10.21.22 | DIGS.NET 17
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Of the Usonian homes that remain (a
murky number, at best), the Bernard and
Fern Schwartz House—or Still Bend, as
Wright named it on his original plans—is
located in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The
architect's 1938 "Dream House" design
for Life Magazine, this now-rentable
construction is a striking example of
Wright's democratic Unsonian vision—if
not its ideal. Made of natural materials,
with overhanging roofs and glazed sheets
of glass, the horizontally orientated home
makes good use of the natural light that
floods its interior and highlights Wright-de-
signed details throughout. Uncharac-
teristically for a Unsonian structure, the
warm-toned Still Bend has two stories, not
one, further defining the house as unique.
Constructed of red brick and red tidewa-
ter cypress, with red concrete floors and
light-capturing floor-to-ceiling windows
NE OF THE most prolific periods in his
70-year career came when Ameri-
can architect Frank Lloyd Wright
was bucking all odds. Besieged
by scandal and liberated from
convention, the sun never seemed to set
on the eccentric man, and by the 1930s,
decades after he graced Chicago, Illinois,
with the Robie House, he had completed
Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, Falling-
water in Pennsylvania, and Taliesin West
in Arizona. In this era, the Prairie School
pioneer also completed the first versions
of his pre-war Usonian houses, a new form
of low-cost, well-built family dwellings he
envisioned to be constructed at scale,
transforming the American landscape.
Only 60 Unsonian structures were built,
but they proved foundational, inspiring the
ranch-style houses that would eventually
blanket suburbia.
