This American House

American System-Built Home, Frank Lloyd Wright, iowa, Prairie School

Our Winter Excursion to the Stockman House
And the Discovery of a Scale Model of our American System Built Home

01/05/2015

Since buying our American System Built house in Northeast Iowa last year, we’ve been planning to visit all of the other Frank Lloyd Wright-designed homes in the state. There was talk over the summer of taking a weekend trek to Mason City to tour the Stockman House and the Historic Park Inn, both of which were under construction a few years before our house was built. As it turns out, our own house projects trumped any plans for a road trip this summer.

We finally had the occasion to make the 2 1/2 hour drive to Mason City last week. And while the extremely cold temperatures kept us from fully appreciating all that Mason City has to offer, we did get to tour the Stockman house. We’ve been particularly interested in seeing the Stockman House because it is very similar in design to our own home. Built in 1909, the Stockman is based on Wright’s fireproof home designs, which is a style that the architect relied heavily on when he was designing the American System homes.

We were hoping to glean some tips on the restoration of our own home by visiting the Stockman house. And while we did get a few ideas from our tour, the real treat of the trip was stumbling upon a scale model of our own home.

We had just walked into the Architectural Interpretive Center adjacent to the Stockman house and were trying to warm up when the docent asked us about our connection to Frank Lloyd Wright.

“Oh,” The Mister replied, “we actually own one of his American System Built homes here in Iowa.”

“You mean this one?” the docent asked as she pointed toward a little house made of balsa wood. Scale model of the Delbert Meier House at the Architectural Interpretive Center in Mason City, Iowa

“Mister!” he called from across the room. “They have our house!”

The fact that there is a scale model of our house is not a total surprise. We knew through a previous email exchange with a professor of architecture that models had been created of all of the Wright homes in Iowa, including our American System Built home. We did not, however, know that the models still existed. And we certainly had no idea that the model of our house was on display in Mason City. What a wonderful surprise!

The model was built by Raymond Gandayuwana and Derek Quang and is a very accurate depiction not only of the house but the landscape surrounding it. From the windows to the trim and even down to the gradient in the landscaping, the model is an amazing representation of our home as it would have looked before the front facade was altered. There is one window missing from the second floor of the model house, but why quibble over small details?

MORE WRIGHT IN IOWA INFORMATION:

Images: This American House

holiday

Happy Holidays from This American House

12/26/2014

For our Christmas card this year, The Mister and I were inspired by old paper dolls that we often see in vintage shops. Feel free to print it, cut us out and take us along for your own holiday fun!

technology

Thumbs Up: A Google Street View Surprise

12/09/2014

The last time I looked at the Google Street View of our city apartment, it was a scene from a few years ago. I know this because a car that we used to own, a 1989 Volvo station wagon, was parked in front of our building. Sometimes when I would get lost in regret about selling Beverly, as we called our trusty old wagon, I would pull up our address on Google and stare wistfully at her.

To help guide some relatives who might be staying at our apartment over the Christmas holidays, I once again visited our neighborhood using Google’s satellite technology. It was immediately clear that the Street View car had visited our again quite recently. For one thing, the big old tree that used to live in front of our building is gone in the new Street View images. That tree was cut down this past summer, much to my chagrin, so that was my first tip that the new images are fairly recent. For another, the interminable utility work that has been happening on our block is visible in the Street View images. And for one lucky member of that road construction crew, this was his chance to be immortalized by the Google cameras:

I can practically hear the worker saying “Hi Mom!” as the Google Street View mobile passed by. I’m a little disappointed he didn’t do something a little more outrageous but he probably didn’t have a lot of time to think of a post before the car passed him by.

If you’ve never seen the Street View mobile in action, it’s a site to behold. The brightly painted car has a big red ball affixed to the top of it. It kind of looks like a lady bug on a stick attached to the car. I’ve seen the car in action a few times but I’ve never been in a position to strike to funny pose. If you’re curious about the Street View car, Google has a site with information about where the car is currently mapping, as well as some background information about how they turn photographs into 365 degree maps.

Go practice your pose, folks. You might be captured by the Street View camera any day now!

Images: 1-2. This American House. 3. Google.

history, holiday

Christmas Traditions: Candles in the Windows

12/02/2014

Christmas is really perfectly timed in the Western Hemisphere. The days are really short (the sun set at 4:30 PM yesterday) and the nights are especially dark. So it’s quite convenient that we deck the halls with festive lights during the month of December.

I’ve always loved the tradition of placing a single candle in each window of a house – especially in older homes with lots of big windows. Ah, classic Christmas.

It’s said that this tradition of placing a single candle in an home’s window dates back to Colonial times. According to an article from the Westlake Bay Village Observer,

The candle was often placed in the window when a member of the family was away. The lit candle was also placed in the window as a sign of good news or as a beacon to weary travelers. Candles also represented friendship and were seen as a sign of welcome to others.

In early America, homes were often miles apart. The sight of a candle in a window from a distance was a sign of “welcome” to those wishing to visit.

While apparently not strictly a Christmas tradition, the practice has been appropriated for the holiday season. But the practice is also rooted in Irish heritage. According to RichardHowe.com:

The candle in the window at Christmas symbolizes many things in Ireland. It’s still a favorite traditional Irish Christmas decoration, harkening back to that ancient Christmas Eve when Mary and Joseph could find no shelter. It is a symbol of Irish hospitality – a way of welcoming Mary and Joseph…and any travelers who might happen to pass by looking for a warm place to stay.

In the days when it was illegal and even dangerous to practice the Catholic faith in Ireland because of the oppressive Penal Laws, the candles seen in the windows of Irish homes at Christmas also signaled traveling priests that this was a home where they would be welcome and where they could safely conduct the traditional Irish Catholic Christmas Mass.

We don’t have windowsills at This American House but we do back at our condo in the city. I came across a big bag of electric candle lights at a thrift store last year so I lugged them back to the city and put them in the windows. The window candle tradition seems to be all about a message of welcoming. I can’t think of a more delightful way to say welcome home.

Image: This American House

product review, setting up home, technology

Nest Protect: Making Our House a Little Smarter (and Safer)

11/14/2014

Maybe it’s because I love gadgets or because I grew up watching The Jetsons but I’ve been obsessed with smart home technology for years. One of the first things I did when we moved into our house was install the Nest Thermostat. And we love it. Not only can we monitor the house’s temperature from our phones, we can also turn up the heat when we’re on our way home. Now it’s time to start bringing in some other smart home products. Next up: the Nest Protect smoke detector.

The folks at Nest have definitely taken a cue from Apple when it comes to design and packaging. The Nest Protect is packaged quite handsomely and includes easy to read instructions. I appreciated the fact that there’s a label instructing you to set up the Nest Protect using the app before installing it. I’m totally the kind of person who would get the smoke detector completely installed on the ceiling before realizing that I should have set it up first.

My initial desire for installing Nest Protect is because we’re away quite frequently and I wanted to be able to monitor the house from afar. The fact that Nest is a whole lot more stylish that old yellowed smoke detector that has been attached to the ceiling for what seems like a couple of decades is just a bonus.

Installing Nest Protect was a cinch. Since we had previously installed the Nest Thermostat, we already have the Nest app on our phones. Syncing the new Nest Protect with the Nest app took just a few minutes. Then it was simply a matter of switching out the old smoke detector with the new one.

You know what’s even better than a stylish smoke detector? A smoke detector that talks. And a smoke detector that warns you that it’s about to get loud.

It’s alive! And very friendly. I love the @nest lady’s warning. “The alarm is loud.”

A video posted by Jason Loper (@jasonloper) on Nov 11, 2014 at 9:59am PST

The fact that the Nest Protect has this charming female voice helps me feel like we’ve adopted a robot or something. Although it also makes me worry that she’ll someday go crazy and start to self destruct.

The @nest lady’s countdown is a little eerie. I now have an irrational fear that she’ll someday flip out and countdown to self destruct. “5-4-3-2-1 … Goodbye cruel world.”

A video posted by Jason Loper (@jasonloper) on Nov 11, 2014 at 10:02am PST

I hope that we never have occasion to use our new smoke detector. I hope she gets to just hang out on the ceiling and occasionally ask to be tested.

Images: This American House

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Archives:

Our Winter Excursion to the Stockman House
And the Discovery of a Scale Model of our American System Built Home

Happy Holidays from This American House

Thumbs Up: A Google Street View Surprise

Christmas Traditions: Candles in the Windows

Nest Protect: Making Our House a Little Smarter (and Safer)

LIVING HISTORY IN THIS AMERICAN HOUSE: AN AMERICAN SYSTEM-BUILT HOME DESIGNED BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT | 1917

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Archives:

Our Winter Excursion to the Stockman House And the Discovery of a Scale Model of our American System Built Home

Happy Holidays from This American House

Thumbs Up: A Google Street View Surprise

Christmas Traditions: Candles in the Windows

Nest Protect: Making Our House a Little Smarter (and Safer)

LIVING HISTORY IN THIS AMERICAN HOUSE: AN AMERICAN SYSTEM-BUILT HOME DESIGNED BY FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT | 1917

Find us on Facebook

Sign up for This American House Emails

Our Winter Excursion to the Stockman House
And the Discovery of a Scale Model of our American System Built Home