The Bootleg Homes of Frank Lloyd Wright by Bob Hartnett

Author:Bob Hartnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

With this type of reputation, surely Wright would have known of their work.

Of the two homes in question that McKim, Mead & White designed, one was called the Appleton House, and it was built in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1884 for Julia Amory Appleton. The second home was for John Cowdin. This commission was completed one year later, in 1885. The home was in a town called Far Rockaway, which is on Long Island, in New York.

Both homes have the butterfly floor plan that is seen in Wright’s plan for the Cooper house. The room assignments and locations are different, and Wright’s plan includes three wings, while the plans from the office of McKim, Mead & White only include two. All three homes have a main entry that opens onto a large hall that is then flanked by the wings of the house. Each home is designed with the dining room set to the rear of the house and to the left of center. Both the Appleton house and the Cowdin house would have had rooms separated by interior walls and doors, while Wright’s design is open and has fewer closeable doorways. The exterior of the Appleton home was done in the Colonial Revival style, and the Cowdins’ home, named Wave Crest, was done in the shingle style. Tragically, both houses were destroyed by fire. The Appleton home burned to the ground in 1905. Twelve years later, in 1917, the Cowdin home met the same fate when it, too, was consumed by a fire.

The story of the Cooper house plan does not lend itself to being categorized as a bootleg commission. It is unclear when or if Wright and Henry Cooper ever met to discuss this plan, and if they had met prior to the execution of Cooper’s 1887 home, then the dates for any meetings do not coincide with the bootleg phase.

It has been documented that the dates of some of Wright’s earlier works were less than exact. Wright has compounded the problem himself by adding notes or comments to completed drawings well after a plan was drawn up. The first drawing in the set of three Wright completed for the Cooper house plan has words written on the right-hand margin of the drawing; the two lines say:

Made while at U.W.

Before going to Chicago 1885.

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