Built 1940 NRHP Reference # 95001423 Area 6,880 m² | Architectural style Usonian Opened 1940 Added to NRHP 13 December 1995 | |
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Similar Donald Schaberg House, Melvyn Maxwell and Sara, Lloyd Lewis House, Frederick C Bogk House, Gregor S and Elizabeth | ||
The Goetsch–Winckler House, (also known as Goetsch–Winkler House), was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, built in 1940, and is located at 2410 Hulett Rd, Okemos, Michigan. The house is an example of Wright's later Usonian architectural style, and is considered to be one of the most elegant.
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History
In the 1930s eight professors from Michigan State University, in neighboring East Lansing, formed a co-op and bought a forty acre tract of land in Okemos. Two of them, Alma Goetsch and Kathrine Winckler (or Winkler), approached Wright asking him to design a community for them. Wright's concept, derived from the Broadacre City plan, was to be known as Usonia I. The community was to consist of seven houses and a caretaker's cottage surrounding a common farm, orchard, and fish pond. Access to the houses was by a U shaped road around the farm, with each house at the end of a long driveway and each with a private garden. Although the design of each house varied, they did share common features such as flat roofs, accentuated horizontal lines, and simple massing. Due to lack of financing, the project collapsed and only the Goetsch–Winckler House was built on a different site.
After World War II, Wright designed houses separately for several other co-op members, although the only design built was that for Erling P. Brauner, also in Okemos less than a mile and a half from Goetsch–Winckler House.
Design
One of Wright’s earliest Usonian homes, the house is an "in-line Usonian", literally a house built in a straight line. The carport, living room, dining room, kitchen and bedrooms all form rectangular spaces that slide past each other. The living room takes up most of the house, with a chimney at one end in front of a workspace. At the opposite end, two bedrooms, separated by a bathroom, open out on to a veranda. The workspace exemplifies the Usonian interior, with its clerestory windows supplementing a bank of full length casement windows on the adjacent wall. Despite its small size the house seems large due to built-in furniture and shelves. Built-ins include the dining room table, a seat by the fireplace, a bar, a desk and bookcase in the workspace, as well as numerous storage spaces.
