"The Healy Guest House is small...only 735 square feet in area. The plan is rectangular, with a porch and a balcony on the river side. The roof is interesting: a simple catenary roof spanning 22 feet was developed, using flat steel bars at 12 inch centres, spanning between the more normal post and beam construction of the flanking sides. A sprayed plastic finish was used to complete the roof and steel tension straps employed to tie it in. The architect claims that it should have been designed as a single volume. He is right, but it was not—four separate spaces are provided under the concave ceiling."

— Dennis Sharp. Twentieth Century Architecture: a Visual History. p171.

The Creator's Words

"A tension roof structure spanning 22 ft. (I could not wait for a longer and therefore more appropriate span—which renders this an exercise in structural exhibitionism) poised at the water's edge with breathing walls and a spirit of light-heartedness. It should have been one room because of the volumes of space defined by the curving roof, but it is actually divided into four spaces, and the resultant segmental spaces are not satisfactory."

— Paul Rudolph. The Architecture of Paul Rudolph. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970. p34.