Architecture Wednesday: Fir Tree House: The Lost Wright House

It's not so much lost, as it has been rediscovered, and is the only 100% authentic Wright house in New Mexico.

Fir Tree House is located north of Pecos, alongside the Pecos River, and is designed to be reminiscent of a 'teepee'. Wright built it for a family who wanted a vacation home with four bedrooms, three baths, and a separate servant's room and bath, and a service wing for the laundry, a water-pumping facility, and a stable; it was built for $10,000.

The design employs cedar shingle siding--unusual for Wright--and rough concrete-masonry of the kind seen later at Taliesin West in the Arizona desert.  The home’s hexagonal geometry resembles an unbuilt Wright design of the 1920’s for a resort in Lake Tahoe.  Fir Tree House was completed in 1948 and then expanded with various additions including a carport; the recent addition of a swimming pool is not of Wright’s design.

The plan of the house takes the form of a large parallelogram, with the courtyard entrance passing under the roof, which connects the servant’s room on one side to the laundry on the other. The living room is topped by a teepee-shaped roof covered with cedar shingles. Its large glass window walls meet at a 120-degree angle, and doors open onto a terrace bounded by low stone walls. There is a covered path which edges to a courtyard and the front door, which is angled between the living room and a hallway to the bedroom wing. The living room also features an over sized fireplace and chimney. The hallway leading to the bedroom wing branches to the left as you enter the house. Wright used rough-sawn pine, stained the color of cedar for the interiors. 

The outstanding feature of the lodge is the living room, where the ceiling rises to a 28-foot height. At the perimeter, the roof drops to an 11-foot height, underscored by a flared rim that runs around the exterior of the entire lodge. A continuous band of narrow clerestory windows marks the point where the high roof joins the lower one and dematerializes this juncture with light. Inside, the rough-sawn rafters of the lower roof extend through the open space under the high ceiling, creating a spectacular kaleidoscope of geometric forms overhead. This innovative system of construction for the living-room ceiling remains unique in Wright’s residential work — he never used it again.

As, always, I am a huge fan of Wright’s homes, and this one, which I had never seen before, doesn’t disappoint. Check out Triangle Modernist Houses [HERE] for looks at all FLW homes built from 1889 through 1964; there are even FLW homes built after Wright died, by other builders using Wright’s original designs.

Fir Tree House