Weekly Round Up 3 of 3: A Midwest FLW Bender

Let's pick it up right where we left off last time.  Last weekend I combined a trip to my childhood home of Champaign, Illinois with a Frank Lloyd Wright house touring rampage.

It's definitely a "you had to be there" kind of thing, but I wanted to chat about where I went and hit a few highlights of each house.

First up, a reminder of the geography:

And second, here's the story of how I went from knowing nothing about FLW six months ago to being obsessed with visiting these houses now.

The Samara House - Lafayette Indiana

The Samara House was built in 1956, and it's part what I irreverently call the "FLW Everyday Collection".  People who know what they're talking about call these Usonian homes.  These houses were designed for the average Joe, and only cost about twice what the average Joe's house cost so there wasn't a lot of demand for them.

The owners were on a budget, so they worked out a "pay as you go" arrangement.  They got their house, and then they got specs for all of the bells and whistles and agreed to do the projects as time and money allowed.  The owners lived in the house until 2015 and to date there are still three of the original projects left to complete.  So if you're at all behind in your home maintenance, you're in good company.

When you visit a FLW house, there's a certain formality and lots of rules.  You're generally not allowed to touch anything and there are cameras everywhere.  In some of the houses you can't take pictures, in one house we had to wear protective foot coverings, and in one house we not only had a tour guide but a chaperone as well to make sure that everyone behaved.

When the tour of Samara started, the guide said "Welcome!  Please come in and sit down.  It's OK to touch things, just be careful".

What I'm saying is that Samara is the tour that is not like the other tours.  There was a warm and welcoming vibe.  This house was built for the family to entertain guests, and I felt like a guest.  It was a lot of fun to get hands on and poke around in the cupboards and get to sit down in all of the funky furniture.  BTW it's a lot more comfortable than it looks.

Furniture in a FLW house is not just furniture.  The table comes apart so that you can move sections where you need them.  The cushions on the stools are removable, so that the stools can stack into a step stool.  The bottoms are hollow - the function for that is that the owners had a young daughter.  When she was done playing with her toys the way that she "put them away" was to move one of the stools over them.  Her toys are still there, including her Lincoln Log set.  Fun fact, Lincoln Logs were invented by a gentleman named John Lloyd Wright, and it's fair to say that the apple did not fall far from the big tree.

Let's hear from someone who knows what they're talking about (P.S. Nathaniel was the tour guide when I was there and I got the impression that this is a man who loves his job):

What to know if you go there

• There is no gift shop and no restroom.  On the website it says that yes in an emergency you can use the home restroom, but they appreciate it if you take care of business offsite.
  

The Dana Thomas House - Springfield Illinois

I drove three hours to my next stop the same day.  Not only are we in a different state, we're in a different FLW time period and world.  The tagline for this house is "Extreme Home Makeover: FLW Edition". 

The Dana Thomas house was built in 1902 and not for the average Joe.  Sarah Lawrence Dana was a widow who had just inherited her father's estate and wanted to expand his house so that she had enough room to live, entertain, and do community outreach for the many projects that she was involved in.  The end result is that in the center of the house there is one room from the original house and the masterpiece is built around it.  An FLW trademark is that the front door is usually obscured - it's a hint to strangers to keep their distance.  The Dana house is very different in that the front door is large and in charge because everyone was invited in. 

BTW, I have not figured out how to photograph an entire FLW house yet.  I've got about half of it in the picture above and here's a side view.

Let's hear from someone who knows what they're talking about:

 

What to know if you go there

• Admission price: $0
• There's a gift shop and restroom across the street.
• No photos allowed inside the house.

 The B. Harley Bradley House - Kankakee Illinois

All journeys must come to an end.  On Sunday morning I left Champaign and headed north for Kankakee to see house 3 of 3.

I need to take a detour to tell you about my previous visits to Kankakee.  Back when I was a young 'un anytime that we went to Chicago, the Kankakee McDonald's was our pit stop.  It's a strange association to have with a city: "Kankakee...it's where we pee!"

(My deep apologies to the citizens of Kankakee, and also my sincere thanks that you were there when we needed you.)

This was my first time visiting Kankakee for other than rest stop purposes.

The Bradley house was built in 1900 and it is the first prairie style house.  The "prairie" trademarks are there but not fully formed yet.  All of the other FLW houses that I've been in are full of light, but the Bradley house has a darker vibe.  These houses were designed to blend with nature, so even when you're inside you feel like you're outside, but I didn't get that sense in the Bradley house.  That isn't to say that the Bradley house isn't lovely, because it is, but it was built before the style had come in to its own.  And for that reason it was a valuable addition to my FLW collection.

Let's hear from someone who knows what they're talking about (the video quality isn't the best...there's lots of room for Kankakee to expand into the social media world):

What to know if you go there

• There's a gift shop and restroom built into the carriage house, which is a trademark of many of the other public FLW sites.
• Photos are allowed.

Let's Wrap It Up

• Making a ridiculously long drive to go on a midwest FLW bender: 10/10.  Bonus points for being able to stay in my childhood home town in the process.
• I love all of the FLW houses and I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite besides all of them.  However, I can rank the houses that I saw on this visit:
• The gold medal goes to the new kid on the block.  The Samara House just had such a wonderful, welcoming feel to it.  I've always been drawn more to the early 20th century but in this case the 50's has it going on.
  
• The silver medal goes to the Dana house.  Prairie style grand mansions are my jam.  
• Bronze for the Bradley house.  Don't get me wrong, I loved it and I loved seeing the "early" prairie style, but I'm comfortable ranking it in 3rd place.

Bye for now! Thanks for hanging out and letting me relive my weekend.