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Wright in Racine
The Freeman House
Posted by:
mhertzberg on
January 13, 2009 at
3:22PM CST
Story and photos (c) Mark Hertzberg The weather forecast says that the wind chill will be -25 when I wake up Thursday. It wouldn’t be a bad day to be Ian McCully. He lives in Los Angeles, where Thursday’s low will be about 50 (and the high will be in the 80s). I write about, and photograph, people who live in Frank Lloyd Wright houses. As if the weather isn’t enough of a bonus, McCully is paid to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house that people travel from the world over to see, even though it is not open to the public. (Wanna trade for a week, Ian?)
 McCully, the facilities coordinator for the School of Architecture at the University of Southern California, is caretaker of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Freeman House. Built into the Hollywood Hills in 1924-25, it is one of Wright’s four “textile” or concrete block homes in Los Angeles. He enjoys living there. “I am above the chaos of the city. In the morning and throughout the day you have this light that comes into the house. It’s a great contrast for me between the austerity and harshness of the concrete, and right here [in the living room and dining room] you have this openness, and it’s very airy This room is nice at night because the view is great. Downstairs [the bedroom level] is more dungeon-like.” Many people define Wright’s work by his signature horizontal Prairie-style homes in the Midwest. His work in Los Angeles is quite different from his early Prairie-style and later Usonian homes. His first LA commission, the Aline Barnsdall (or Hollyhock) House (1917), constructed with stucco over wood, reminds some observers of a Mayan temple. Wright then designed four homes, the Millard House (1923), Storer House (1923), Ennis House (1924), and the Freeman House, using his concept of building with concrete blocks rather than more conventional construction methods. The blocks, which are 16 inches square, are hollow, and designed to cool the house during the day, while trapping the sun’s heat for the evening and night. The blocks also trapped moisture, a problem which challenges today’s owners. Wright designed a different block pattern for each of the four concrete block homes. Those for the Freeman House have a tulip pattern. The Freeman House has had only two owners. It was commissioned by Harriet and Samuel Freeman. She was a modern dancer, and he was a businessman. They entertained often. Martha Graham danced in the living room and dining room which overlooks the city. The Freemans divorced, but continued to both live in the house. It was bequeathed to the university in 1985. Wright’s son, Lloyd Wright, initially supervised the project. Rudolph Schindler finished it. Mrs. Freeman is said to have had an affair with Schindler, who designed some of the furniture for the house, and enclosed a porch, turning it into a bedroom below the garage, on the lower level of the house. McCully says that USC faces a challenge beyond the physical restoration of the house. “Do you restore it to pure Frank Lloyd Wright, or put Schindler in there, as well? One camp says ‘Schindler,’ because he is such a big part of the house. One of the things Schindler did here that incensed Wright was when he painted over concrete block [there is yellow block in the Schindler bedroom below the garage].” The house sustained significant damage in January, 1994 during the Northridge earthquake which shook Los Angeles. The house is being retrofitted to make it better able to survive another earthquake. McCully opens a door on the lower level - around the corner from his bedroom - to show where concrete caissons have been sunk 45 feet underground to shore up the foundation, and anchor it to the hill. He expounds on Wright’s reasons for turning from his more typical stucco and brick homes to fashioning the concrete blocks for these four homes. “Wright’s idea with the block was to see a connection between the material of the house and the landscape. [His] vision for an alternate construction method with the block was a house attainable by the middle class. That was the impetus for the experiment. The blocks are mixed with decomposed granite dug out from the foundation of the house. When Schindler painted over the blocks, you couldn’t see that anymore. It undermined one of the design concepts, and he got angry about it.” There is no formal network between all the Los Angeles Wright homeowners. McCully knows that the massive Ennis textile block house shares some of the problems of the Freeman House, but he has not had the opportunity to tour it. He says that , the new dean of USC’s School of Architecture, is “very proactive” about having the house restored. The challenge is daunting. One of the most significant repairs will be invisible to visitors but will do nothing less than virtually assure the structural future of the house. Seismic retrofit casons have been inserted into the lower level of the house, continuing about 45 feet below grade. Countless textile blocks are in storage, and countless ones need to be replicated. In addition, the redwood Douglas fir ceiling panels must be restored. All are parts of the puzzles of restoring a home that -in Wright’s fashion- was two to three times over budget, according to McCully. In a sense McCully cannot escape work, living in the house he is helping restore. But he does not mind. “I just had a friend from out of town visit and he was in disbelief.”  These photos were shot in April, 2007. Publication was delayed until now. The house restoration is a long-term project. The photos still accurately represent the house.
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