By Brent Coleman, The Cincinnati Enquirer
CINCINNATI -- Car dealer Gerald Tonkens packaged $25,000 with a lot
of moxie in 1953 when he asked Frank Lloyd Wright to build him a home.
The 35-year-old Tonkens even sent plans drawn by a Wright disciple to
the famous architect's Taliesin West studio in Arizona.
His timing was superb.
Wright, by this time in his mid-80s, was pumping out what he called
Usonian homes for "common" American families at a prolific rate. Some of
his latest designs used interlocking, concrete blocks molded on site.
His hope was to save owners money by involving them in the construction
process.
Wright invited Tonkens to meet at Taliesin West in
Arizona, recalled his second wife, Beverly Tonkens, who is selling the
home after living there for 43 years.
Disgusted with the proposed
plans of his disciple, Wright burned them in a fireplace and asked
Tonkens if he would be a "guinea pig" and allow Wright to build a
concrete home in the Usonian Automatic style he had developed.
More
than three years and an additional $125,000 or so later, Tonkens, his
first wife and their two daughters moved into what is now known as the
Tonkens House.
It has been in the good hands of the Tonkens family
ever since, creating a 57-year continuum of ownership that is rare for a
Frank Lloyd Wright home.
That string could end soon.
Last
Monday evening, Comey & Shepherd real estate agents Lori and David
Wellinghoff publicly listed the Tonkens House, its four acres and old
one-bedroom cottage for sale.
The asking price is $1.788 million.
For another $70,000 or so, the buyer can purchase most of the house's
original furniture that was designed by Wright and made by Henredon.
Frank
Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy President David Woodin said he
expects a buzz to reverberate throughout the vast flock of Wright fans.
After all, it is one of just 270 Wright homes out there, of which only
seven are Usonian Automatic, according to the Conservancy.
"I
consider the Tonkens House to be one of the premiere Usonian Automatic
houses," Woodin said. "They've kept it in outstanding condition."
"This house has been way, way, way loved on. It's in pristine condition," agreed Lori Wellinghoff.
Comey
& Shepherd is vetting potential buyers to weed out people who just
want to see inside a house that's on the National Register of Historic
Places and was a lively social center and celebrity magnet in its
heyday. There will be no open houses.
The Tonkens House was listed
for sale on the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy's website
(www.savewright.org) Jan. 30, exposing it to a broad, highly interested
market. The listing describes the house as "best-of-breed" Usonian
Automatic.
"A Wright house like this often attracts national,
sometimes international interest," said the Conservancy's executive
director, Janet Halstead, who visited the Tonkens House a couple of
years ago. "I've been told by buyers that (the FLWBC's website) is the
first place they look."
Local interest will be high as well, said
Chuck Lohre, the 10-year owner of a Wright house in Clifton and member
of a the modern design admiration group Cincinnati Form Follows Function
(CF3).
"The Tonkens House is probably in the top 10 Frank Lloyd
Wright homes in the world in that it's still in immaculate condition,"
Lohre said. "It's on a beautiful (4-acre) lot and is such a fabulous,
unique house."
The last Usonian Automatic house to come onto the
market, the 1955 Tracy House in Seattle, sold last year for $935,000,
$224,000 below the asking price. It is about half the size of the
Tonkens House and has not been maintained as well, said Woodin, who
executed the sale of the Tracy property.
Hopefully, Wellinghoff
said, she can find a buyer who will be as good a steward as Gerald
Tonkens (who died in 1990), his second wife, Beverly, and her second
husband Sherman Vangrov, have been.
Woodin agreed.
"From the Conservancy's perspective, it deserves to have a sensitive, preservation-oriented buyer," he said.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy listing is at www.savewright.org. For more on Usonian Automatic architecture and to see photos of the seven existing examples, go to www.steinerag.com/flw/.
About the house
The
Tonkens House is a terrific example of Organic Architecture - building
the way nature builds, bringing the outdoors in - that was championed by
Frank Lloyd Wright.
Designed: 1954
Built: On a
four-acre lot under the supervision of Eric Wright, Frank's grandson,
over a 17-month period, ending in October 1956. The red tile inscribed
with Frank's initials located just above the doorbell certifies the
house was built exactly how he planned it.
Dimensions:
Wright never measured the square footage; it wasn't a number he ever
cared to know. The Hamilton County Auditor's website says it has 2,100
square feet of living space.
Materials: Molded concrete, Philippine mahogany, plate glass, brass hardware, granite countertops (not original), ceramic tile, gold leaf.
Windows:
Beverly Tonkens said she once let a local student count them for a
school project, and she counted 397. Other sources say there as many as
492 windows.
Entrance Hall: 13-foot, 6-inch ceiling room
leads to a 7-foot high, narrow, mahogany wall- and bookshelf-lined hall
into the Great Room. Inset, clerestory windows run the entire length of
this west side of the house.
Great Room: Concrete block,
coffered ceiling, cantilevered fireplace and plant shelf and
floor-to-ceiling French doors that open on a Cherokee Red (Wright's
signature color) lanai define the 34-foot by 22-foot living and dining
room areas. There's a built-in stereo system and piano nook with the
original baby grand. All the furniture and fabrics were designed by
Wright.
Kitchen: The coffered ceiling reaches 13-feet 6
inches above the scored Cherokee Red concrete floor. The sink counter is
several inches higher than the 36-inch standard to reduce bending. All
cabinets (and doors throughout the house) have full-length, piano-style
hinges made of brass. The room is 14 feet by 13 feet.
Bedrooms:
The bedrooms share a compact hallway bathroom and shower; master suite
includes attached bedroom and study with patio. Sleeping wing ceilings
are 7-feet 6-inches high and gilded in 18 karat gold leaf to evoke
warmth and comfort.
Utilities/Laundry: Electrical box, central heating and air conditioning units in two-level room between kitchen and entrance hall.
Roof:
Rebuilt by a Taliesin team after flooding in 2001, it's covered with
three layers: insulation, rubber membrane and pea gravel. There are no
gutters.
Storage: No attic, basement or garage, but
extensive built-in closets and cabinets throughout the home. Wright was
against material clutter, but there are two outdoor storage spaces, one
in the pier of the two-car auto port and one to the side of the house.
Miscellaneous:
Cherokee Red driveways lead to the house; red, metal gates artfully
designed by Wright at the road entrances; red lanai and garden area with
three gas torches in corners of a low cement walls; one-bedroom farm
house in good condition.