room table and Frank Lloyd Wright-designed chairs, which convey to the next owner. The lucky ones get to glimpse Frank's careful, blocked handwriting on the house plans, which are stored in the closet. Even Gladys' pink shag toilet-seat cover is intact.

But to David's three granddaughters who grew up next door, this was Grandma and Grandpa's house, imbued with a different sort of magic. The kitchen always smelled like citrus. That geometric rug Great-Grandpa designed made the best racetrack for toy cars. And those famous end tables are beloved because Grandma's homemade chocolate birthday cakes were always served on top.

This is the home of a family - a normal family with memories both happy and hard that lived in a famous house with a famous name on the mailbox and a famous patriarch that made the world more lovely but family life tough.

"People lived there," says Ann Wright-Levi, one of David's granddaughters. "I think my grandfather knew what they had there, that it is a legacy.

"There are memories there of growing up and running through the grove and having family get-togethers for holidays," says Wright-Levi, 50, of Phoenix. "My kids remember Grandpa (David) dancing around on the carpet with them, and standing on his feet, the piano playing."

"We didn't really know who Frank Lloyd Wright was," says Kimberly Lloyd Wright, 52, Ann's sister, "that he was this renowned, famous architect."

"To us, it's just a home," says Karen Robertson, 47, the third of David's granddaughters. "We grew up in it."

Life as a Wright

Being one of Frank Lloyd Wright's great-granddaughters means the following things:

You have divine inherited furniture. You grew up with "Lloyd" as your middle name, when all the other girls were Gayle and Marie. And you have a legacy as belligerent as it is brilliant. Frank was known for his cantankerous, picky, self-important streak. These traits conveyed.

Even David required appointments for their visits. Mind you, they lived next door. In the house, they weren't allowed past the living room. "We didn't have refrigerator rights," Kimberly says. And if they wanted to go swimming with Grandma, bathing caps were required.

"God forbid I break her butter dish," Kimberly says. "She (didn't) even have a TV."

Living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house can mean the following things:

Your roof leaks. A lot. (From Gladys Wright's diary, dated July 27, 1952: Heavy rain in the evening. Many leaks.) If Frank ever came to visit, "he would come in and rearrange everything the way he wanted it, and as soon as he'd leave, they'd put it all back again," Karen says.

And in building the house, you had to deal with Frank himself. An arduous task, even if he is your father.

David and Frank wrote many letters back and forth during the 1951 construction. The originals are now for sale through Alcuin Books in Scottsdale for $40,000. Those letters and Gladys' only remaining diary, which covers 1950-54, share a glimpse into life constructing and living in this house.

A letter dated Sept. 14, 1950, from David to his father reads:

You have me wondering if I am wrong in assuming that you are planning a house for Gladys and David Wright . . . I want a Frank Lloyd Wright house, you may be sure, but I don't want a house worked out on a general plan, adaptable as an idea. 90% Frank Lloyd Wright but 10% for Gladys and David Wright would be about the right proportion . . .

On Sept. 23, Frank wrote back:

Dear Dave: You make your old father tired.

Kimberly, the eldest granddaughter, has one photo of herself with Frank before he died. She's a baby, and he is pointing his finger at her.

"He looks mean," she says, laughing.

Man of the house

David and Gladys weren't the kind of grandparents that cuddled and coddled, the sisters say. They both had difficult childhoods.

Frank left his first wife - David's mother, Catherine - and went abroad with Mamah Cheney. (Their love story inspired the recent best-seller "Loving Frank.") The sisters say he told a teenage David that he was now the man of the house.

"We didn't have all the warm fuzzies," Kimberly says. But in small ways, they felt their grandparents' love. Gladys made all their doll clothes and baked those birthday cakes.

"One day, I caught them holding hands," Kimberly remembers.

The girls' father was Gladys' only son. He died when the girls were teenagers.

"When he passed, (Grandpa) was devastated," Kimberly says. "He promised my father that he would take care of us, but he was very devastated."

David and Gladys liked life just so: "Hamburgers on Monday, hot dogs on Tuesday, Grandma went to the grocery store on Wednesday," Karen remembers. Grandpa cooked and carved the Thanksgiving turkey every year. There was even a right way to water the trees and a wrong way, and much ado was made of both.

"It's genetic," Kimberly says, giggling. In David and Gladys' house, Frank built the headboards into the walls, so that the beds would always face the way he imagined. He built all the furniture because he hated to see someone else's ideas inhabiting in his design.

From Gladys' diary, dated Jan. 30, 1952: Out to see Father. I wonder just whom this house belongs to.

Life in Phoenix

"My grandfather didn't care what his father thought," Karen says. But David and Gladys sure loved that house.

(Gladys' diary, dated Dec. 15. 1951: Out to see progress on house - beautiful in moonlight. So calm.)

Frank had conceived the home to be built of wood, but David was a principal at Besser Block and asked that it be constructed of concrete blocks instead. This, he felt, made it "his Taj Mahal," his creation as much as his father's, Karen says.

In the beginning, David and Gladys were anxious to show off the house. Gladys kept a leather guest book engraved with "The Wrights" in gold. It comes with the house.

"It was open season." Karen says. "Anyone could come in."

Movie star Anne Baxter came to stay with them. She was one of Frank's granddaughters. There were architects from Japan and Taliesin, Frank's estate in Spring Green, Wis. House Beautiful came and did a write-up, calling the home a "modern castle in the air" and "one of the most exquisite examples of the romance and beauty (Frank) has brought . . . to American life."

Gladys and David lived worthy of such a home. Her diary is filled with dinners at El Chorro and Macayo's, lunch at the Camelback Inn, new red shoes. She worries over whether to join a country club, then reports on symphonies and cocktails at the Biltmore with Frank in a rare "charming mood."

Jan 28, 1951: Are we popular? Finally home all a date straight. Snowing again. Ate too much.

Letting go

Things changed when their father died at age 49, the sisters say, leaving their grandparents quiet and broken-hearted. They tired of the tourists, the magazines, the attention.

"Grandma would say, 'I can't go to dinner. The media will find out that I'm going to be out,' " Kimberly says.

Frank had died in 1959, and David asked the architects at Taliesin West to stop calling about tours.

"This (house) was their life," says Karen, who cared for her grandparents in their later years. "They never left it, and they never wanted to. They wanted to live and die in their home."

It would be hard for the sisters to live there today, they say. There are too many memories and too little closet space.

The glory of the house is that nothing has been renovated in 57 years. This means feeling Frank's spirit but also a dark master bathroom the size of today's walk-in pantries. There isn't a speck of granite or travertine. The ceiling, cabinets and furniture are all made of Philippine mahogany. The house's glass windows curl around a precious view of Camelback Mountain and a courtyard decorated with jasmine and bougainvillea. David and Gladys liked to pose there for pictures.

The sisters decided together to let the house go.

"I love the architecture," says Kimberly, whose Scottsdale home is filled with pieces from her grandparents' life, including screens from Japan and a ship Frank dragged back from his travels. "I would love to have a Frank Lloyd Wright home. But it would have to be me. This is Grandma and Grandpa."

Ann still comes by sometimes and walks her dogs through the orchard, where she used to play as a girl.

"There's a feeling there," she says. "I haven't quite put my finger on it. I think it's kind of bittersweet, thinking that they're not there and that someday, somebody else might be."