EYE ON DESIGN BY DAN GREGORY

The (Home) Bases Are Loaded

This week I applaud what I call “Enlightened Pragmatism” in home design. Here are two examples.

An Extreme Case. Loving Frank, by Nancy Horan (Ballantine, 2007) is a book about architecture that you can take to the beach. Superbly written, the novel builds upon the true story of Frank Lloyd Wright’s scandalous and ultimately tragic love affair with Mamah Cheney, who was the wife of one of his clients. Perhaps the ultimate enlightened pragmatist — often more enlightened than pragmatic — Wright designed Taliesin East, his famous hillside heath at Spring Green, Wisconsin, shown below, partly for her.

Here’s a more recent view.

(You can visit Taliesin East and support its ongoing preservation.)

The book contains a marvelous moment — wholly invented by Horan — during the construction of the house when Mamah puts the vastly talented and serenely egotistical Frank in his place, calling him a hypocrite for buying beautiful and costly objects like grand pianos instead of paying off his creditors. Almost everyone — surely most of his clients — has always wanted to do just that! Of course, he always said honest arrogance was better than false modesty but sometimes he was… just a naughty little boy. And that’s a big part of his charm, from a distance. His imagination was truly enlightened — he took the cantilever, the window wall, and built-in furniture to new heights — and deserved to be treated royally. But occasionally he had to be brought down to earth in order to get the job done. The wonderful thing is that coming to grips with reality often drove him to new feats of invention, such as when he created the Usonian house — his version of the suburban ranch house — during the depths of the Depression. The poetic was often at war with the practical in Wright’s mind, but that struggle made his imagination soar.

Grand Theft Home. I just toured Sunset magazine’s latest Idea House (their 22nd!): Bring your camera! Part of a Menlo Park, California development called Lane Woods — named for the family who owned the magazine for many years — by Summerhill Homes, it’s full of what the magazine calls “Ideas to Steal.” And they are. Interior designer Kelly Barthelemy explains: “We wanted to explore the idea of “mixing” at every level: paint colors, materials, textures, furniture styles, art styles, display ideas, high end and low end. People rarely have a house composed of a single style. Life — combining households, changing tastes, starting a family — inevitably leaves us all with an eclectic combination of things. Our idea was to show how to create harmony from what might othewrise seem to be a mismatched collection.” In other words, it’s all in the Remix! This is enlightened pragmatism of the most useful sort. Here’s some of what I took away:

Caster Aisle

The kitchen table, fabricated by So Real Ironworks with a bamboo top from Teragren, is on rollers so it can move where you need it. The different sets of chairs add interest and still work with the warm hue of the tabletop.

Compare and Contrast

With bold wallpaper (from California Paint Company) and an imposing headboard, one accent wall can set the tone for the room. The headboard, designed and built by Sunset Contributing Editor Peter O. Whiteley out of Fypon lightweight foam molding, cleverly resembles an heirloom mantelpiece at a fraction of the price of the real thing.

PVC-Pipe “Gazebo”

This simple and ingenious outdoor room (also designed by Whiteley) uses a frame of pvc pipe set into pvc sleeves pounded into the ground to define a sitting area. The curtain fabric is weather-resistant Sunbrella fabric. Garden by Shades of Green Landscape Architecture.

Handling Your Hang Ups

Recycled faucet handles turn a coat and bag rack into something memorable. One good turn deserves another!