"...The living areas were more spacious, with an enlarged dining alcove, a 100-sq-ft study, and redesigned service core. By incorporating the heater at floorslab level, Wright was able to omit the small basement, together with its stair. This allowed extra circulation space and made the core an island with alternative routes about it, enhancing the house's apparent spaciousness. The bedroom wing of three rooms was terminated by a second bathroom.

"The house is the purest example of the Usonian. It incorporates detailing improvements and combines all the standard elements in a mature and spatially varied interior. Its exterior has an almost overpowering horizontality. The street facade forms a cypress wall from which springs the carport, a 20-ft cantilever utilizing concealed steelwork. Ten years after construction, the Rosenbaums had Wright extend the house. It thus became the first Usonian to be radically altered, something which owners of Wright houses were loath to do, but which he himself always saw as potentially inherent in an organic building. This addition backed a second L onto the first, containing a Japanese garden. With four sons in the family, extra sleeping accommodations were required. A quiet guest room terminated one arm, and the other contained a family kitchen, bunk-playroom, and utility room with second carport."

— John Sergeant. Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses: The Case for Organic Architecture. p42.

The Creator's Words

"The more any building as Idea is true to the Idea itself the better I like the building. The more it is likely to be in itself a free wholeness of expression of the Idea. It stands then for the ideal building that would be wholesome as a work of art. And the more the home is a work of art in our society now the better even for the selfish property instincts of the owner.

"What is called 'efficiency' among us is to be regarded with suspicion, or impatience, because it has too little sympathy with the deficiency that now goes with it....I believed that all was possible if in full accord with nature. I believed that less than this was the result of either poverty or sin."

— Frank Lloyd Wright. from Frank Lloyd Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright: A Testament. p108.

Details

Address

117 Riverview Drive
Florence, Alabama 35630