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 PRICE

Maynard understood my reluctance to give him a price for replacing the lost house.  After all, it wouldn’t be a very meaningful number since the house as it existed wasn’t going to be rebuilt.  But a bid for a new house seemed a reasonable request.  Walter and Maynard both wanted to know if I would give a price for the new house once the plans were far enough along.  I really preferred working on a Time and Materials basis without a fixed price and thought this project really called for that approach.  I would have to wait to propose this.

The day of my second visit to the house was the day the issue of a fixed price first came up.  It was also the day Walter brought out two new sets of drawings.  One was a drawing with lots of details on how the new house would have a rain water leader system to handle roof water.  In the original house, Wright had drop outlets (gutter pipes) that penetrated the wide overhanging eves.  Water from the roof drained through the drop outlets and splashed onto the concrete walks below.  Wright liked the sound of the water on the pavement.  However, after years of having water splashing on their pants and dresses, Maynard extended the drop outlets so they drained into the plant beds beyond the walks.

The visual effect was that every 12 feet or so there was a pipe coming out of the overhanging eves making a right angle to the drop outlet and extending out horizontally for a foot or so.  Walter carefully explained to Maynard how the new system would divert water to pipes in the inside of the new walls, thus eliminating the need for the improvised extensions.  As always, the drawings were complete and masterful with lots of ½ full scale details.  Everything was thought out.  However, in the dismissive sweep of his arm, Maynard declared that he wouldn’t need this expensive detailing; that the present arrangement would work perfectly well for the new home.

Walter turned rigid and all enthusiasm and pleasantness left him.  “I always understood that you weren’t happy with the way the roof drained Maynard.” Maynard seemed totally unconscious of Walters change in mood.  It was an uncomfortable moment.  I tried to help by infusing a bit of humor.  I suggested that the present drains, and there was one immediately in front of us as we talked, looked a little like cannons under a fighter plane wing.  I might have been unconsciously drawing on Maynard’s interest in guns.  He responded enthusiastically.  “Yes, 30 millimeters on a Hellcat.”  He didn’t see or want to acknowledge my point and the matter was dropped.  (in the end, the RWL were placed inside the walls and the drop outlets and their extensions were no longer part of the new house although they remain in the original house.)

The second drawing concerned changes in the elevations from the exterior walkways to the interior slab.  As with all Usonian houses, the Buehler House was built on a slab, the same slab with the same elevations for both indoors and outdoors.

Walter’s new plan showed about a 5/8 inch difference in elevation.  Again ½ full scale details showed how this would work at doorways and exterior walls.  And also again, Walter’s plans were rejected.  Maynard said “Walt, I don’t want a step to trip over.  Just make it all the same like it is.”  Walter reminded him how over the years he’d complained that this was an impractical detail on Wright’s part; that it allowed water to enter under the doors and also discolored the lovely exterior redwood walls that came right down to the top of the wet slab.  “We’ve lived with it 50 years Walt.  The rain comes in, the rain goes out.  I suppose we can live a few more years with it.”  Maynard seldom second guessed himself.  He had spoken his mind and that was it.

This was not a successful afternoon for Walter.  Not only had his two drawings been rejected by his client, but the contractor he had recommended to produce a bid for the insurance company, i.e., me, had refused to do so.  Perhaps the day could be reclaimed if I would concede to giving a bid for the new house when the plans were complete.

I was asked whether in fact, they could expect a bid from me.  I thought a fixed price on the job was not a good idea, at least not good for me.  It seemed that the events of the afternoon were very much to the point and I thought I might as well bite the bullet and share my sentiments.

I said, “You know, in the last hour or so, I’ve watched Walter present his ideas for your new house and I’ve watched you reject them.  I suspect this house will be going through revision throughout its construction and that if you want something changed, it’ll be changed.  I don’t think you can expect someone else to tell you what this project will cost.  You’ll get the best insurance settlement working with Van-Catlin and then the new house will cost what you want it to cost.  I can give you a budget which really will be whatever Van-Catlin comes up with, but I can’t give you a fixed price because I know whatever plans you come up with will change.”

Walter and Maynard stared at me in disbelief.  Shortly, Maynard put his position on the table.  “When the plans are done, I’ll look forward to knowing what you will charge me to build it.”  I put my position on the table.  “Nobody knows what this project will cost until it’s completed.  I can give you choices but the decisions will be yours.”  Walter and I drove home in silence.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

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

THE AGREEMENT

Plans continued to be developed for the new house, but I was left out of the loop.  I suppose a settlement with the insurance company had been accepted, but I was not in the know one way or the other.  Many months after I was first introduced to the Buehlers, Walter called and wanted to know if I was willing to give a bid for the new plans he was finishing.  Work by the soils engineer, Joe Provinsano, the structural engineer, Jerold Turner, and the architect of record, William Simpson were now complete.  Van-Catlin Construction and Canyon Construction were giving bids.  They would be happy to have one from Alward Construction or if I wished to withdraw, there were plenty of other contractors willing to give bids. 

I wasn’t sure what part Walter had in the final plans.  The drawings were all in the style of Simpson’s office.  I could only imaging that as the project unfolded, there would be a stream of Walter’s drawings detailing all of the matters only hinted at in the bid set.  How could this be bid?  The real drawings for the project were yet to be produced.  I decided to stay the course and said that I would love to be the Buehler’s contractor but they would have to select me on something other than price.  I was not going to give a bid.  Looking back on this, I think my reluctance was largely a factor of inexperience with the business world, but at the time it seemed a matter of common sense.

However, I was not as sure as I might have seemed.  I talked with a number of people including Deva Rejan of Canyon Construction.  Even though he was giving a bid, he understood and supported my position.  Maybe he was hoping my position would eliminate me.  In any case, his assertions that I should really be the contractor because “I was probably the only one who could manage those old coots,” was reassuring.

The end of the bid period was fast approaching.  I got a phone call from Betty Olds saying that Maynard had a number of bids, including a third party, and was still awaiting one from me.  Cregg Sweeney, my employee, had been working on Walter and Betty’s house for a few years now and had virtually become Walter’s apprentice.  I asked Cregg to sit down with me and to see if we could generate a number.  We wanted to come up with something close to the $800K which we thought, for truly unsubstantiated reasons, was the likely settlement with the insurance company.  We produced a number broken into line items and said we were ready with a bid.  I turned it in but still insisted that this was a budget not a bid and that a bid did not make any sense and would not be good for either of us.

I got a call from Walter saying Maynard was about ready to make a decision but was not happy with my position.  He was willing to meet with me for the last time.  A date was set.  Just before the meeting, I talked with my friend, Gordon Bermak, a practicing psychoanalysis.  Gordon said that I had failed to convey to Maynard that he could trust me as his contractor.  There was no hocus-pocus, just the straight fact that I needed to let him know he could trust me.

Maynard and I met at the appointed time.  After some brief niceties, it was time to be serious.  We were out by the Koi pond.  Maynard asked how Time and Material contracting would work.  I said I would bill time on the job at our hourly rate and add 20% to my direct non-labor costs.  He wondered how long I thought the project would take.  I said, “about a year.”  “So you still won’t give me a price?”  he asked.  I replied that I had explained myself about as well as I could.  He said, “Well, I guess it gets down to trust and crazy as it seems, I’m trusting you to do the project.  I guess we should have some kind of agreement.”  I asked if he’d like a contract.  “Not a contract, I hate that word.  Just a letter of agreement.  And make it short.  I don’t trust a letter longer than a page.”  I asked when he wanted it.  “This afternoon would be fine.  And I’d like you to consider putting in the agreement that after a year, your markup will be 10%.”  We had an agreement.

Keith R. Alward
August, 2011

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

THE TENT

Demolition began around Thanksgiving 1995.  The fire happened in, 1994.  We were at last underway. The Buehlers were anxious to have their house back.  Demolition went well and though there was some rain, we were working on a concrete slab and were able to erect some temporary tent off the remaining structures of the house.  However, when the slab was gone and we were down to bare dirt, the rain started to have a significant effect on progress.

During the planning we had discussed creating a tent over the building area so that we could proceed unimpeded through the winter.  We looked into renting a tent.  The $15K or so was more than Maynard wanted to spend.  Possibilities of building or buying one on our own had been kicked around but not in such a way as to lead to any action.

The rain seemed never to lift and the mud got deeper and more impossible.  Plans called for deep piers and extensive excavations.  The equipment operators were unable to proceed.  Maynard was becoming increasingly impatient with my constant refrain to his query about progress.  “Maynard, I’m sorry.  We’re held up by the rain.  We need a week of dry time before we can drill the piers and excavate the deep forms”.

One day I came to work and Tiger showed up with a few hundred feet of wire cable that he started to string above a portion of the job site.  Tiger, whose real name was Larry, was a former son-in-law who Maynard kept on as a general maintenance person for his garden, house, and shop.  He was a resourceful guy and generally good to have around.  I asked what he was up to.  “Maynard wants me to put up a tent.”  I asked the details.  I didn’t think much of them or the likelihood of them resulting in a successful outcome.  It could create problems for me.  I told him to hold off.

I let Maynard know that I stopped Larry and that I was looking into erecting a tent.  Maynard was not pleased.  I later learned he was interviewing other contractors and was ready to fire me.  Betty Olds called and said that Maynard was frustrated by the lack of progress.  I repeated my refrain about the impossibility of the weather.  The combination of Larry showing up with a hank of cable, Betty’s phone call and my reflection on the two life-size figures in the garden, one of China’s first general and the other of its first emperor, helped me realize that Maynard wanted action, not excuses. It had taken a bit, but I finally got the message.  Action there would be.

I returned from the job site to my office.  Tom Lawrence, a recent architecture graduate and a friend of my eldest son Matthew, since before kindergarten, was in the office.  He was working with my company fulfilling some of his practicum requirements for his license.  I showed Tom a site plan and told him we needed to erect a tent over the entire site, a tent that would last until the exterior dry redwood and roof were complete.  It would need to last through the coming winter.  I was a good rigger and said there were enough trees and structure for me to get a cable down the middle of the site, high enough to easily clear the yet to be built house.

Tom suggested a design with 30 foot steel studs, crossing as rafters on the cable serving as a ridgeline.  The rafters could be used to support a plastic canapé.  If the rafters could extend beyond the ridgeline, the plastic could also extend beyond the ridgeline on one side.  This would work as a large open vent all along the ridgeline, which would allow the wind to escape out the roof without blowing the tent to pieces.  The plan was simple and elegant.

I took Tom’s sketches by Walter and he thought the idea had merit.  That’s as much endorsement as he would give.  I asked Cregg and another of my most senior and resourceful employees, Neil Burmester, to meet me at the shop that evening.  One of my principle problem solving strategies is to immerse myself in a physical place rich in possible solutions: a refrigerator if the problem is a snack or a shop if the problem is rigging a tent.  I shared with my men the problem of the tent.  I had already figured we’d have to erect a tall large post in the area that would eventually have a new concrete slab.  We could not have the temporary post penetrate a finished slab.  A couple of Simpson Strong Tie hold-downs and some all-thread suggested a solution.  Drive the all-thread into the ground and use the hold-downs to attach the post to the all-thread without the post having to touch the ground.  Pour the finished concrete slab around the all-thread and after the post is no longer needed, drive the all-thread into the ground and patch the remaining holes in the slab.  (In the end, it was not possible to drive the all thread through the concrete slab.  Today you can see the two pieces of all-tread cut flush with the concrete floor of the master bedroom up against the original concrete block wall of the carport.  This was the location of the main tent post. )

Another problem was how to have the cable run over the top of the posts and anchor to another site, like a tree.  If the cable attached to the post itself, it would pull the post over.  An upside down Simpson Strong Tie post base bolted to the top of the post would work.  A hole in the bottom (now top) of the post base could be used to clip on a block (pulley) though which the cable could run.  While my employees gathered up materials in the shop for next day’s erection of the tent, I went to shop at REI for rigging slings, snaps, blocks and the like.

There were many other problems such as where to anchor the cable, how to keep the sides of the tent high enough to build the house under it, how to attach the plastic to the rafters in a way that could last the winter and how to actually erect the tent.  A bit of patience and brainstorming and the problems were solved.  The tent was erected through days of endless and sometimes fierce rain. I was up in the trees, and on the ground setting rigging.  Within a few days we had erected a grand tent of clear plastic over the entire building site.  Construction could proceed without worrying about the weather.  Maynard was from that point on a true partner in our endeavor to put him and Katie back in their FLW house.

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

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

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