TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1
a)     Background
b)     Three bids for the Insurance Company
Part 2       The Price
Part 3       The Agreement
Part 4       The Tent
Part 5       Lifting the Wall
Part 6       The Koi
Part 7
a)     The Cherokee Slab
b)     They’ve Ruined my Usonian
Part 8
a)           The Trowel
b)          The Redwood
Part 9
a)           Laying up the Boards
b)          ‘The living Room Ceiling
Part 10
a)          The Cabinets
b)          Copper Roof Fascia
Part 11     It’d Be Nice
Part 12     Leaks
Part 13     Fixtures

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

FIXTURES

Every day of progress brought with it more of the beauty of Wright’s architecture.  This surprised me.  I had assumed his iconic place in American architecture was the result of grand and imaginative creative sweeps.  Falling Water is shocking in its bold relationship to its setting.  All of his major buildings, the Guggenheim Museum of Manhattan, The Johnson Wax Works of Racine Wisconsin, the Imperial Hotel of Tokyo, Unity Temple of Oak Park, are almost overpowering in their grand vision.  What I was gradually coming to understand through the layering on of the finishes of the Buehler House, was how the details interacted with the broader architectural concept to create the whole.  This interaction is critical and without it, the broader architectural concept cannot carry the day.  The board and bat system in relationship to the concrete block, the knuckles of the piano hinges, the perforated board windows, the book shelves, even the screw heads all harmonize and are part of the rhythm and beauty of the house.  The integration between the macro and micro levels of design is critical to the overall aesthetic. 

No one seemed to know this better than Walter.  Every detail received the most intensive attention.  There were weeks of full and half scale drawings attendant to the minutest considerations.  The house grew more beautiful with each application of his attention.

Surprisingly, our client Maynard Buehler seemed totally unaware.  This was particularly surprising given his involvement in building the house some 50 years earlier.  Maynard was also an inventor and machinist who designed and made things, often things of beauty.  For example, all of the door hardware in the house had been designed and machined by him.  Nevertheless, he did not seem particularly in touch with Walter’s efforts or the design considerations going into the rebuilding. I might have thought that his 80 some years had taken the edge off his judgment except for the fact that he was sharp as a tack and unquestionably mentally acute in almost all regards.

I believe the answer to the paradox lies in two traits.  One was thrift.  As Betty Olds lovingly said some years after Maynard’s demise, when I was interviewing her for an article on Walter, “Maynard was as tight as the bark on a tree.”  The other was pragmatism.  Maynard was a deeply pragmatic man.  The gallery bookshelves had to line up with the board and bat walls to satisfy the aesthetic of the house module.  This time Maynard wanted the shelves to accommodate the height of his books.  It was a fight of titans for Walter to convince him to stay with Wright’s architectural canyon.

It was pragmatism and tightness that drew Maynard like a magnet to Home Depot.  There would be a need for things Home Deport supplied; sinks, faucets, toilets, towel bars, counter tops.  One day Maynard arrived with dozens of cardboard boxes.  He was pleased with the results of his shopping and relieved to have a host of decisions behind him.  I was on site conferring with Cregg when Maynard arrived with the boxes.  He instructed Tiger to move them to the living room where they would be out of the way.  Cabinets were just about completed and after counter tops, we’d be ready for the plumbing fixtures.  He announced with some satisfaction, “I think it’s all here.”  What’s all here I asked thinking the worst as I looked at a picture of a faucet on one of the boxes.  “All the plumbing fixtures.  You can let Walter know everything is here.  If there’s something missing, I can go back.”

Cregg and I shot each other a worried glance.  I felt like I was being put in the middle.  Maynard must have known that Walter would want to select all the fixtures.  They were part of the design, part of how the house would look and feel and even function.  Maynard was fully able to speak him mind and get his way. But somehow he was leaving it to us to let Walter know that his design role had been suddenly eclipsed by Home Depot.

Walter’s house was on the way home and so, after phoning first, I stopped by.  Walter did not take the news happily.  I could tell he was furious.  I feared this could be disastrous.  For all his painstaking effort to give the best house possible, and with, I suspect, little compensation for the actual hours of work, this was a slap in the face.  It was a frightening moment.  I tried to offer some hope.  “Maybe what he bought is alright.  If it’s not, I’m sure we can exchange or return it.”  But it didn’t help.  Walter was obviously hurt.  He said something about letting Maynard finish the job on his own.

The next morning, I decided to talk to Maynard.  I found him in the garden house having his morning coffee with the paper as he did everyday before heading to work.  I stuck my head in.  “Good morning Maynard.  Have a moment?” “Good morning Keith”, he replied.  “Come in.  This is unusual.  What’s on your mind?”  In typical fashion, he got right to it.  I thought I should do as much myself.  “I told Walter about the stuff you bought and he didn’t seem pleased.  You know how he reacts when you buy something and he hasn’t had a chance to think about it?”  “Yes” he replied. “I sensed that.  I don’t understand it.  What’s wrong with my buying things?  It’s my house.  I’m just trying to help, trying to save him worrying about it.  And they were on sale.”  This was getting difficult.  I tried to speak to the design issue, how Walter was a very good designer and wanted to give these matters his full attention.  I could see that Maynard was oblivious.  He seemed genuinely unaware of the mismatch between his selections and the architecture of his house.  This was a possible entry.

I carry a pocket pad in my shirt pocket.  I took it out and said, “you know the faucets you bought?  Well a profile of one looks something like this.”  I drew an outline of the curves of the faucet stem.  It looked like the multiple ogee curves of Victorian crown molding. He complimented my drawing.  “That’s pretty good.”  “Thanks” I said, and continued.  “Do you see any curves like that anywhere in the house?”

A light went off.  “I see your point.  What should I do?” he asked.  I went for it.  “If you returned those boxes and left it up Walter, you’d make him a lot happier and easier to work with.”  That was a lot to ask.  Maynard was not feeling at all comfortable with the direction this had taken.  Walter and now Maynard felt pushed aside.  But Maynard rose to the occasion by consenting to return the boxes.  Nothing further was said about the plumbing fixtures until Walter got to the design of Maynard’s omelet making station in the kitchen, called by Wright, “the work station”.  That’s a story for another day.

Keith R. Alward
November, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

IT’D BE NICE IF THERE WAS A LITTLE MORE PINK THIS TIME

We were not long into the project when we developed a regular pattern of meeting on Friday afternoons at the end of the work day.  Maynard, Walter, Cregg and I met at 5:00.  Maynard was a punctual man and it was understood that 5:00, not 5:15 was the meeting time.  Cregg never put it on his time card and the clients were never charged.  There was no formal procedure.  We gathered and someone started.  Walter would often have a sample of something he wanted us to consider.  He was a genius at constructing samples of things as diverse as light fixtures, glazing details, sheet metal details, wood treatment.  If it was possible to build a model or create a sample, we could depend on Walter to provide one.  He used plastics, metals, glass, woods, leather.  He was clever and resourceful.  He almost always presented, either with or without accompanying models, detailed drawings of items requiring decisions or implementation.  The drawings might be full scale or half scale.  In the course of the project he might have produced more than 100 such full sheet drawings.  We might talk about up-coming problems or decisions, items that needed to be ordered, any manner of topics related to our mutual endeavor.  Our meeting often ended up with a glass or two of wine from Maynard’s vast wine cellar.   Wine was seldom imbibed without the presence of Katie.   Cregg had often left for home by this time. 

Some of these meetings were quite interesting with regards to the topics but whether or not the subject was of interest, the interpersonal dynamics were always interesting.   They, in turn, were often a topic at my Friday evening meals with my wife Barbara.  We were not too long into these weekly meetings when Barbara suggested we should invite Katie to join.  I thought it was a great idea, although I was a little embarrassed that I had unwittingly participated in this male chauvinist oversight.

At the next opportunity I asked Katie if she would like to join our meetings.  I halfway expected her to decline with some demur remark about it not being a women’s domain.  But in her typical straightforward style she replied, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to eat, sleep and cook in the place, I ought to have something to say about how it’s built.”  So she joined us.  I think “the boys” were a little taken aback, but it was obvious that there would be no turning back.

I kept track of our meetings with my pocket pad and pen which are always present in my shirt pocket.  They don’t take up much room and are there when I need them.  With a few short notes, I was able to capture almost all of the items discussed in our Friday meetings.  When I returned to the office, I typed them on my computer.  Each item in my pocket pad was numbered.  The numbers were continuous across successive meetings.  If the last item from the previous week was # 48, the first item on the following week would be #49.  At the next meeting, I distributed copies of the minutes.  To keep the list manageable, I kept two lists, one that contained all of the items and the other, containing only those that were still pertinent.  It was the latter that I shared.

In one of the earlier meetings that included Katie, she interjected into the discussion, at a point that boar no relationship to her intention, an observation that no one was prepared for.  Out of the blue she said, “you know, I always thought the house was kinda dark.  It’d be nice if there was a little more pink this time.” Everyone got it but nobody knew what to do with it.  I wrote it down on my pocket pad.  “More pink.”  It became item #53 and it remained on the list until almost the end of the project.  Hundreds of items came and went. They showed up on the list and then, as they were dealt with or became irrelevant, they left the current list.  But #53 stayed for ever, and on every meeting, everyone could see that the issue of pink had still not been dealt with.

There is a deep and thoughtful literature, full of articulate insight into the accomplishments and shortcomings of Wright’s architecture.  I doubt you’ll find, however, the expression, “not enough pink”.  But here it was, from one who really knew, from the most authoritative, from someone who had lived in a Wright house for 50 years, who had raised two babies to adulthood and fed and tended to an old-fashioned husband for 50 years.  For her the house was too dark and lacked a little pink.  It is hard to express what a shocking condition this introduced.  We were restoring a Wright residence where the palate of materials was classic and inviolate:  Cherokee red concrete, redwood, grey concrete block, glass.  That was it.  Maybe a touch or brass or copper, maybe a stone counter top or a white porcelain bathtub.  Where was the pink?   On the list, week after week; “more pink”. 

At some point, Sally Power, owner of Sally Power Interior Design of San Francisco, was hired.  She was, and continues to be, a friend of Betty Olds.  She worked with Walter to bring a little pink into the project.  She has since commented that her job was to persuade Walter and Maynard that what was actually pink, wasn’t and to persuade Katie that what wasn’t pink, was.  It was a delicate task but she carried it out masterfully.  The results showed up in a hexagonal rug for the living room, cushions and draperies for the living room, a long custom-made carpet strip for the gallery hallway.  In conjunction with Walter she designed an upholstered wainscot for the master bedroom.  Working with Walter on this assignment was not easy.  She reports that the only man that ever brought her to tears was Walter.

Keith R. Alward
November, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

LEAKS

Unfortunately, one of the things Frank Lloyd Wright is known for is leaking buildings.  Fair or not, the stories are legendary.  He built a remarkable factory and office for the Johnson Wax company and later a residence for its founder, Mr. Johnson.  The Johnson Wax Works in Racine Wisconsin and the 1938 Wingspread residence on the outskirts of Racine are iconic achievements in American architecture.  He got a call from Mr. Johnson.  “I’m having a diner party and it is leaking above my chair at the head of the table.”  Mr. Wright’s reply was brief and to the point, “move your chair”.  Those who know the Marin Civic Center know that it leaks like a sieve and nobody has been able to do anything about it.  This spring, my wife and I visited the 1923 Millard House in Pasadena, one of the textile block houses also considered by Wright to be one of the first Usonians. It had just rained and water was dripping through the living room ceiling onto the floor some 14 feet below.  The house is for sale for $4,995,000 leaks and all. 

I don’t want to take up the argument one way or the other.  It’s reasonable to hold, however, that the first duty of architecture is to build shelters that protect one from the elements.  Particularly for an “organic” architecture like Wright’s that wants to get right down to basics, to the union of materials, form and function.  Is it fair to claim you’ve achieved that and then tell your client to move his chair?  Like I said, I’m not going to get into it.  I’m crazy about Wright’s architecture, leaks and all.  But as a builder, I can’t build things that leak, even things like Wright’s structures that truly push the envelope of design.

I expressed this to Maynard on a number of occasions when we were struggling over water control details.  He tired to ease my mind.  “Keith, we’ve lived here 50 years and it’s leaked 49 of them.”  I reminded him that I was a boat builder.  I don’t build things that leak.  “Maynard”, I said, “it may have leaked before, but when I’m finished your house wont’ leak.”  He greeted my youthful optimism and unshakable confidence with a slight nod of his head and twinkly in his eyes and a respectful. “We’ll see.”

The Usonian concrete slab was the source of potential trouble.  The interior and exterior slab elevations were the same. There were no door thresholds and the redwood walls, as well as the concrete block walls, came directly down on the slab.  The threat of water coming under the door or seeping under the walls was an obvious problem.  Meticulous attention to concrete finishing at the doorways, the application of brass moisture stops at the wood walls and the application of a concrete key with bentonite moisture stop at the concrete masonry units, were some of the means we used to meet the challenges of Wright’s design.  Glass corners where glass meets glass provided obvious challenges.  The perforated board windows which were really no more than a section of the board and bat that opened up to let in air, required special attention.  Everywhere we turned the challenges of creating a water tight envelope were beyond any previous experience of myself or my workers.

With the exception of the tilting living room roof, the roof was dead flat.  A flat roof can be treated to have enough slope to move water, but this was almost completely negated by the thin 8 inch thickness of the entire roof assembly on the Buehler House. Even with this restriction we sculpted a cardboard substrate under the water proof roofing to within 64^th of an inch to move water to the internal roof scuppers. Standing water is deadly for any roof membrane.

The soaring living room roof was covered with copper shingles. The field of a roof is seldom the problem.  It’s the edges that require attention.  Here we had copper shingles ending against wood, sometimes concrete block, sometimes other metals such as the copper fascia or other roof membranes such as the tar and gravel flat portion of the roof.  Each intersection of disparate materials required its own unique solution and choice of materials.  Wright buildings don’t leak. Poor joints between materials leak.  We say, “the devil is in the details”.  In a Wright house, the details are a devil.

The house did not leak.  Not for the first year.  Not for the second.  But on the third winter, I got a call.  “Hi Keith, it’s Maynard here.”  “Oh, hi”, I said.  He got right to it.  “It leaks”.  “What leaks?”  I asked worriedly.  “It leaks in the living room.”  My heart sank.  On the other hand, I recalled Maynard’s rather casual attitude about the first 49 years of leaks.  I hoped he might be up to a few more.  Just to make sure, I asked, “What would you like me to do?”  trying to sound nonchalant.  “Fix it!” came a familiar voice that never left a doubt as to what was expected.

Cregg and I went out to the house.  We applied water to the area in question and were able to reproduce the leak, It was a seam between the copper roofing and the concrete masonry block chimney of the double fireplace.  A little investigation turned up an interesting fact.  The caulk we used to seal the concrete to the copper did not adhere well to copper.  We learned this from a Richmond outfit specializing in caulking materials.  They had the right material and we soon had it in place.  The right material was all that was needed to turn the tide on this unfortunate Wright leak.

That’s a happy ending.  But unfortunately, not the full story…

Keith R. Alward
November, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

THE CABINETS

A great deal of the interior of the original house was cabinetwork.  Surprisingly, a good deal of the cabinet doors survived with minimal charring and/or smoke damage.  Maynard intended to reuse as much of this material as possible.  We built a storage shed on the grass of the grounds near the house.  Jorge and I built a simple structure of plywood walls and floor and a gable roof with plastic covering.  Into the shed went all the cabinet doors that could be salvaged.  They were all made of redwood plywood.  In some cases, the charring was so deep that they could not be used except by cutting them down.  Maynard wanted everything saved that could possibly be reused.

As Walter proceeded with a design of the new interior, now having exact dimensions of the rooms as the interior siding went up, Maynard instructed him to design the new cabinets to accommodate the old doors.  A catalogue was made listing their size, the location of holes for cabinet pulls and what kind of effort was needed to restore them.

It was a daunting task to design cabinets for the new house, decidedly different in layout and size from the old one, using the remains from the old house.  Walter labored under Maynard’s instructions and the toll on him was telling.

There was a good chance that new redwood plywood would be needed even if we were reusing the old material.  I started looking.  It was hard however to give a precise count of how many sheets were needed, since Walter was having an almost impossible time accommodating Maynard’s effort to save money.

For some time Walter struggled between wanting to have an ideal design for the house and trying to save money by reusing the old doors. The tension between design and spending money had never been clearer.  More precisely, the tension was between design and finding a large supply of ¾ inch sheets of redwood plywood.

As with the redwood boards, we looked high and low for the plywood.  A few years earlier it might have been a relatively easy task but redwood trees were becoming more rare and redwood plywood seemed to no longer exist.  To build all of the new cabinets with new redwood would require about 60 sheets.  We could find no such supply anywhere on the west coast.  We even went so far as to contact a mill in Germany, which had been known to buy a large supply of redwood skins.  We were hoping to have them manufacture the required sheets.  In the end this fell through and we were back to looking for other sources.  We eventually found someone at MacBeath Hardwood, a local lumberyard that remembered a couple of lifts of redwood plywood tucked away in their mill.  They had exactly 60 sheets.  I told Maynard I would not mark up the cost if we could buy the material immediately.  He said “yes” and we ordered the material.

Walter was greatly relieved and was now able to design for the house rather than to accommodate a list of damaged doors.  As detailed drawings continued to emerge from his drawing board, I was trying to decide where and how the cabinets would be produced.  Again, because Wright did not use moldings to cover gaps, the cabinets needed to be built to the exact sizes.  We felt the requirements were such that it might be best to set up a cabinet shop on site and build the cabinets ourselves.  Eventually however, we decided to work with Coreris Cabinets and Construction.  Over the years, John Coreris had become a friend of the company.  He was a consummate builder who designed and built custom houses.  He enjoyed keeping a cabinet shop and hired very talented people who could do the most demanding cabinetwork.  Most of his cabinets were for his new houses or occasional remodeling jobs.  He would, however, for those who he respected, make cabinets for other contractors.  I approached him about this job and emphasized the demands of the work and the risks of having to redo work at his expense if there was any failure to meet the exacting dimensions.

A deal was made and the redwood was delivered to his shop.  Eventually we started getting shipments of cabinets that Cregg and his men could install.  The style of cabinets is the most difficult to build and install.  These, like older style cabinets, have a face frame, which is of finished wood that is attached to the rough frame of the cabinet and is seen as a part of the cabinet front.  The doors are set into the frame such that the face of the cabinet door is flush with the frame of the cabinet.  There is a gap between the door and the frame that is always visible.  It is important that this gap is uniform around the door and frame and that the gaps between adjacent doors in the same system of cabinets are uniform to each other.  This requires a lot of care on the part of both the cabinetmaker and the installer.  The cabinetmaker has to build the cabinets to precise tolerances and the cabinet installer has to install the cabinets in a way that both fits into the space but also preserves the tolerances.

We didn’t want the edge of the plywood doors exposed so each door edge was covered with a thin veneer of redwood tape.  This is called edge banding.  This solved the appearance of the edges but introduced another problem, which was that edge banding is too thin to be planed.  Accordingly, the doors could not be modified to fit after the boxes were installed.

There was also the issue of the cabinet hinges.  In the original house, Wright used a brass piano hinge for each door.  Piano hinges get their name from the fact that they are used in the lids of pianos.  They typically come in lengths that can be cut to size.  They are difficult and expensive to install because they have slot screws each couple of inches or so on both side.  So, for example, a three-foot piece could take maybe 40 screws.  If there are a pairs of doors, as was the case, the quantities are double.

Maynard decided that we were not going to use piano hinges on the new cabinets.  He decided that the amount of money involved was not worth it.  We had saved a lot of the original hinges but there were still literally over a hundred feet of hinge to order and then there was the added expense of their installation.

By searching around the country, we were able to find a fairly inexpensive source of hinges.  Additionally, I offered to eliminate our markup on the hinges if Maynard would allow their use.  This had worked before and it worked here.  We also got a price concession from Coreris by stipulating that they only needed to install enough screws to stabilize the doors.  We could install the missing screws if we felt it was necessary.  Thus, piano hinges were used on all the cabinet doors including all the ceiling height cabinets in the main gallery.  As one can see in the finish product, the effect is stunning.  The knuckles of the piano hinges introduce another rhythm in the house that resonates with the horizontal module of the walls.  We again discovered that Wright, as almost always, was right.

COPPER ROOF FASCIA

Reducing or eliminating my markup on products served us well in terms of persuading Maynard to make a choice that was good for the house.  People have questioned my policy but I think it’s the right course on two counts.  For one, there is an explicit conflict of interest in trying to get a client to use a more expensive solution when I am making a percentage on the additional expense.  For another, I don’t think losing the markup on an additional building cost is particularly different than not getting markup on some other client expenditure –say a new car.  The only difference between not getting markup on, say piano hinges for example, versus a new car is that I’m a contractor and there’s a plausible case that I ought to get the markup building materials.  I’m happier to have a happy client who will still work with me and recommend me, particularly when the outcome is better for the project.

Such was the case with the house roof fascia.  The Usonian houses all have a strong thin roofline usually expressed as a wide eve and sometimes as cantilevered roof sections, as in his carports.  The edge of the roof is accentuated with an eve board.  In the Buehler House, the eve board is a clear piece of 2 x 10 inch redwood that extends slightly above the roof membrane and slightly below the eve boards and is canted back such that the bottom of the board is further out from the house than is the top.  In the nearly 50 years since the house was built, the fascia boards had weathered more than most elements of the house.

As we were contemplating materials for the fascia, we were also considering the roofing choices.  Most of the roof was originally a tar and gravel flat roof.  There seemed no reason not to return to this system although Walter was hoping to put a slight slope on the roof to drain water to the scuppers and internal rainwater leaders.  Caldwell Roofing was eventually chosen to install the roof with very subtle changes in elevation to create drainage.  Changes in roof elevations were as little as 1/64 th of an inch over a foot.

The tilted square roof above the octagonal living room offered a chance to do something dramatic.  Wright had originally wanted a copper roof, but for economy, it ended up with a composition shingle roof.  Now that it was being rebuilt, copper was back in play.

In looking for a suitable system, Walter came across a copper shingle produced by Revere Copper.  The Revere representative eagerly came out to the site.  He was an architectural buff and even belonged to the Peninsula AIA group.  He was wildly enthusiastic about getting his copper product on the roof of this Frank Lloyd Wright house.  Walter was also excited about its possible use on his own house that was in a very fire vulnerable area of the Berkeley hills.  Revere made Walter and Maynard a deal they couldn’t refuse and so it was decided that the roof of the living room would be copper.  Cregg would do the installation on both the Buehler House and Walter and Betty’s home.

It was inevitable that Walter would want a copper fascia, not only for the area of the copper roof, but also for the rest of the house, including the shop wing.  It was a compelling architectural suggestion but Maynard balked.  It was too much money.  He didn’t want to do it.  I don’t think he was angling for a deal on my part.  He was not a scheming man.  However, when I offered not to mark up the product, he consented.  Walter went to work detailing exactly how he wanted the metal bent, shaped, and fastened to the house.  Sheet metal has to float in order not to oil can, which is to develop dents and imperfections due to the expansion and contraction of the metal.  A complex system was designed and Crown Heating and Sheet Metal was chosen to do the fabrication and installation.  Two of their employees were superb metal craftsmen and they spent weeks at the Buehler House giving its eves a fabulous new look.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

LAYING UP THE BOARDS

Up to this point all the work had been of a rough sort, with the exception of the concrete block and toping slab.  First there was all the demolition and clearing.  Then there was the digging, forming and placing of concrete reinforcement bar followed by the placing and finishing of concrete.  There was the installation of structural steel and the rough framing of the walls and roof.  All of this along with the supervision of the subcontractors and the building of our tent had required a good deal of care in planning and layout.  Now the crew was anxious to get to the pretty stuff, the placement of all the beautiful redwood that was sitting in the living room waiting to go up on the new walls and ceilings.

As the day approached, the crew took on a manifest change in appearance.  One day I came to the job site and everyone was wearing brand new white carpenter bib overalls.  Nothing was said about the expense or decision, but clearly the crew saw itself on a special mission.  From now on, the crew would be building a Frank Lloyd Wright house in earnest.  By this fact alone, they had become a fraternity.

The crew now consisted of Cregg Sweeney, my son Matthew, (my younger son Tyson had worked on the project up to this point), Manuel Hernandez, Agustin Velasquez, Jorge Cortes, Genaro Alamilla and sometimes Genaro’s father, Jenaro Senior.

Cregg had been with me maybe 4 or 5 years and had risen from carpenter to lead carpenter.  Almost everyone worked on Walter and Betty Olds house.  Cregg, with his quiet New England nose-to-the-grindstone manner, was Walter’s favorite.  Walter managed to keep Cregg on his job for the better of three years.  Walter had apprenticed to Frank Lloyd Wright, and Cregg had apprenticed to Walter.  We couldn’t get any closer to the source of this beautiful house.

Some time had been spent trying to find the screws we were going to use.  The original house had used a zinc plated slot screw and the guesthouse designed by Walter in the 50s had used a zinc plated Phillips tip screw.  I didn’t like either.  Surprisingly, Walter and Maynard seemed disinterested in the issue.  Maynard thought the Phillips screws would be faster to install and they were both content with the zinc look that was used on the original house.  I thought a brass screw would look better.  Possibly because of my experience in boat building, brass seemed a natural choice.  I finally found silicon bronze screws that seemed to be acceptable to everyone and we ordered thousands of them from a source in LA.

Lastly, a treatment had to be selected for the outside wood. We were starting with the exterior walls.  We settled on Floods Clear Wood Sealer.  We set up a long plastic trough in the driveway.  All the exterior wood was taken to the driveway for dipping and then put on drying racks to dry.  When ready, it was laid up, board at a time, as a Usonian board and bat walls and then as redwood ceilings.  Where there were no cuts to make other than beveling the ends of individual boards, the work went relatively fast.  But where boards required multiple cuts, the work was slow.  Wright did not use moldings to cover gaps.  Conventional finish carpentry is often the application of moldings to cover gaps that the building system naturally allow and expect.  For the Buehler House, any gap wider than a playing card was too big and there would be no moldings to cover it.

Every horizontal board, almost by definition, has two vertical cuts, one at each end.  If either or both are finished joints abutting other elements, they must be cut or scribed to those other elements, whether they are, for example, the corner of a house or the end of another board.  The angle is conceptually a square cut or 90 degrees, generally, but this cannot be counted on.  The actual angle must be measured.  A single board could easily have 6 or more vertical cuts in it; one at each end, and four for vertical sides of two windows for example.  Not only do these cuts have to be precise, they must all be precise at the same time on the same board.  There cannot be a mistake.  If there is, the board is lost and the carpenter must start over again.  The carpenter’s adage is “Measure twice, cut once.”  With the expense of the wood and the potential investment of time into what might ultimately be lost, our adage might have been, “Make a mistake, cut off your arm.”  This was suggested to me by Paul Disco, who, when I visited with him, was building Larry Ellison’s $150 million Japanese motif estate in Woodside, California.

The horizontal boards went up at such a slow pace that the carpenters laughingly claimed they put the date on the back of each board to show when it was cut.  This was not actually the case.  Everyone wanted to be as efficient as possible and while the work was demanding, everyone wanted it to proceed as quickly as possible.

The ceiling boards were even more challenging on a number of counts.  One of the most challenging is that the ceiling boards with their distinct profile often traveled around corners or were part of a pattern that required boards to change direction at right angles or even, in some places, at different angles such as 135 degrees.  There were also many penetrations such as the square redwood light boxes Wright, and then Walter, used as down lights.  Lastly, the ceiling boards traveled inside and outside of the building at the same time.  The large overhanging eves were an extension of the lower ceilings of the house and while the actual board stopped at the exterior walls, the pattern had to continue on the other side of the wall.  As I sometimes explained to people when I gave a tour of the house, you could conceptually put a marble in one of the groves of the ceiling and it would travel all around the house, inside and out, and come back to the same point.

Lastly, something might be said of the screws that were used to hold the siding and ceiling boards in place, or more precisely, of the person who installed the screws.  The carpenters used almost invisible pin nails to set the boards but once they were in place, the silicon bronze screws were applied.  Almost all of the thousands of screws put in the building were applied by Genaro Junior.  He had come from Mexico to join his father who worked for me.  He was about 19 years of age.  He came from a farm between Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende.  Wood working tools were new to him.  When he first arrived, we used him as a laborer to dip and stack the exterior siding.  As the siding started to go up, Cregg showed him how to use a cordless screw driver to set the screws so their heads were flush and tight to the surface of the boards; not at angles or breaking the surface, and set so their slots were parallel to the boards or horizontal to the earth.  They also had to be perfectly placed on the boards and bats.  There was no way to cover up screw holes in the wrong place.

Screwing slot screws, particularly with a power screwdriver can be treacherous.  It is easy for the tip to slip off the screw and gouge the wood.  I know of no instance in which this happened.  I know of no instance where the wood is splintered or where a screw is not perfectly flat.  I know of no screw placed in the wrong local. I know of no screw slot that is not horizontal although Genaro has told me there is one screw in the entire house that has a vertical slot and only he knows where it is:  talent and a sense of humor.  I am thankful that he along with everyone but Cregg and my son are still with Alward Construction as employees.

THE LIVING ROOM CEILING

There are two areas where the original ceiling boards connect to new boards.  One is the carport and other is the living room.  Both had smoke damage and in the case of the living room, there was some light charring.  We gave minimal attention to the carport but the living room, on the other hand, was a highlight of the house and we wanted the best possible end result.

One of the challenges in laying out the ceiling boards of the entire house was that they had to line up with the existing boards.  In a conventional house one could treat the ceiling of each room as its own piece of work.  In the Usonian house the layout of the entire ceiling, with the pattern of its specially milled boards, was of one design and encompassed the whole house as if the individual rooms and their exterior walls didn’t exist.  Fortunately, the ceiling module of the carport and living room lined up.  While the horizontal module had been affected by earth settlement, the north-south and east-west coordinates of the two ends of the house had not changed over time.

The living room is an octagonal shape at the end of the residential wing.  Its roof however is a square that sits symmetrically on top of the octagon living room with large overhanging eves on the outside.  The square roof is set a at 45 degree angle to the axis of the residential wing.  The geometry is essentially a large square with an octagon scribed within the square.  The ceiling boards of the living room are laid up to follow the square and travel around the square, stopping short to leave a large 12’ x 12’ square in the center of the ceiling.  This center was open to the sky after the fire, possible by the firemen to let the smoke out.  In the finished house, this square is gold leaf.

The entire roof of the living room is pitched up at a dramatic slope that starts about 4 feet off the floor at the lower edge and goes to about 14 feet at the high point.  Entry to the living room from the front door requires passage through the low portion of the ceiling, which of course is not possible.  Accordingly, there is a passage literally cut into the roof-ceiling construction.   Wright essentially created a dormer.  While in principle, it is conceptually simple, because of the use of boards for a ceiling finish, Wright in fact created a geometric conundrum.

At this place in the story, the living room roof had been repaired.  The charred wood of the remaining ceiling boards had been scrapped down to good wood.  The smoke eradication had been accomplished.  Now it was time to bring the new ceiling boards into the living room and line them up with the old.  Cregg was back east with his family.  A few years earlier his brother had been killed by a drunken driver.  The family held an annual memorial golf tournament fundraiser and it was important for Cregg to be there.  Back at the job everyone had their tasks laid out and I was on call if something arose. 

I got a call from my son Matthew who was doing the ceiling where the long boards of the gallery projected from the master bedroom to the entry foray at the front door and then traveled on to where, after making a 45 degree turn, they lined up with the ceiling boards of the living room.  At this point, they had to travel down at right angles on the wall where the roof has been cut into to allow head height.  If you like, it’s analogous to the vertical wall of a roof dormer.  The sloping ceiling of the living room intersects this vertical wall.

Having located for me in words where he was working, Matthew went on to say “The boards I’m doing don’t work.”  “What doesn’t work?” I asked.  “The boards; they don’t line up.”  I was panicked.  Did we get the layout wrong?  Were the new gallery ceiling boards off the module?  Had Cregg made a critical error in lay out?  This could be disastrous.  “No, the module is right”, Matthew answered, “But the boards can’t line up.  It’s impossible because they have to be cut at a diagonal and a diagonal cut is longer than a square cut.”  I was lost.  “Say again.” Matthew went on, “The ends of the boards with the square cut have to line up with the boards with the diagonal cut and they can’t because they are different widths.”   Matthew tried to make himself clear but I couldn’t follow and certainly had no solution for him.  I said I’d come out but I couldn’t make it right away.  He’d have to wait and do something else till I got there.

Not long afterwards I got a call.  “You don’t have to come out.  I figured it out.”  What did you do?”  I asked, still not fully comprehending the problem.  “I made my own ceiling boards with a tapper so they go from the regular milled sized to match the same boards when cut at a diagonal.”  “You changed the pattern in the boards?”  I asked worriedly.  “You can’t see it; it looks fine.” he reassured me.  I remained lost.  I would have to see what he was talking about to understand. 

His work was so flawless that the solution to a true geometric paradox remains totally unknowable except by an act of reason.  I wonder whether Wright was even aware of the paradox he created.  But the fact is, his design could not be accomplished with the boards that defined the ceiling module without there being special boards, hand carved to accommodate the different dimension between a square and diagonal cut across a board.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

THE TROWEL

Preparations for the 3-inch Cherokee red topping slab were extensive.  The radiant heating tubes were in place and needed to be protected from the concrete pouring which could damage the plastic pipes.  The location of all the score lines for the 4 x 4 module needed to be laid out on all the wall surfaces abutting the floor slab.  Where no walls existed, batter boards needed to be set up so that the concrete finishes had clear points from which they could snap their lines on the wet concrete.  Plastic had to be draped over all the finished surfaces, such as new and existing concrete block walls so that they were not discolored by the Cherokee color being broadcast on top of the wet concrete.  The powder colorant that would be troweled into the concrete had to be strategically stockpiled around the site so that there was enough mix at each location.  It also had to be placed so that it would not hinder dragging the heavy concrete hose that was going to deliver the wet mix.  There would need to be a means to move materials around the site with expanses of wet concrete on which workers could not walk.  Lastly, there had to be the tools including the trowels.  The trowels had been selected to match the groves of the score lines in the original remaining slab of the living room. The excitement of the pour day was proportionate to the preparation.  It was intense.

On the morning of the pour, with the arrival of the concrete trucks, concrete started to be pumped to the furthest locations.  Workmen used shovels and screed boards to screed the mix to a rough level surface.  This was followed by large aluminum bull floats that brought the level to within even tighter tolerances.  As soon as the mix was ready for steel troweling, the finishers started to hand trowel the mix to create the final surface.  At the same time, they started broadcasting and then troweling the Cherokee red powder into the surface.  The color had to be uniform in thickness and consistency.  Timing was critical.  With the surface perfectly troweled and the color uniform and satisfactory, caulk lines were snapped onto the surface to locate the 4 x 4 grid.  Each phase needed to occur when the mix was ready.  Not sooner or later. 

The work with its multiple phases and different specialized crews was proceeding from the furthest locations towards the front of the house.  At some point it was realized that more people were needed to trowel in the score lines.  The concrete was setting and the scoring was falling behind.  Extra men were needed immediately and yet all the approved trowels were being used.  The extra finishers tried another trowel but the result was an unacceptable concrete score.

Maynard was always at work by 10:00 AM.  Today he was home.  He was in his shop out of the way.  He may have been busy with his own work or possibly watching.  In any case, I was aware he was there.  There were planks over the area of wet concrete to the door of his shop.  I brought over the extra trowel and asked him if he could change its shape.  “What do you want it to be?”  he asked.  I asked one of the finishers with an acceptable trowel to throw it to me.  I showed it to Maynard who took the trowel, opened a drawer, checked some milling heads until he found one that fitted the profile of the trowel.  I took the sample trowel to the door and tossed it to the worker who went back to scoring the slab.

Maynard chucked the milling head into his large Milwaukee milling machine, clamping in a stock of steel bar about 3 x 5 x 5/8 inches thick.  He proceeded to cut the new profile into the bar stock.  He instructed me to squirt cutting oil on the working end of the milling head, sending up a small vapor cloud of oil.  Shortly, the bar was milled.  He took it to his bench and clamped both the bar and trowel into his bench vice, took a ball-peen hammer and started to bend the existing curve in the trowel to fit the curve of the bar in the clamp.  Within a few minutes he gave me the hammer and said he couldn’t strike anymore.  I continued and shortly we determined that the trowel was now essentially the same profile as the acceptable trowels.  I opened the shop door and threw it to a finisher who put it to work and announced that the results were a perfect match to the other scores.

I’ve had clients participate in many ways, but this was indeed a first.

With the exception of sections of block between the kitchen and dining room and along the entry breezeway, both of which had been challenging, the new slab was the fist real architectural detail.  This had been a very worrisome detail and the preliminary results seemed satisfactory to everyone.  It was important to protect the surface.  A vapor barrier was place on its curing surface and that, in turn, was covered with a layer of ¼ inch masonite that would stay in place until the end of the job.  How the concrete cured, what cracks might develop, how the color would look, would not be known for the better part of a year.  When it was uncovered, it was nearly perfect.

THE REDWOOD

From the beginning there had been a question of where we would secure the needed redwood.  The old house had been built of clear (no knots) old growth redwood with a mix of flat and vertical grains.  The forests that supplied the original house were virtually gone and, in their place, was new growth redwood that lacked the quality of the original wood.  Old growth was available but not to be taken for granted and not in the quantities we needed.  There were mills in northern California and further north that were still processing old trees and there were even some reclamation operations that were retrieving logs from the northwest river bottoms, logs that sunk years ago on their way to the mills.  Not only did the material need to be secured, we also needed it milled to specifications.  Walter’s drawings of the wall board and bat system and the ceiling boards were very specific with 2-time actual size drawings.  He even went so far as to specify the speed of the planer blades assuming we would plane rough stock.

Every lumber broker we could find was approached and for one reason or another, nothing was turning out the way we wanted.  Walter and Maynard were as involved as I was. Maynard had a brother who lived up north in the redwood country and he was engaged to find the materials.  All of the exterior and interior walls and the entire ceiling were made of redwood.  Even the shower in one of the bathrooms was redwood.  In all, we needed about 1600 board feet of clear dry old growth redwood in the form of the right size boards that could be planed and milled to our desired finished product.  We were looking for a single source that could not only supply the materials but also mill it. 

Surprisingly, we found the material and the milling both at El Cerrito Lumber and Mill, a local vendor that unfortunately no longer exists.  Walter wanted assurances on the grain count (the number of rings per inch) on all of the material.  He wanted assurances on the planer speeds and on the angles of each cut.  He wanted submittals.  The order was sizable but not large enough to persuade the mill to meet his every demand.  They were particularly reluctant to discuss planer blade speeds.  They hadn’t a clue what their RPM was and found this somewhat quaint older gentleman to be a bother.  They were a good old-fashioned lumber yard and mill, like the one I worked in as a youth, but they were not good and old fashioned enough for Walter.

Although neither ECLM nor I could give Walter all the assurance he waned, I eventually placed the order.  When the material arrived it was stacked up in the living room.  It nearly filled the living room to 4 feet in depth.  Walter and Maynard seemed to approve and there was never again a discussion about the redwood.  For any reader who might question using this lovely natural resource to build a house, I can only add that we were very mindful of the value of the materials we were using and we considered it a privilege to do so.  We did not treat the matter lightly.  However, our mission was to recreate and store one of America’s architectural treasures and it happens to be a redwood treasure.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

THE CHEROKEE SLAB

Most construction problems involve a human factor.  Our company motto is that construction is a social activity more than a mechanical one.  I think where Alward Construction brings exceptional value to its clients is often related to the social aspect of our work.  We’ve seen this in the preceding episodes and in this one as well.

It was spring and work had been underway for 4 or 5 months.  Things were going well.  All the structural concrete had been poured, including the concrete slab of the patio and cantilevered patio over the koi pond.  The structural slab included all the electrical and plumbing stub outs as well as the bolts that would hold the new walls and steel frame to the slab.  The tubular steel frame system that would help the house meet modern seismic and strength requirements was in place as was the new block walls of the entry and between the kitchen and dining room.

We were now preparing for the 3 inch concrete topping slab that would be the finished floor of the inside and exterior patio/walkways.  This was really our first foray into aesthetic territory where building a Frank Lloyd Wright was going to have something to do with how the house looked.

The original floor, like that of all Usonians, was a Cherokee red concrete slab scored with the module lines and containing within it, a hot water radiant heating system.  Getting the color right was a challenge.  There was no contemporary formula for Wright’s favorite color.  Walter wanted samples and so Cregg, in conjunction with our concrete subcontractor, Paradigm Concrete Construction produced three samples of 18 x 18 x 3 inch thick concrete samples, each with a different color material troweled into the top of the wet concrete mix.  We let the samples cure for a couple of weeks and then had a meeting with Maynard and Walter for their selection and approval.
The samples were laid out on the structural slab in the vicinity of the new master bedroom. We had chosen what we believed were the best possible materials and methods of use.  However, Walter, who was a brilliant colorist, was not happy with the samples.  We were faced with the prospect of more research and possible delays in the project.  Cregg and I were feeling like we had failed and let everyone down.  Out of the blue, Maynard announced that the matter wasn’t important because he was going to carpet the house.   He said, “It’s always been too cold for Katie.  The concrete can be painted.  And for that matter, the score lines can be eliminated too since they created a problem for the carpet wearing evenly”.

There was stunned silence.  Walter was turgid and Cregg and I looked at each other in disbelief.  In an instant, in a flash on a warm clear lovely spring day, the owner of an original Frank Lloyd Wright was going to abandon one of its clearest signatures.  It was architectural murder.  He seemed emphatic and unwavering in his position.  I was thinking about the house after Maynard and Katie no longer lived there, off in a future that didn’t include them.  I started to say something along these lines when Maynard shot me a glance that stopped me in my tracks.

It was an unbearable moment.  After endless seconds, I found my voice and said, “You can’t paint the concrete Maynard, it’ll look like a tennis court in Belmont.”  The comparison to a suburban tennis court provided an edge of humor while at the same time keeping to the point.  He went for it and said, “All right.  Sample #3 will work.”  My response was, “Great, and it’ll have to be scored as well.”  Nothing was said in response.

Shortly after we were having our customary glass or two of Maynard’s lovely wine as we typically did following our Friday end-of-the-week site meetings.  Nothing further was said about the slab.

“THEY’VE RUINED MY USONIAN!”

The steel frame had been erected and it was time to start framing the walls. The original walls of the home, typical of all Usonians, were composed of 3 boards sandwiched together. The inner cone consists of ¾ inch Douglas fir rabbitted boards. They were placed vertically.   On either side of the core was the ¾” redwood board and bat system making up the finished surface of the walls.  The three ¾ inch boards created a wall of 2 ¼” thickness. 

I came to the job site one afternoon at the end of the day to check on progress.  I was excited that we had nearly finished framing the walls.  It had taken months to get to this point.  Maynard was in the garden house.  I decided to stop in to see him.  I greeted him enthusiastically, being particularly pleased that framing was progressing.  “What do you think?  Happy to see the walls up?”  I asked cheerfully.  His response shocked me.  “They’ve ruined my Usonian.”  “Who’s ruined your Usonian?” I asked somewhat defensively.  “The engineers.”  I was puzzled.  “How did they ruin it?”  I remained dumfounded.  “The thickness.” he blurted.  “They’re big thick walls not like my nice thin Usonian walls.”  I couldn’t believe this was happening.  The house had been under design for a year or more and this issue was just now emerging?  I said. “But you’ve known since the beginning how thick the walls were going to be.”  He responded. “That doesn’t make it any better, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

That was it.  It had happened by design.  There was no one to fault and yet the owner was not getting back the house he lost and missed.  The new walls had to meet seismic codes that didn’t exist when the first house was built in 1948.  The engineer, Jerold Turner, designed the new walls with a flat 2 x 4 with 1/2″ inch structural plywood on one side.  The ¾ inch redwood board and bat system was to be added to either side of this 2-inch core.  This resulted in a 3-½ inch wall, a full 1-¼ inches thicker than the original walls.  Nobody thought of this, including Walter, but as we completed framing, this simple fact became apparent and was, for Maynard, devastating.

I didn’t know what to do or say.  I had nothing to offer.  Even a heart-felt statement of sympathy seemed out of place.  I silently left the garden house and left Maynard with the echo of his last words, “That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Cregg was still on the job reviewing the next day’s tasks.  The rest of the crew had gone home.  I asked Cregg if he had some spray paint on the job.  He did and I asked him to get it.  He returned with a can of black paint.  I shook the can until I could hear the mixing ball freely passing through the thinned paint.  “Show me everywhere we can see the thickness of the finished walls.”  I said.

The door openings were obvious, but not the only instances.  At each you could see how thick the walls were.  In some cases there were long sections of wall that were adjacent to openings, but in most cases, the amount of actual wall that could be seen was relatively small.  When all the visible sections of walls were sprayed with black Xs, we reviewed the results of our survey.  It seemed to me that we could build these sections at 2 ¼ inches without in any way compromising the integrity of the structure.

I thought this might be a solution but wanted to run it by Walter.  I stopped by his house on the way home and explained the problem.  I didn’t want to say anything about the obvious oversight, and wanted along the same lines, not to play up finding a solution.  “Do you think we have to pass this by Jerry?”  I asked.  “I shouldn’t think so.” he replied.  The matter was solved.

The next day I explained the solution to Maynard.  He showed no enthusiasm.  I wondered whether he understood or appreciated whether it would really work; whether he was withholding judgment until the end or whether he didn’t want to inflate my ego any further.  In any case, nothing was ever said again by anyone about the ruined Usonian walls.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

THE KOI

The Buehlers, as a young couple, could not afford the house Wright designed for them.  When Wright was told this, he simply made the house one module narrower and this was enough to make the house affordable.  Now the house was being rebuilt and the Buehlers could afford to have it larger.  Simpson pushed the residential wing one module to the west.  When we were laying out the east foundation, Maynard decided to move the house ½ module towards the east.  In sum, the house was 6 feet wider than the house that was destroyed.

As a result, the residential wing was now 4 feet closer to the former swimming pool, now the koi pond.  At an area near the dining and kitchen back door, this felt uncomfortable to Walter.  He addressed this with three new drawings.  Each showed the patio cantilevered over the koi pond.  I was with him when he presented the drawings to Maynard and Katie.  I had already seen them and knew that Walter preferred the plan with the skylights in the concrete cantilever.  It was however, the most expensive alternative.  He wanted to present less expensive solutions as well.  However, to prejudice the case slightly, his preferred drawing was done with color pencils with nice blue pictures of the skylights in the concrete slab.  I knew Water was worried Maynard would reject all three and leave the house forever marred by the narrow passage between the pool and house.  Katie was delighted with the colored drawing and made it virtually impossible for Maynard to back away.  Walter was delighted as well.

The cantilevered patio slab with its windows was to be poured as part of the structural slab.  Forming of this would require emptying the koi pond.  Maynard’s koi were old friends.  He swore some of them would come to their names.  That seemed unlikely but there’s no doubt they gathered whenever he was at the poolside.

A specialist was hired to place the koi in temporary holding pens while the pool was emptied to allow us to do the required formwork.  Large pens were set up on the site and the koi were carefully transferred to the pens.  A system of pumps and hoses supplied oxygen.  The fish were transferred on Friday.

On Monday I came to the site early and as I sometimes did, I greeted Maynard in the garden house where he had his morning coffee and read the newspaper.  I asked how he was and he replied that he was sick; that over the weekend, all of the koi had died of suffocation.  He seemed in a state shock.  Evidently, a fuse had blown on the circuit supplying electricity to the pumps and he replaced the fuse with one he had laying around the shop, a used one.   It blew in the middle of the night and when Maynard went to check on his koi Sunday morning, they were all dead.

I said how sorry I was and felt helpless to say or do anything more.  Shortly after, I was driving back to the office.  It occurred to me that I might be able to at least help replace the fish.  Maynard had said that many of his prize koi were very valuable.  I called my liability carrier on the car phone.  I explained that while it was not our fault, the problem happened on our construction site.  Might not my insurance company cover the loss?  Mark of NEK Insurance said, “not a problem.” and told me to have Maynard call him.  The fish would be replaced with matched quality.  While there was no way to replace the emotional loss, the fact that he could restock his pond without expense was some comfort.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

A story of a Frank Lloyd Wright Residence in the 21^st Century

LIFTING THE WALL

The Buehler House is essentially composed of two wings at right angles with a two-car carport at their intersection.  The shop wing and the carport form what might be thought of as the front of the house and are constructed of grey concrete block (Concrete Masonry Units) with the horizontal courses between blocks “raked” to form horizontal groves.  The vertical joints are “buttered” to cancel the vertical joints.  The effect is to accentuate the strong horizontal lines of Wright’s architecture.

The second wing is the residential wing, which at 90 degrees from the shop, recedes from the front of the house.  The entry to the residence, typically of Usonians, is secluded at the end of a long narrow entry that follows the residential wing from the carport to what might be considered the rear of the house.  The entrance pathway is covered by a wide overhang from the house that also extends the roof of the carport.  The walls of the residential wing are redwood as is the ceiling of the wide overhanging roof and the ceiling of the carport.  Wright’s perforated boards have a distinct pattern cut into them and serve as windows.  They line the entire entry walkway and sit symmetrically within the horizontal module defined by the board and bat redwood siding.

At the end of the residential wing, the orthogonally shaped living room with its soaring ceiling is covered by a square roof set at a 45-degree angle to the residential axis.  The dining room sits on the opposite side of the residential axis at a 45-degree angle.  The residence consists of a master bedroom which abuts the carport and a master dressing room-bath, a study, a second full bathroom, the kitchen (which Wright called “the work space”) the dining and living rooms.  There is a full basement under the living room.  The fire and subsequent rebuild involved the entire residential wing with the exception of the living room, which was charred and smoke damaged, but not destroyed.

We were not yet out of the dirt when Cregg was busy trying to determine the layout of the building.  All Usonian houses are laid out on a geometric pattern or module.  In the Buehler House, the module is a 4 x 4 foot square.  Virtually all vertical elements of the house are determined by this floor plan module.  Walls themselves are on the module lines as are their ends, their openings.  If there are French doors or pairs of cabinet doors, their center will be on the module lines.  The walls are located in space once the first 4 x 4 square is established.  In the case of rebuilding the Buehler House, the location of the module was already set by the parts of the house that were to remain.  Fortunately, the two remaining ends of the house lined up so that the module could be preserved.

The horizontal module was another matter.  As suggested earlier, the horizontal module was established by the redwood board and bats as well as the concrete block.  All the horizontal elements of a Usonian are set by the horizontal module.  Window and door heads and sills, desk and counter tops, bookcases, shelves, even tops of switch plates, are all set in space by the horizontal module.  In the case of the Buehler House, there had been an earth subsidence, probably due to the deep creek-bed just yards away from the east side of the house.  As a result, the two ends of the remaining house did not line up on the same module.  They were 3 inches off.  In most homes this might not have been a problem, but in a Usonian, this was a different matter.

Cregg came to me with the problem.  “Keith, the south end of the house has dropped and doesn’t line up with the house module.”  I tried to play it down, thinking that as in most construction, there was enough wiggle room to make the problem disappear.  Cregg was insistent that the problem was real and not going away.  We discussed rebuilding the carport and walls.  This would probably have entailed dealing with the large complex cantilevered carport roof and may have even involved rebuilding the shop wing.  I knew Maynard was not willing to spend the money needed for such alterations.  Walter was sickened to hear the news.  There was no simple architectural trick to get us out of the woods.

Some six years earlier, I had brought a soils engineer named Joe Provinsano in to address a very vexing problem.  Clients of mine owned a house in Orinda that was being ripped apart by soil subsidence.  Nobody knew what to do until I suggested consulting with Joe.  He recommended pressure grouting.  This is a process of pumping a grout mixture into the soil under pressure some 10 feet or so below the surface of the earth.  Pressure Grout Company was developed by Al Alusi, a PhD student at UC Berkeley.  It entails changing the physical characteristics of soil and also a way of lifting structures sitting on top of the soil.  Joe used Pressure Grout Company on my client’s house.  It happened that Joe was the soils engineer for the Buehler project.  I shared my experience with Walter and he agreed it was worth asking Joe about our problem.  Joe thought Pressure Grouting would work.  It did!  We were able to raise the existing south end of the house a precise 3 inches, putting the entire house back in accord with the horizontal module.  The cost was a fraction of just about any other solution.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011