15. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S ZIMMERMON HOUSE

Saturday December 29, 2012

After a hearty breakfast we bade farewell to our new found Bostonian family and set out on the road once more. This is the first time for us to drive in the snow... How exciting...

At the Currier Museum in Manchester town, New Hampshire we joined a tour group to see a Frank Lloyd Write designed home.

The Zimmerman House floor plan (1950) at 223 Heather Street

Wright designed the house, the interiors, all the furniture, the gardens, and even this mailbox.

The Zimmerman house from the front.

It is a Usonian home... A what? Well according to Wikipedia... 'Usonian' is a term usually referring to a group of approximately sixty middle-income family homes designed by Frank Lloyd Wright beginning in 1936 with the Jacobs House. The "Usonian Homes" were typically small, single-story dwellings without a garage, or much storage, L-shaped to fit around a garden terrace on odd (and cheap) lots, with native materials, flat roofs and large cantilevered overhangs for passive solar heating and natural cooling, natural lighting with clerestory windows, and radiant-floor heating. A strong visual connection between the interior and exterior spaces is an important characteristic of all Usonian homes. The word carport was coined by Wright to describe an overhang for sheltering a parked vehicle... Anyways...

During our last visit to the USA we toured and loved two other Usonian houses, one called Kentuck Knob just down the road from Falling Water in Pensilvania and the other was the Pope-Leigh house in Virginia.

Why do we love Usonian homes so much I hear you asking? Well we'll tell you. Unlike so many Wright buildings, these ones are relatively modest in scale... None of your "grand designs" stuff here. Relatively affordable homes that regular people could live in without the need for servants to clean or a GPS to navigate. That's not to say they are ordinary as they are detailed to perfection.

To keep them small and affordable they intentionally did not have some features of regular american homes such as an attic, an enclosed garage, or a basement.

Front again

The whole house is designed on a 13 inch module which works with the brick coursing. The timber boarding above is 10 inches wide with a 3 inch back board... Even the furniture inside works on a 13 inch module... Ok so it's only interesting to architects but it creates a sort of harmony that you are not conscious of. Ok, enough already...

The small precast concrete windows along with a thickly planted rhododendron in the front were designed to provide privacy from the street.

Whereas the front is enclosed and private, the rear is almost fully glazed and faces south to allow a full garden view and let in winter sun.

Nice icicles

The carport (Wrights invention) seen from the back.

As we were not permitted to take interior photos I have gleaned (like a good bethelite) these from the web.

The entry with its books and a built in record player cabinet. Mr Zimmermans record collection contained 300 classical records, some FLW recordings and one copy of Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel containing the song So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=Cf0RrF6KsI8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DCf0RrF6KsI8

Doctor and Mrs. Zimmerman had no children so they donated the house to the museum in 1988 when they died. All of their stuff is still here.

As all of the furniture was custom designed for the house and a lot was built in such as the banquet seething along the wall their. When the Zimmerman's moved in in 1952 all they brought was this piano and an art collection.

The floor is heated concrete with wool rugs on top. The walls and windows were designed to be art so there are no paintings on them, just 3D objects for decoration. No plasterboard anywhere either. Just brick, timber, concrete and glass.

The fire place

The dining room to the right

The kitchen with its 1952 appliances

The built-in bedroom storage.

So that's the end of the tour...

 

But... just a few doors down the same street there happens to be another FLW house... A very different one at that...

The Kalil House from 1955 (117 Heather Street)

This privately owned house is up for sale.

"Homeowner John Kalil, 89, says he plans to sell the Frank Lloyd house he inherited to a buyer who wants to live in a "Wright home." (Globe staff photo/Geoff Forester)"

The Boston Globe, July 7, 2005. By Jenny Donelan, Globe Correspondent

Interior Photographs by Geoff Forester, Globe staff photographer

Looks a bit lonley

Sitting in his favorite spot in thr home

"So long, Frank Lloyd Wright"

 

We ar going to Holderness New Hampshire

By now its fully snowing and we are on our way to our next destination. The weather eventually slows the traffic to 15 miles per hour so it's dark when we arrive. Fortunately for us we missed out on participating in a 23 car pile up along the way.

Once we eventually found the address I managed bog the car in their driveway. Luckily it was the right address. It wasn't that serious a bogging...

Meet our new New Hampshire friends, Cindy, Mick, and Cameron. The other son is in Patterson bethel. Yet again we were very warmly welcomed into their home as family. Thank you again Kim for introducing us to your friends. Thank you Jehovah for our world wide brotherhood.

Its -6 Celsius outside but you wouldn't know it in here. The fire is on and we are having Mexican enchiladas for dinner.

Well blog again soon

Lloyd and Alexandra

 

 

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