By Patrick F. Cannon

Most of us have looked at a house or other dwelling and thought “I could never live there.” I personally value a house that provides a sense of shelter and privacy, with a pleasing form, built of natural materials, and one that fits well in its neighborhood or landscape. As an example of what I don’t like, there’s a new house nearby that is constructed of a kind of concrete, with a vast front window that displays one of those suspended staircases favored by some architects.

            But the person who spent much more than a million dollars building it must like it just fine. As in most things in the world, to each his own. I’ve learned it’s never wise to make over-generalizations – after all, my opinion is just that, my opinion. But my friend and collaborator on eight books on architecture, Jim Caulfield, recently told me of a statement made at an event he attended by an acquaintance of ours, an architectural historian. “I could never live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house,” he exclaimed.

            As it happens, Wright designed several hundred homes during his lengthy career. From all accounts, most of his clients loved them. I’ve visited approximately 50 of them. I could see myself living in some, but certainly not all of them. In a career spanning more than 70 years, at first Wright designed houses not a great deal different than the more conventional ones designed by older, established architects. So, if you told me you could never live in one of his houses, I’d have to ask you: “which one?”

            Houses can be a bit contrary though. I remember a friend, now gone, who had quite a nice prairie school house designed by the well-known architects Purcell & Elmslie. Like many of Wright’s prairie houses, arts and crafts or craftsman furniture suits them best. His, however, was filled with elaborate French and English pieces from the 18^th Century. Looked strange to my eyes, but not to the owners. I often wonder what kind of stuff the new owners put in.

            Of course, that period furniture looks natural in a place like England’s Blenheim Palace, which was a gift from his country to John Churchill, the first Duke of Marlborough, for his victory over the French at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. The public rooms, and there are dozens, are furnished in the French taste, which seems odd, considering why it was built. I guess John was willing to let bygones be bygones. By the way, his famous descendant, Winston Churchill, was born in the  house, but in a more humbly furnished bedroom.  

            I have also been in many Victorian period houses (Italianate, Queen Anne, etc.) that have been filled with modern furniture, their elaborate woodwork either removed or painted over. Yikes! But I have also been to several that have been lovingly restored or preserved, with appropriate furnishings, like the Oak Park home in the photo above by James Caulfield.

As for me, I live in an undistinguished condominium building built in the early 1970s. The apartment interiors have no particular style, so you can create your own. When we moved in eight years ago, we had the windows framed and replaced the plain dark brown doors with paneled white ones. Since I couldn’t afford Rembrandt or Valasquez, the walls are covered with paintings and prints that have meaning to me. There are several signed and hand-colored original etchings bought on travels (Vienna, Oxford, Florence, etc.); water colors in a similar vein; prints of cover images from some of my books; one original oil; and just a couple of reproductions. (By the way, I could legitimately ask a lady “up to see my etchings.”)

Although two or three of them are worth more than I paid for them, they were not bought for that purpose, but because they have meaning for me. Recently, a Harry Bliss cartoon in the Chicago Tribune showed the back of a couple sitting on a couch and looking at a vast abstract painting on the wall facing them. The caption: “I love the way it says ‘Hard Asset.’” They should have loved the way it looked instead.

Copyright 2024, Patrick F. Cannon