Inside Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hidden Woodland Utopia

[gentle music] [birds chirping]

Frank Lloyd Wright designed these houses

with the objective of making them out of natural products

and providing people an opportunity to be close with nature.

Fairly simple structures,

and yet one that was special,

not like a cookie cutter house that everybody else had.

My name's Brian Renz.

My family and I are owners of the Frank Lloyd Wright

Bertha and Sol Friedman house,

also known as Toy Hill here in a community called Usonia,

which is part of Pleasantville, New York.

Usonia as a community started way back in the '40s

when two architects in the city decided

to be interested in a cooperative community.

Frank Lloyd Wright assisted in this.

He helped lay out the roads,

he helped lay out plans for the properties.

We've had the opportunity to meet the Friedman family,

and as a matter of fact, we even have a video.

It showed this house being built

and other neighborhood houses,

including Frank Lloyd Wright being present

and active on the site.

Not aware that this video's ever been published before,

so getting the opportunity to see it

and keep it was a tremendous gift from the Friedman boys.

The New Yorkers who were interested in the project

were largely people from the city,

so it was people both from Manhattan

and from Brooklyn in particular.

Because of the peculiar nature of the community

and the fact that it had the cooperative ownership,

it was a very novel concept at the time.

People in the surrounding community are said

to have referred to it instead of Usonia

that they referred to it as Insania.

Some aspects of Wright's plan

for Usonia didn't end up happening

just the way he expected,

but there's no question that his interests

and activity here live on

with the current residents in Usonia.

[gentle music]

The first thing you'll notice as we walk up

to the house is this most unusual carport.

It's said that Frank Lloyd Wright was the first person

to put car and port together,

something he did throughout the country.

His homes rarely had garages.

This particular carport is most unique.

It's a single pillar of concrete

with a 20 sided polygon of concrete

that some people have described as a mushroom.

The experts on Wright will suggest

that he probably thought of it as more of a tree.

Other people look at it and see a concrete spaceship.

The geometry of the building is peculiar

in that it's two cylinders.

It's not exactly circles.

It's a 20 side polygon, which is called an icosagon.

And indeed I did have to look that up.

The main material of the house is concrete

along with locally sourced stone.

There are a number of quarries near here.

So as we head down the stairs,

I'll warn anybody who's over six feet

to really watch their head.

This is compression that Wright uses.

It's a standard thing in virtually all of his buildings,

so as we enter, we're still compressed.

We can already see that there's massive natural stone,

just like in the exterior on the interior also.

One of those things he'll do

to make the inside much like the outside.

Welcome to the main living area in the house.

What I'm gonna show you first is the geometric center

of the first floor of the house.

So this is the exact center of it all the way down

to the floor and up to the ceiling.

We have radial lines in the floor

that go along with the 20 sided polygon.

Each section is 18 degrees.

That's the geometry throughout the house.

My daughter will irreverently call the house Pizza House.

Everything in the house is laid out like a piece of pizza,

and that includes the bedding upstairs.

This little corner, this we call our library.

Wright's idea on living determined very much

how he designed the furniture and the built-ins.

Very, very little furniture, everything's built-in.

When I was speaking with the prior owner,

his advice was only bring a toothbrush

because there's no room for anything else.

When we moved into the house,

one of the first things I wanted to do

was get these two chairs.

They're a long-time personal favorite of mine.

These were first designed at Frank Lloyd Wright's studio.

They're called Origami,

and they're seen in a lot of Wright homes.

To me, they were just perfect for the spot.

Here we have an example

of Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous chair,

the barrel chair, originally was a Taliesin.

One of the prior owners added six of these chairs

to the house not part of the original furniture.

[gentle music]

These tables are red oak and they're original to the house.

They have part of the geometry

of each room built into the table.

Next, we have a classic floor lamp from Taliesin.

This was purchased by a prior owner.

It's been here for at least 25 years.

It's present in very many of the homes in our community,

but especially in Frank Lloyd Wright properties.

It's a very popular lamp.

My son designed this mirror.

It's designed with the geometry of the house in mind

and the color of the house in mind,

and we find it so nice to be able to contribute to the art

and the style of the house.

When we were moving here from Florida,

the reason I included our grand piano

was that the original Frank Lloyd Wright plans

for the house include a grand piano in the floor plan,

and music was an important part of the story of the house.

The community had a singing group that would meet here

and they would all sit on stools around.

The community always felt

that they had a stake in this house.

One of the early clients in the cooperative

was Roland Reisley.

He has recently turned 100,

and he still lives in the same house

that he hired Frank Lloyd Wright to build for him

when he was just 26 years old.

And he's the oldest living

Frank Lloyd Wright client in the entire world.

[gentle music]

I'm Roland Reisley,

and I'm the owner of this house known as the Reisley House,

which was designed for me by Frank Lloyd Wright.

My wife and I actually met at Cornell, in 1950, we married.

At that point, we were wanting to build a home

and put down roots for a family,

and we were told there's a community building

affordable homes supervised by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Well, let's go take a look.

And it was a cooperative that was really an idealistic,

egalitarian cooperative.

We liked that idea.

We liked the land, we liked the community.

The people who joined Usonia,

everybody accepted the idea of Wright and his disciples

and Wright approving on the design.

Now it's not unusual for suburban families

to sometimes form lifelong friendships,

but for a whole community of people

who grew up in this environment

to continue to feel connected.

And we have a gathering

or reunion of some kind here every 10, 15 years,

and they come and they wanna show their spouses,

their children, their grandchildren where they grew up

and how it was.

[gentle music] [birds chirping]

Heading back to the center of the room,

we have this very unusual built-in concrete table.

It's built into the foundation of the house.

It's surrounded by the original ottomans

and stools with a very comfy area for seating.

Again, this is the geometric center of the house,

and the wooden tables across the room

can actually attach to this

where you can end up with seating for a banquet

of 20 or more people.

Heading back toward the kitchen,

I'll point out that Frank Lloyd Wright

wouldn't call this a kitchen.

He would always call this workspace.

So it's an area that wasn't meant for socialization.

Normally now, the kitchen is part of the center of the house

as far as socializing also.

Almost all of the area here in the workspace is original.

We have original cabinetry.

Notice the peculiar shape of the cabinets.

The peculiar shape of the cabinets is largely due

to the fact that the walls are not vertical,

they're not straight.

So because of the walls being slanted,

the cabinets also have a slant built into both sides

to make them symmetric.

One peculiar result of that is that

on opening the cabinet doors,

one needs to be careful because it will hit you in the face.

[gentle music]

To show you the second floor,

we need to go up Frank Lloyd Wright's circular stairway.

One of the key things here

is always having a hold of the handrail.

They do look a little bit dangerous.

Welcome to the second floor.

Here at the top of the stairs,

there's a couple of interesting things.

We have three vent holes that are very strange.

They're at the top of each of the three bedrooms.

They provide ventilation to be able to flow through,

but they're one of the sources

of one of the big problems in the house

when we have guests.

I always have to warn a guest that there are no secrets here

because you can hear everything.

[gentle music]

Welcome to the second floor loft,

Wright called this Playspace,

and this is a favorite place for our granddaughter.

So again, Wright named this Playspace,

and that's how we use it.

It's a natural place for the family

to get together in the evening, listen to music,

watch TV, play a game.

So it really works out quite nicely

as Wright had laid it out.

Here on the second floor loft,

you have perhaps the best view of the outside of the house,

and you have a very dramatic view

of the inside of the house.

The beam here is actually structurally very important.

It goes through both sides of the chimney.

It supports the roof on this whole half of the house.

Remember the edge of the roof here,

like in the rest of the house is concrete,

so it's quite heavy,

be very difficult to support it with a wooden frame.

So it's supported by this massive steel girder.

[gentle music]

As we head back to the primary bedroom,

compared to a typical suburban home, it is quite small,

but you have to remember everything is built-in.

The double dresser is of particular interest

because of some of the special things

the cabinet maker had to think of.

Notice the scroll cutting along the edge

of the natural stone?

The shape of the cabinet is an irregular piece of pizza,

and all of the drawers have to be custom made

to shape to fit that.

Here's an example of that.

So it's not rectangular, it's not square,

and it would be something that they would definitely have

to pay a lot of attention to.

People are always shocked by the size and shape of the bed.

Basically it's the size of a queen mattress at the top,

and it works out that it's the size

of a twin bed at the bottom.

Again, it has the same geometry

as all of the rooms in the house.

This bed has never been moved.

The wooden boards in the base

of the bed are nailed to the floor.

It's always been here,

it's always been the same size, and surprisingly, it works.

When quizzed about this, Wright would respond,

everyone he ever knew was wider at their shoulders

than at their feet, so he didn't think it was a problem,

but he didn't choose to have a bed like this himself.

[gentle music] [birds chirping]

Most people, when you ask them anything

about Frank Lloyd Wright,

oh yeah, well, not a very nice guy.

Arrogant, egocentric.

His houses cost too much,

left his wife and five children,

ran over with the wife of a client.

His roofs leaked.

So after a conversation with Mr. Wright

and had some correspondence,

he sent us a set of preliminary drawings.

And my wife looked and said,

But look, there's no broom closet.

And we told him we have a lot of books.

He didn't provide the book space,

and I decided I'll go down and see him.

What ensued was a very, very good relationship.

And Frank Lloyd Wright in fact became a mentor

and ultimately a friend who said,

I'll redesign your house as many times as I have to

until I've satisfied all of your needs.

And that's exactly what happened.

The relationship that I described was seen as very unusual.

Even clients with whom he got along perfectly well

had issues with him.

I didn't.

[gentle music]

So welcome to the primary bathroom.

It's by far the largest in the house,

even though by modern standards it's quite petite.

We have a very interesting original makeup mirror,

including a stool, so you could sit and take care of makeup.

One of the most peculiar things that's really hard

to get your head around

is that the wooden shelf system

actually goes through the shower

and connects to the next room,

and there's a radiator in the shower.

The tile that's on the wall

and on the floor is not original,

and I'm not really sure how long they've been here.

Next, we're gonna head into the second bedroom.

My daughter claims this as her space,

so this is the original bunk bed.

We took the bottom bunk bed

and changed it into a larger bed

much like the primary bedroom.

In this third bedroom, which is the second for the children,

there was originally a bunk bed.

The bed on the bottom was the size of a twin bunk bed

with the pizza shape.

We enlarged a little bit,

and my son has the same size bed

as we have in the primary bedroom.

When we make changes in the houses,

we do get input from other people in the community.

There's a lot of history in the neighborhood.

We would discuss it with neighbors,

especially those who have

a long historical stake in the community.

The community feeling that they've had

from the early part of the history of the community

even continues today.

[gentle music]

We could not possibly have anticipated

how the house would influence our lives.

The whole experience would become a central part of my life,

a long life.

I just turned 100,

and there's now widespread scientific belief

beauty in one's environment does reduce stress.

I realize that not a day of my life

that I fail to see something beautiful here.

The light off the stone.

I look at the grain of the wood.

Little things that just, it's beautiful.

The cooperative nature

of the community back in the late '40s

and the early '50s is hard

to reproduce in modern America.

There's no question about that.

But here, we still have much more than the normal commitment

between residents.

For about 10 years, I've been doing architecture tours

of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings at Florida Southern College.

I found looking at his architecture every day

and explaining it to people to be a tremendous inspiration.

And now I get to live

in this famous Frank Lloyd Wright home.

From a personal perspective,

we've had a lot of interesting experiences.

There's lessons to learn, but we've enjoyed it a lot.