This American House

Through the (Drinking and Looking) Glass

11/05/2017

Frank Lloyd Wright Drinking Glass

The very first Frank Lloyd Wright-designed glass I ever looked through was a highball containing a vodka soda. We’d bought a beautiful set of Miller Rogaska barware (made for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation) at the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center on our very first visit to Spring Green back in 1999. Alas, much of that barware hasn’t survived the years, but we still have a few existing glasses, a decanter, and an ice bucket in regular service. As I look out now through our genuine Frank Lloyd Wright-designed windows – sometimes with a highball in hand – I often reflect upon our journey “through the looking-glass” into our own Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Wonderland here at the Delbert Meier House. And it all started with these drinking glasses. Bottoms up, Mr. Wright!

history, iowa, small town life

All We Owe We Owe Ioway

08/23/2017

We didn’t make it to the 2017 Iowa State Fair, alas, so we missed our chance to see the famous butter cow (literally, a cow sculpted out of butter) and her companion this year, a butter likeness of Laura Ingalls Wilder, in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Little House on the Prairie author’s birth. Given that this year also marks what would have been Frank Lloyd Wright’s 150th birthday, and that like Wilder he also has an Iowa connection, we wonder if he was also under consideration for this honor. After all, other buttery boys have served as milkmaids in previous years at the Fair, including a simply creamy Elvis Presley, John Wayne, and Garth Brooks.

But let us not be bitter over butter, or churn up any controversy here. Laura Ingalls Wilder was a fine and fitting choice, especially given the dairy-themed nickname her Pa famously gave her, “Half Pint.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder Butter Sculpture via USA TODAY

via USA TODAY: Sarah Pratt standing by the Laura Ingalls Wilder butter sculpture

The Iowa State Fair also brings to mind that wonderful old movie, State Fair (the 1945 version, that is), with music by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Especially this delightful little ditty in which they really spread it on thick – the butter, AND the good ol’ Iowa “corn”.

Given the house and half acre of Iowa we’re paying a mortgage on, we might slightly adjust the song’s title to read, “All We Owe, We Owe in Ioway.” But putting aside that IOU we owe IOWA, we do also owe Ioway our thanks for its brand of good wholesome fun, which of course is not just limited to state fairs and butter sculptures. After all, Iowa is home to several Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings, if not a Butter Frank – not yet anyway. We’ll do our best to butter up the selection committee for next year’s State Fair sculpture.

architecture, city boys, history, travel

This American House: Orson Welles’ Birthplace

10/10/2016

welles-1

Our long commute between Chicago and Iowa takes us past and through a number of towns that contain their own treasured “American houses.” On a recent drive, we pulled off the highway into Kenosha, Wisconsin to find the birthplace of the legendary filmmaker, theatrical titan, and actor Orson Welles.

Welles was born in this house, located in Kenosha’s pretty Library District, in 1915. He wasn’t a Kenosha resident for long, relocating to Chicago at age 4 upon his parents’ separation. After an affluent, nomadic childhood marred by his parents’ untimely deaths, he finally found a true “home” at the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois, where his prodigious talents were nurtured and his illustrious career launched.

welles-3

Thereafter, Welles would express conflicted feelings about his hometown of Kenosha, at once calling it “vital and charming” and then saying it was “a terrible place.” Our brief tour through downtown Kenosha (including a delightful ride on a vintage trolley) revealed a vibrant if faded city outshone by its sparkling lakefront.

Welles’ Citizen Kane famously opens with its aged, dying protagonist gasping out his final word, “Rosebud” – a remembrance, we learn at the film’s end, of (spoiler alert!) his beloved childhood sled. I’ve not read that Welles, on his own deathbed in 1985, muttered anything at all related to Kenosha, Wisconsin or this still-lovely house, but who knows. Perhaps in his own mind at the end, he was picturing an innocent, wintry scene outside of this very house, and himself a happy young boy, but he expired just as he was about to say…

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architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright, history, iowa, Prairie School, small town life

Mr. Porter’s Garage: A Frank Lloyd Wright Connection in Decorah, Iowa

08/25/2016

The Porter House in Decorah, Iowa, photographed in the fall of 2013.

While showing friends around lovely nearby Decorah late last summer, we happened to pass by the incredible Porter House Museum. This beautiful 19th Century Italianate house is notable for its one-of-a-kind surrounding rock wall, a contribution made to the property by its equally one-of-a-kind owner, Adelbert Field Porter (1879-1968). Mr. Porter, commonly known as “Bert,” was a gentleman explorer, naturalist, and photographer who culled from his vast collection of natural curiosities to create “nature art,” such as his remarkable wall.

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Archives:

Through the (Drinking and Looking) Glass

All We Owe We Owe Ioway

This American House: Orson Welles’ Birthplace

Mr. Porter’s Garage: A Frank Lloyd Wright Connection in Decorah, Iowa

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

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