The Richard C. Smith House is a small

Usonian Usonia () is a term that was used by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright to refer to the United States in general (in preference over ''America''), and more specifically to his vision for the landscape of the country, including the planni ...

home designed by

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright Sr. (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed List of Frank Lloyd Wright works, more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key ...

and constructed in

Jefferson, Wisconsin Jefferson is a city in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It lies at the confluence of the Rock and Crawfish rivers. The population was 7,793 at the 2020 census. The city is partially bordered by the Town of Jeffe ...

in 1950. It is one of Wright's diamond module homes, a form he used in the Patrick and Margaret Kinney House, the E. Clarke and Julia Arnold House and a number of other homes he designed in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The house is one-story, with a lowercase "h"-shaped floor plan composed of diamond-shaped units, where the bottom legs of the h enclose a private terrace around a huge old

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

. The north side of the house toward the road is mostly coursed

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, giving privacy, and left rough to suggest a natural outcropping. The south side, facing the terrace and golf course, has many windows. With . The diamond element repeats throughout, in piercings in the

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural sty ...

and in the drawers in the bedrooms. Wright seems to have started the design at the huge oak which was already on the lot. His blueprints show that he drew an imaginary triangle around the tree, then oriented the diamonds, terrace and house around it. The house was a mixed success. The flat roof leaked. The house was either too hot or too cold. The oak tree withered after Wright paved over its roots. The house cost almost twice what Wright had estimated. Yet the NRHP nomination concludes: "The Smith House is no pale imitation of earlier Usonian or Prairie School houses. It is the result of a natural and vital design evolution still underway in the mind of one of the world's greatest architects."

References

* (S.337)

External links

Smith House on wrightinwisconsin.org
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Richard C. House Frank Lloyd Wright buildings Houses in Jefferson County, Wisconsin Houses completed in 1950 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin 1950s architecture in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Jefferson County, Wisconsin

See also

References

External links