STEPHEN SIEK
Frank Lloyd Wright's
Westcott House in Springfield
To investigate the career of Frank Lloyd
Wright from 1893 to 1910 is
to examine a period of architectural
thought so rich that later historians
would term this era: Wright's
"First Golden Age."1 The automobile
and the airplane were two inventions
that became synonymous with the
advent of the twentieth century, but no
less innovative were the at-
tempts of Frank Lloyd Wright to develop
an architecture indigenous to
American life, an architecture that
exemplified concepts so radical
that they were to challenge the core of
all architectural convention
throughout the remainder of his
seven-decade career. Central to an
understanding of Wright's early work is
the "Prairie House," his unique
contribution to domestic architecture
befitting midwestern America.
The Prairie house is somewhat elusive to
define, but there is little
serious opposition to the view that
Wright is the originator of the
genre. Isolated examples of Prairie
houses can be found as far east
as Rochester, and one even made its way
to Montreal, but the flatter ter-
rain and variable climate of the
American Middle West held the great-
est fascination for the young architect
at this time, and by far the great-
est concentration of these homes is in
the immediate Chicago area.
Wright was especially intrigued by the
problems of residential building
throughout his career, and many features
now taken for granted in
American homes can not only be traced to
him, but may in fact be the
results of a concerted attempt to
"invent" an architecture that shunned
artifical inspiration, and which owed no
allegiance to pre-existing forms
or styles.
Today, many of Wright's early homes have
a gripping, almost shock-
ing impact on the observer who attempts
to place them in their original
historical context: the streamlined
embraces of concrete, stone, or Ro-
man brick; the rhythmic, fluid repose of
casement windows that wrap
Stephen Siek is an Instructor in the
Music School at Wittenberg University. The author
acknowledges the continued assistance of
Mr. George Berkhofer, Executive Director of
the Clark County Historical Society, for
aid with research pertaining to the Westcotts and
the social and political history of
Springfield.
1. Henry-Russell Hitchcock and Grant
Carpenter Manson were two such historians.
Cf. Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: The First Golden
Age (New York, 1958).
Westcott House 277
effortlessly around the structure in a
seeming negation of finite bound-
aries; the built-in furnishings, the
indirect lighting, and the electric-
coil heating seem sharply incongruous
with an era adorned by cobble-
stone streets, gaslights, and
horse-drawn carriages. Indeed, many early
photos of these homes have a startling
effect when they happen to cap-
ture some incidental reminder of the
early 1900s-such as children play-
ing in the costume of the day: it
appears oddly anachronistic.2 Frank
Lloyd Wright's early clients needed
considerable courage and vision to
be content in the homes he built for
them.
Whatever his motive Springfield
businessman and civic leader Bur-
ton J. Westcott was the only man in Ohio
to seek Wright's services in
the "First Golden Age." He was
born in Richmond, Indiana, in 1868,
and when he migrated to Springfield in
March 1903, he was already a
man of considerable wealth and
importance. His father, John W.
Westcott, was the founder and President
of the Hoosier Drill Com-
pany, a Richmond-based firm noted for
the production of farm-imple-
ments. He later founded, in 1896, the
Westcott Carriage Company,
which enabled him to combine his
business acumen with his love for
horses. After graduation from DePauw and
Swarthmore, young Burton
Westcott took an active interest in both
businesses, eventually rising to
the rank of Treasurer with the Hoosier
Drill Company, and later (in
1903) becoming Treasurer of that firm's
successor, the American Seed-
ing Machine Company, a corporation based
in Springfield and created by
the merger of Hoosier, Champion, and
several other important firms.
Undoubtedly Burton Westcott is best
remembered as a manufacturer
of automobiles. For a number of years he
had tried unsuccessfully to
interest his father in expanding to the
production of motor cars, and
finally in 1916 he decided to bring the
Westcott Motor Car Company to
Springfield, even as the Westcott
Carriage Company continued in
Richmond as a separate enterprise. The
newly-formed Springfield firm
manufactured a luxury touring car that
enjoyed a brief popularity after
the First World War. Indeed, few
automobiles could rival the Westcott
Touring Car in its splendor and
craftsmanship. Full-page advertise-
ments, such as appeared in the October
9, 1920, Saturday Evening Post
indicate that the car boasted a
nationwide following. Hand-assembled
from parts manufactured elsewhere, the
Westcott was produced in
large buildings on Springfield's Warder
Street. At one point the Clark
County Auditor's Office assessed the
buildings and machinery at a value
of more than $150,000.
2. One such photo can be seen in Frank
Lloyd Wright, A Testament (New York,
1957), 56. The photo of the Heath House
(1905) in Buffalo seems to loom with an odd
sense of deja vu, when one studies the
garb of the three children positioned in front of it.
278 OHIO HISTORY |
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As a civic and political leader of Springfield, Burton Westcott ap- pears to have been extremely popular and successful. An early mem- ber of the Springfield Country Club, he was also a Director of the Lagonda National Bank, and served on the Springfield City Commis- sion from 1914 to 1922.3 He was elected President of the City Commis- sion in 1921, which was equivalent to the position of Mayor. A staunch Republican, he had admirers from both political parties, and there was general agreement that he helped to curb a fairly widespread corrup- tion in the city's administrative affairs. With the exception of an excellent study by Leonard K. Eaton,4 little has been written on the personalities and social character of the early clients of Frank Lloyd Wright, but if, as popular conjecture would sug- gest, they tended to be people of unusually independent tastes and de- sires, then Orpha Leffler Westcott (1877-1923) was typical of many wo- men who admired Wright and his work. No written record exists of any communication between the Westcotts and Wright,5 but according to
3. Newspaper obituaries at the time of his death in 1926 claim that Westcott joined the City Commission in 1916, however a photo of the Commission in session with West- cott seated at the table is on file at the Clark County Historical Society, and this photo is believed to date from 1914, the year the Commission was founded. This and other evidence clearly indicates that Westcott was, in fact, a Charter Member of the Comis- sion. 4. Leonard K. Eaton, Two Chicago Architects and Their Clients: Frank Lloyd Wright and Howard Van Doren Shaw (Cambridge, 1969). 5. Mr. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, Director of Archives for the Frank Lloyd Wright Me- |
Westcott House 279
the best available data, it was she who
instigated the architect's com-
missioning, and she may have journeyed
on several occasions to his
studio in Oak Park, outside of Chicago,
to discuss the project. Orpha
Westcott possessed an unusual aesthetic
nature. An independent wo-
man interested in the modern, the
beautiful and the unusual, she re-
mained somewhat distant, perhaps aloof,
from the provincial elite that
dominated Springfield's social life in
the first decade of the century.6
Unafraid of the avant guard, Mrs.
Westcott enrolled her son John in
the original Montessori School on a
lengthy 1911 visit to Italy.7 During
the same trip she ordered hand-tailored
frocks and dresses for her
daughter Jeanne, woven from fabrics that
she purchased there. Four
years later she was to foster a new
interest for her son: short-wave
radio.8
If the social position of the Westcotts
remained open to some ques-
tion during the years when Wright
designed their house, little doubt
can be cast on their financial standing.
It was substantial, and the ob-
vious affluence of the Westcotts lends
credence to a charge frequently
hurled at Wright: that he built homes
only for the rich. Certainly a pat-
tern of wealth and some social
prominence tends to characterize the
majority of his clients, but as Grant
Manson and other commentators
have noted, it is highly improbable
that, owing to their radical features,
these early homes could have been built
had their owners been depen-
dent on conventional financing.9 Whatever
fees may have been as-
morial Foundation, offers an interesting
explanation of this fact: Mr. Wright virtually
never wrote letters to people; in fact few of his clients
lack at least one story of how they
were once infuriated by one of his
suprise visits. It is probable that the Westcotts wrote to
Wright on several occassions, but a
great deal of early correspondence was lost when the
Oak Park Studio was dismantled in 1909,
and over the years two serious fires at Taliesin,
Mr. Wright's Wisconsin home, undoubtedly
destroyed much of value (Author's interview
with Pfeiffer, August 31, 1976).
6. Between the years 1903 and 1910
Springfield social gatherings with prominent
guest-lists rarely include the
Westcotts. One notable exception appears in The Springfield
Gazette on July 11, 1907, indicating that the day before Mrs.
Westcott had entertained the
Bridge Whist Club at the Springfield
Country Club, a club that tended to be composed of
younger more "newly arrived"
families. In any event, there can be no question that in
later years, the Westcotts were clearly
one of the community's most outstanding, highly
regarded families.
7. Ironically and fortunately, one of
her interests was abruptly thwarted: the family
had evidently booked passage for their
homeward journey on the White Star Liner
Titanic, but when a member of their party fell ill, they had to
return by another boat. I
am greatly indebted to Mrs. John
Westcott, daughter-in-law to Burton and Orpha West-
cott, for providing the bulk of the
information concerning her husband and his family
(Author's interview with Mrs. John
Westcott, August 13, 1976).
8. The family spent a summer near
Ithaca, New York, about 1915, and Mrs. Westcott
found a Cornell professor to help
instruct her son in the new science. Westcott interview.
9. See Manson, Wright to 1910, 79,
for a discussion of the view that Wright always
demanded large budgets when he worked.
280 OHIO
HISTORY
sessed by Wright, the contractor, or
others involved with the project,
the client was undoubtedly obliged to
advance the entire amount
through his own means in the majority of
instances.10
How and when Mrs. Westcott first
encountered Wright's work is un-
known, but she often accompanied her
husband to Chicago on the fre-
quent business trips he made for the
Hoosier Drill Company, and there
she may have seen some of Wright's newly
constructed homes in the
neighboring suburbs of Oak Park and
River Forest. It is also possible
that she may have seen some of the
drawings Wright had published a
few years previously in the Ladies
Home Journal.11 Exactly when the
Westcott House was first conceived and
drawn is also unknown. If a
"presentation drawing" was
made it no longer exists, although there
are several drawings of the structure
executed by Wright for various
publications between about 1904 and
1910. An early drawing of a pro-
posed dwelling for Burton J. Westcott of
Springfield, Ohio, appears as
Plate 45 in the Wasmuth Manuscript, the
first important collection de-
voted to Wright's work, published in
Germany in 1910.12 This design
was evidently Wright's original
conception of the residence, and
though it is undated, it appears on the
same page as the project draw-
ing for a residence in Oak Park, dated
1904.13 Neither design was ever
executed, but it is possible that they
both date from 1904. Exactly why
either Wright or the Westcotts later
chose another design is uncertain:
the major difference between the two
plans would seem to be that the
10. The problem proved extremely
frustrating to Wright throughout his career, even
after his fame was securely established.
It grew particularly acute during the Depression,
when he designed many homes that could
have been executed for far less money than
many FHA-approved projects, but their
radical design often proved an impediment to
their actual construction. Cf. Frank
Lloyd Wright, The Natural House (New York, 1954).
11. The February 1901 issue of the Ladies
Home Journal featured drawings and an
article by Wright called "A Home in
a Prairie Town." This may be the first instance of his
actual use of the term "Prairie
House." The article was one of several that would appear in
the magazine and served to help
publicize his work.
12. The full title of the work is: Augsefuhrte
Bauten und Entwurfe von Frank Lloyd
Wright (Berlin, 1910). The work was a portfolio of exquisite
architectural drawings and
plans, designed to have appeal to
European architects interested in Wright's work. The
lavishness and expense of the edition,
however, precluded a wide distribution and caused
Wasmuth to issue the following year a
smaller book called simply Ausgefuhrte Bauten.
This work was truer to its title as it
contained only "Executed Constructions"-it consisted
mostly of photographs of buildings
already in existence and some plans, while the earlier
work contained projects that Wright had
not actually built. The titles can be confusing,
because both works are sometimes
referred to as the Wasmuth Manuscript, and no photo-
graphs of the Westcott House appear in Ausgefuhrte
Bauten. During the First World
War the plates at Wasmuth's were bombed;
hence any reproductions since then have
been done from copies already in
existence. A facsimilie edition called Buildings, Plans
and Drawings was published in 1963 (New York).
13. The H. J. Ullman House, intended to
stand at the corner of North Euclid Avenue
and Erie Street in Oak Park. The house
was never built.
Westcott House 281
chimney faces east and west in the
original drawing, and correspond-
ingly, a good deal of the ground floor
faces east and west, causing it to
meet perpendicularly with the second
floor. As might be expected the
front garden-type facade is considerably
rearranged to accommodate this
change in the exterior: there are high
ballustrades buttressing the con-
crete steps, surrounding what appears to
be a patio. The sole discerni-
ble entrance is evidently reached from a
walkway running from Green-
mount Avenue to the ground-floor
protrusion-the entrance, not visible
in the drawing, is evidently housed
underneath the front terraces.
The design materialized in its final
form by early 1907. In April of
that year Wright exhibited a drawing of
the re-worked project in the
Chicago Architectural Club Show, and in
March of 1908 he inserted this
same drawing with others from his
portfolio into the Architectural
Record, this issue being devoted largely to his works.14 The
front-eleva-
tion view shown in this drawing almost
approaches a type of aerial
perspective. The garden facade is
somewhat simpler than it was ac-
tually built, indicating that at first
Wright evidently favored a simple
pool in front, inset into the lawn, with
all features of the tile work being
flush with the ground. By 1910 Wright,
now living in Italy, had little to
guide him save this early drawing, hence
it seems likely that when he
prepared Plate 75 for the Wasmuth
Manuscript he was obliged to re-
call the exact features of the completed
facade from memory, perhaps
explaining the subtle discrepancies
between his Wasmuth drawing and
the design as it was actually
executed.15 Plate 75 is by far Wright's
most detailed and attractive drawing of
the house, and it bears his cap-
tion:
Plastered walls, tile roof, cement base
courses and ground work. House of the
large living room type; the necessary
privacy for various functions obtained by
screens, contrived as bookcases, and
seats besides [sic] the central fireplace.
In front, a tiled terrace, to be covered
with awning in summer, and a lily pool,
flanked with large cast concrete vases.
The grounds are terraced above the
street.16
14. Careful readers of the Record may
be jarred by the sight of a plan on p. 220 of the
March 1908 issue, captioned:
"Residence of Mr. B. J. Westcott," which in fact has
nothing to do with the actual plan of
the Westcott House. It appears to be nothing more
than a mis-labeling of the plan for the
house above it: the Millard House in Highland
Park, Illinois. Moreover, the caption
underneath the drawing of the Westcott House on
p. 218 is misplaced, referring to the
Elizabeth Stone House above it (a 1906 project
that was never built). In point of fact,
the plan of the Westcott House has little or nothing
to do with the Coonley House at
Riverside, Illinois, as the caption implies.
15. A few of those discrepancies: in the
drawing, there are too few front steps, the urns
are too small, and Wright appears to
have envisioned a bit of a patio-walkway beyond the
lily pond, extending almost out to High
Street.
16. Buildings, Plans and Drawings, Caption
for Plate 75.
282 OHIO HISTORY
Plate 76 offers a plan of the ground
floor, second floor, pergola,
garage and stable. Exactly at what point
the plans for the pergola,
garage and stable materialized is an
issue of some interest. The Was-
muth Manuscript dates the Westcott House as 1907, and one would
normally assume that the rest of the
structure was conceived at the
same time, but Manson indicates that he
once visited Wright at his
home in Wisconsin and there saw the
original plans for the Westcott
pergola, garage and stable-these clearly
dated in Wright's-own hand:
January 29, 1908.17 This is what
undoubtedly leads him to suggest that
the garage arrangement and its connecting
pergola may have been
something of a "happy
afterthought."18 However, all existing draw-
ings of the house, some of which were
done well before 1908, clearly
show the pergola, garage, and
stable-they appear even in the unexe-
cuted version of the Westcott House,
which is in the Wasmuth as Plate
45.
There may well be a gap of about three
years between the time the
Westcotts first contacted Wright and the
time he produced the com-
pleted design, a circumstance partially
explained by the large amount
of work that passed through the Oak Park
Studio at this time, and par-
tially by the fact that Wright was known
to study his clients rather
carefully before actually working out a
design. He came to Springfield
to live with the Westcotts for perhaps
as long as two weeks, getting the
"feel" of the family and their
domestic requirements. Though such be-
havior was uncharacteristic of many
architects and would often have
proved unnecessary even for Wright,
since he could study the majority
of his clients at close range, it
appears in keeping with his practice, as
it was also typical for him to refuse
any publicity or social engage-
ments when away from home.
Actual construction began on the
Westcott House in the autumn of
1907. On July 16 of that year Burton
Westcott purchased the site on the
northwest corner of East High Street and
Greenmount Avenue from
John S. Crowell.19 On October
7, 1907, The Springfield Gazette re-
ported: "The foundation is being
laid for a new residence for Burton J.
Westcott at the corner of High Street
and Greenmount Avenue."20 For
reasons unknown the house took longer to
complete than it should
have, and an unusually large number of
older Springfield residents to-
17. Notes for Manson, Wright to 1910,
on file at Oak Park Public Library, Oak Park,
Illinois.
18. Letter to the author from Grant
Carpenter Manson, dated December 25, 1976.
19. He paid Crowell $5,000 for the
property. There was a small house on the site
which had to be demolished before
construction could begin on the Westcott House (Clark
County Recorder's Office).
20. The Springfield Gazette, October
7, 1907, 3.
284 OHIO HISTORY
day recall that its construction was
laden with problems. Some remem-
ber Wright's continued presence to be
annoying and allege that
disgruntled workmen laid torches to the
dwelling-so enraged were they
at his high-handed tactics. To be sure,
the structure was set afire on
July 3, 1908:
For the second time within a month the
fire department was called Friday
morning to the handsome new residence
being erected by Burton J. Westcott
at High Street and Greenmount Avenue to extinguish a
blaze caused by
painters at work in the house.21
The Springfield Daily News attributes this fire to "parafin," as well
as the earlier fire which it mentions in
the article. Both fires appear to
have been accidental, and as one painter
was somewhat seriously in-
jured on July 3, it certainly seems
unlikely to have been deliberately
set. The Daily News notes that
the cash loss of the second fire was
about $200, and that the first fire was
not quite as serious. It further
mentions that the fire started while one
of the painters was at work in
the kitchen, suggesting that if in fact
the house's interiors were being
painted, construction must have been quite
far along by this point.
These disruptions undoubtedly delayed
the house's completion, but
whether due to the intricacy of Wright's
design or to the frustration of in-
dividual workmen, the project
necessitated an unusually long roster of
skilled laborers, many of whom replaced
one another at successive in-
tervals.
Wright had the benefit of some of
Springfield's finest builders.
William Poole, contractor for the house,
had supervised the construc-
tion of numerous other homes on
Springfield's then-fashionable east
side, where the Westcott site was
located. The plumbing and electrical
work was handled by the firm of
Crain-Stuart. Four electricians came
on the job successively: Donnel Morris,
Jess Crane, Robert Jackson,
and finally, William Hicks, whose job it
was to personally wire
Wright's intricate electrical fixtures
inside the large dining room
table. Such work necessitated great
precision, and the workers prob-
ably had little in the way of practical
experience in dealing with such
novelties, but Mr. Hicks can recall no
altercations with the architect,
and in fact remembers meeting him only
once.22 In his absence, Wright
apparently had two near-surrogates in
the persons of Mrs. Westcott
and her family physician, who was a
close personal friend. The two
21. The Springfield Daily News, July
3, 1908, 2.
22. William Hicks is undoubtedly the
last living man to have personally worked on the
house. Though nearing ninety when I
interviewed him at his home in Springfield on
December 13, 1976, his mind was sharp
and his memory vivid about numerous circum-
stances surrounding the house's
construction.
286 OHIO
HISTORY
women were constantly at the site,
urging that tiles be laid properly
and joints mitered cleanly. When Wright
did appear, his presence was
usually unobtrusive; the only documented
tale of any friction between
architect and workmen comes from Thelma
L. Reniff, formerly Librar-
ian of Springfield's Warder Public
Library. At one point in the proce-
dures, Wright stood across the street
from his emerging structure
(most probably in front of the Fifth
Lutheran Church). A workman
approached Wright, mentioned that he had
heard of him, but admitted
to being puzzled by the whole Westcott
project, inasmuch as he was
certain that the architect "only
built bungalows." Supposedly, Mr.
Wright then turned upon the man in a
manner that suggested one need
not be angered by imbeciles, and wryly
observed: "This is a bungalow
with a college education."23
The date of completion, if in fact there
was any one significant date,
cannot be pinpointed with any precision.
The Springfield City Direc-
tory indicates that by 1909 the
Westcotts had moved into their new
home, but the Clark County Auditor's
Office does not appraise the prop-
erty at its full value until 1911, indicating
that the house was not quite
finished until then.24 It may
be no coincidence that this was the season
Mrs. Westcott felt she could leave for
Europe. The three earliest
known photos of the house were probably
taken before the Westcotts
moved in-perhaps early in 1909-as the
interior shots of the living room
and dining room appear to be somewhat
stark and bare. The front
facade remains to be completed in the
early photo. Among other
features it still lacks the large cast
concrete urns-"Wrightian Urns" as
they were becoming known-a trademark
with the architect's work, and
particularly distinctive in the Westcott
facade, as they must surely be
some of the largest he ever designed for
a private home. The first
photo known to show the completed facade
was taken about 1912.25
As nearly as can be determined from
existing records, Mr. Westcott
must have paid about $15,000 for his
home.26
23. Letter to Grant Manson from Thelma
L. Reniff, dated May 8, 1940, on file at the
Warder Memorial Public Library,
Springfield, Ohio.
24. 1914 is the first year that Clark
County began to appraise dwellings and land
separately. In that year the Westcott
House was appraised at $15,870, and the land at
$5,050, which is about what Westcott had
paid Crowell for the land seven years earlier.
However, in 1910 both house and
land were appraised at $10,250. The following year,
1911, both were appraised at $20,920,
the sum total of the final value of house and land
together. In the year 1911 the house
jumped in value by more than $10,000 indicating
that a great deal of construction work
must have been done.
25. Mrs. John Westcott has a picture in
her possession taken about this time, which
offers a rather stark and beautiful view
of the house in winter.
26. Property was then appraised at 100
percent of its full value for tax purposes, and if
in seven years the land had appreciated
by only 1 percent, it seems logical that the house
must have been built for somewhere in
the $15,000 range.
Westcott House
287
As distinctive as it is, the Westcott
House shares some fundamental
similarities with all of Wright's
Prairie houses in its marked dis-
placement of the prevailing concepts of
interior space. Gone are the
cubicles that heretofore suggested
separate living, dining, and recep-
tion areas. On the ground floor a
continuous plane of space serves
these functions, such separateness and
privacy as required being pro-
vided by two wooden screens that
protrude from the large, Roman
brick fireplace. Frank Lloyd Wright
regarded the hearth as properly
the center of a family's life, hence he
made it always large and invit-
ing. The fire cavity is surrounded by
panes of glass, intentionally per-
mitted to crack and break from the heat
over the years, lending a cer-
tain rustic aura to the setting. The
fireside seats are built into the
protruding screens, which also house
panel lighting fixtures of plate
glass, these casting an indirect-type
illumination, several inches from
the floor; the screens also contain
storage space for books. Of particu-
lar interest are two large floor lamps
designed by Mr. Wright for the
living room, which cast indirect beams
from glass polygons, decora-
ting the room after sundown with a
kaleidoscopic array of illumina-
tion, reflected from his low, brightly
painted ceiling. The fenestration
for the entire ground floor is common to
other "Prairie Houses" in
this period, but wildly atypical of the
times: a virtual unbroken ribbon
of casement windows. After the Westcotts
settled in, the living room
displayed Mr. Wright's sole concession
to another's taste: the rich,
silk draperies selected by Mr.
Westcott's sister while she was travel-
ling in the Orient.27
The unbroken plane of space was
underscored by the dining area,
in which the dining table and the entire
buffet fixtures virtually folded
into the wall. The mechanics of this
design are difficult to reconstruct,
but an early photo of the dining
interior suggests that the two halves
of the table were actually placed on top
of each other and inserted into
corresponding slots in the wall. The
buffet totally disassembled and
collapsed into drawers-Mr. Wright's
distinctive chairs with their regal,
high backs must have likewise folded and
collapsed.28 Along the west
wall of the dining area even the
radiators were concealed, housed in
cabinets, the heat escaping through
register slats in the top of the cabi-
net. The radiators in the living room
and the reception room were
similarly concealed beneath the sweeping
casements. The two sever-
27. Westcott interview.
28. No photos are known to survive of
the Westcott dining table when in use, but
Wright used a somewhat similar design in
the Boynton House (1908) in Rochester, New
York, pictures of which can be seen in
Eaton, Two Chicago Architects. John Westcott
confirms that these photos look rather
similar to the table in his parents' home (Letter
to the author from Mrs. John Westcott,
dated June 6, 1977).
288 OHIO HISTORY |
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est corners of the ground floor, in the dining and reception areas, are softened by Wright's "wrap-around" casements, a device that has since become almost a trademark with his work. A cardinal element essential to the Prairie house was horizon- tality-the house should appear natural to its midwest setting, at home with the flatter horizon, and often as not, it would be elevated slightly, so as to give its occupant a view of the land around him. There is a natural slope to the Westcott site, which makes possible a full base- ment, a feature that is by no means found in all Wright's homes of this period, but despite the added depth, the Westcott House is unmis- takably suggestive of horizontality. The front elevation of the house measures exactly sixty-two feet, one inch in length from the east to the west wall.29 A gentle, sloping hip-roof, its wide eaves embracing the structure in a gesture of shelter, and the wide chimney which seems to negate all vertical lines, both serve to underscore the horizontality that Wright felt suited to the prairie terrain. The Westcott House is highly unusual for Wright's homes in at least
29. Taken from the original plans, copies of which are currently in the possession of Miss Eva Linton, the current owner of the house. All subsequent measurements are so taken. |
Westcott House
289
one respect: a strong, persistent garden
theme dominates the front
yard. In front of the house, an unusual
display of masonry and tile work
combined to form a terraced garden,
reached easily by doors placed
symmetrically, on either side of the
living room. From these entrances
the family could embark on an elevated
patio of clay tile, above which
hovered an imposing metal grid of
cantilevered beams designed by
Wright-this grid work serving as the
support for a specially designed
awning in the summer. All planters and
soilbeds were built into the
masonry of poured concrete, the whole of
the design focusing on a
large wading pool more than twenty-two
feet in width and forming a
totally unbroken plane of white masonry
that seems to grow of its own
volition. The floor of the pool,
designed by Wright as a lily pond, was
gravel over a clay lining and frequently
would serve as a haven for
young John Westcott and several favored
goldfish.30 The whole of the
garden facade is offset brilliantly
against the smooth, unbroken planes
of the house itself, which seems to
float in space, suggesting both mo-
tion and repose. Downspouts appear
nowhere on the exterior: there
are in fact no vertical intrusions to
distract from the horizontal char-
acter of the dwelling, and one can
imagine the demanding workman-
ship required to bury such necessities
inside the exterior walls. The
walls themselves, coated with a
cream-colored stucco, tended to glisten
brilliantly in the sunlight, offset only
by continuous unbroken strips
of rich, stained oak, mitered around the
corners of the house with in-
finite, painstaking precision.
The house seems not to terminate at its
rear elevation, but rather
continues outward in a horizontal
embrace, a continuous band of ma-
sonry which forms the pergola connecting
the house with the garage
and stable at the rear of the property.
On the opposite (west) side
of the property is the driveway, which
ran northward from East High
Street and then turned to flank the rear
of the property, extending
eastward toward Greenmount Avenue, and
thus enclosing more of
Wright's contributions to the family's
recreational life: clay tennis
courts and riding areas for the
children's ponies. At the rear of the
house in the northwest corner was a
125-barrel cistern which collected
the rain water trapped by four basin
receptacles at each corner of the
house, these being ultimately fed by
Wright's carefully concealed
downspouting in the roofing and wall
structures. This water was in
turn used for bathing, fed into Wright's
large distinctive tubs by a third
spigot. On the west side of the house
was a small door that served as
a compartment for the ice man to place
his deliveries directly into
Wright's large built-in refrigerator
unit. To Mr. Westcott's disdain, it
30. Westcott interview.
290 OHIO HISTORY
later proved attractive to would-be
burglars as well.31 Along the west
wall, as well as other locations under
casement ribbons were metal
flowerboxes, lined with zinc by Wright
so as to forever stay off the ef-
fects of rust.
Although Frank Lloyd Wright was ever
conscious of the demands
and requirements of building on the
prairie, there are certain wider
principles that run through all of his
work which can be seen even at
this time-philosophic principles
concerning his view of the relationship
of man to his environment. Wright
believed that man should feel com-
fortable with nature, rather than feel
antagonistic to it, and his houses
bear numerous characteristics that might
be written off as peculiarities
until one understands their
significance. Many have noted the some-
what unusual positioning of entrances in
his homes: one frequently
must search to find the front door, and
the resultant puzzling array
of porticos, balconies, terraces, etc.,
seems cumbersome until one
senses that this is done deliberately,
to negate any sharp sense of
"boundary" between indoors and
outdoors-so that one is hardly aware
of the transition from one to the other.
In the original 1904 drawing of
the Westcott House the entrance is so
hidden that it cannot be pre-
cisely located. In the plan that was
eventually used, the doors on the
front of the house which are visible
from the street lead only to the
terrace-they cannot be used to receive
callers. The main entrance for
this house is on the east side of the
structure, facing Greenmount
Avenue. One climbs several steps, enters
through a door, but still en-
counters some confusion and momentary
anxiety, before rising to the
reception area on the next level, but
even as one faces the fine oak
paneling of the entrance area, the
genius of the architect begins to
assert itself.
The entrance area is heated by a type of
suction: the large enclosed
radiators in the hall a few steps up
have slats which permit the warm
air to rise and escape; in turn there
are intake vents in the sides of
the cases to trap the colder air
admitted by the front door, this air
then being heated by the hot pipes. In
summer the ribbon of clere-
story casements, the bright yellow tints
of their leaded glass patterns
creating a rubric of beautiful design
across the room's interiors, open
to admit air, well over the heads of
visitors and host. The hallway,
raised to ground level, is dominated by
Wright's rich, oaken staircase
leading to the second floor, the
vertical spindles of its bannisters and
ballustrades joined so neatly and
closely that one is conscious only of
what seems to be an unbroken band of
horizontality. Another leit-
motif that runs through all of Wright's work is his penchant
for natural
31. Ibid.
Westcott House 291 |
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lighting, and he at times goes to great lengths to include this in the plan. Directly above the staircase looms a spacious skylight of leaded glass, tinged with gold and issuing a brilliant flood of illumination, this light in turn being refracted from a similar skylight cut directly into the tiled roof. In the evenings lights placed a few inches above the steps themselves, in glass cases built directly into the plastered walls provide the necessary guidance. On the second floor Wright designed a total of six bedrooms. Mr. Westcott's quarters were at the southeast corner and Mrs. Westcott's at the southwest. Both suits were identical, quite large, and each con- tained a dressing room, fireplace, private bath and outdoor porches for warm weather sleeping. Mr. Wright's distinctive bathtubs were filled with water through a novel, circular-type faucet that tended to resemble a miniature water-fall when in use, and centered in the long wall of the tub rather than the more customary short wall. Somewhat unusual for Wright was his decision to enclose the radiator fixtures in cabinets here in the bedrooms as he did on the ground floor. One can only speculate as to his reasoning, but it is possible that he had some personal characteristic of the Westcotts in mind-perhaps Mr. West- cott was known to occasionally receive business associates here, us- |
292 OHIO HISTORY
ing his large suite as something of an
office.32 The suites are lavishly
appointed, with their large Roman-brick
fireplaces and low ceilings,
offset with a wide ribbon of casement
windows.33 The windows are
not as easily opened as many designed
today and it is possible that
Wright did not design them with the
thought that they might one day
be screened, or he may have envisioned
them remaining open more
or less constantly through the summer
months, as the wide, protective
cave of his hip-roof virtually precludes
the possibility of rain ever en-
tering the house. As always with his
homes, the underside of this eave
is painted a bright off-white so as to
reflect as much light as possible
into the room.
No less distinctive were the two
bedrooms on the west wall of the
house designed for the two Westcott
children, John and Jeanne. As
was his practice, Wright sought to keep
the personalities of the two
children in mind as he worked. For son
John there were special com-
partments built into the walls for toy
soldiers, pistols, etc., and for
daughter Jeanne corresponding storage
areas for dolls and dresses.
Two small bedrooms at the east side of
the house, which the Westcotts
used as servant quarters, completed the
upstairs pattern.
Sometime before 1920 the Westcotts had
the lily pond filled in
with dirt and subsequently used it as a
planter, perhaps strengthening
the floral aspects of the scene.34 A somewhat less apparent change
was their decision during the First
World War to tear up the tennis
courts at the rear of the house to allow
space for a Victory Garden.35
In April of 1923 Orpha Westcott died
suddenly in Philadelphia, fol-
lowing what should have been a routine
sinus operation. Her death left
her husband somewhat despondent, and
following the failure of the
Westcott Motor Car Company Mr.
Westcott's health began to fail.36
He died in his home early in 1926.37
32. William Hicks recalls being so
received by Mr. Westcott about 1920, when West-
cott engaged him to do some electrical
work.
33. In Plate 76 in the Wasmuth Wright
labels the southeast bedroom "Eltern Zimmer"
("Parents' Room") and the
southwest bedroom "Eigenes Zimmer" ("Private Room")
indicating that the rooms were large
enough to accommodate more than one, and that
perhaps could have been used as studys,
offices, etc.
34. Mrs. Westcott, Interview.
35. Ibid.
36. Westcott's two chief suppliers were
General Motors and Durant, both of whom
made frequent overtures to buy his firm.
Eventually, the vulnerability of his small,
independent business proved
debilitating, and Westcott was forced to sell to a syndicate
in 1924 after numerous corporate battles
had badly drained him financially.
37. The importance and popularity of
Burton Westcott to the city of Springfield can
be deduced by one fact alone: in the
January 10, 1926, edition of The Springfield Daily
News the announcement of his death is page-one news, beset
with banner headlines and
photo.
Westcott House 293
A severe alteration of the house's front
facade occurred sometime
after Mr. Westcott's death, perhaps the
work of its next owner, Roscoe
Pierce.38 The sleeping
porches at either side of the house were stuc-
coed over so that the split, terraced
effect of first and second floor was
eliminated-the house became one solid
mass from foundation to roof.39
This change also destroyed access to a
small terrace adjacent to Mr.
Westcott's quarters, above the entrance
way.
The Westcott House is historically
distinctive in that it was Frank
Lloyd Wright's first, and for many years
only, commission in Ohio.40
It is architecturally significant in
that it employs a garden theme of
such dominant proportions, giving it a
type of regal dignity that is
uncommon even to other Wright homes of
the Prairie period.
Whether this reflected the architect's
personal assessment of the char-
acter of his clients or simply a more
general overture to beauty, he
obviously went to great lengths to
design one of his more formidable
Prairie houses. The unusual aesthetic
tastes and uncommon daring
of Burton and Orpha Westcott have given
Ohio one of its most com-
pelling reminders of the genius of
America's greatest twentieth-cen-
tury architect.41
38. Roscoe Pierce was a Springfield book
merchant who bought the house in 1926
after Mr. Westcott's death and lived
there himself until his death in 1941.
39. Exactly who was responsible for this
alteration is a point of some contention. Mr.
and Mrs. John Westcott are certain that
the only change made by the Westcotts was the
screening of these porches in summer-which may have been part of
Wright's original
plan. At some point the screens were
solidified into plaster, and certainly by about 1940
the house appeared virtually as it does
today. In any event, whether done by Pierce or
not, the design today looks rather
natural, and the added casement windows which com-
plement the pattern suggest that it may
have been done by someone familiar with
Wright's work.
40. Indeed it would be some forty-odd
years before Wright would again build in the
Buckeye State, returning for the
Weltzheimer House in Oberlin (1948-1950), Guide
to Chicago and Midwestern
Architecture (Chicago, 1963).
41. The Westcott House, owned since 1944
by Miss Eva Linton, was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places
through the efforts of the Ohio Historical Society in
1974.