Wright Chat

[peterm]

My comments were not about Los Banos itself, rather about a type of loneliness which I felt at the Fawcett site (about eight miles south of town...). It very well could have been the fact the house is so lovely, and here it is sitting empty. It was sunny the day I was there, but I couldn't see the mountains at all...

[dleach]

I think Buck knew his valley better than Mr. Wright.
My family has been in the central coast area of California for 120 years. I spent most of my youth and more than a few adult years in San Francisco. My wife is from the Fresno area and we have lived in Fair Oaks for the last 25 years. As a result, I have traveled across and up and down this valley literally hundreds of times. Many, many of those trips took me through Los Banos. Any number of those drives were before the creation of San Luis Reservoir, when the highway ran through what is now the bottom of the reservoir.
All of this was prequel to the moment in late spring of 2010 when I was first at the Fawcett House and looked across the valley to the coast range hills. In spite of a lifetime familiarity with it, I think I first gained a true appreciation of the Valley at that time.
The house has a magical quality to it in how it relates to the hills and the farmland around it. It has a wonderful sense of seclusion and place. I respectfully disagree with peterm; the surrounding farmland is an essential part of the composition but the garden, less so. When I was there, I felt that the garden, while pleasant enough, would be a distraction if made more extensive and the mass of the waterfall (but not the pleasant sound of running water) was almost intrusive. I felt that the waterfall was contrived to conceal the shop which (with apologies to Bob Beharka, it was probably Buck's decision), ideally, would be elswhere. Wright was brilliant in configuring the plan to resist some of the harsher elements of the valley climate and this site while capitalizing on the more subtle aspects.
I can relate to myLAGG’s comment that it is quite close to almost everyplace. I would add it is very much its own place. I met Buck on several occasions (at various conferences and meetings) and he was unfailingly generous with an invitation to visit. Regrettably, I never did during his lifetime.
I’m a little confused as to the status of the Fawcett House. Is it still in the hands of the heirs? Or, did the Crosby Doe sale go through and the new owners are reselling? Or…?

[peterm]

Crosby is no longer the listing agent. He told me that the owners (the heirs) wanted a change. I think the new realtor is from the Bay Area.

Kevin (myLiebermeisterAGG) will know the details...

After reading your comments, I realize that I probably have not given the location a fair shake. I was tired and anxious to make the drive back to L.A. when I visited. If I imagine waking up in the house, and looking out onto the fields, I think I would instantly be a convert...

[SDR]

I drove from San Francisco early in 2010 to Los Banos, when Mr Doe was having a week-end open house. I didn't speak to him because he seemed to have a serious prospect in hand. My impression was that the house was an island of Wright in an alien landscape, doing its best to belong, surrounded by crops on two sides. The house itself is surely a treasure -- a sprawling "major ranch" with its back to the fields and its prospect roughly south-west (?) toward the distant highway and the hills. The material palette is perfectly at home in the landscape, give or take the current concrete-block paint job.

I despaired, frankly, of the home finding a deserving owner in this distant outpost -- but I was a stranger there myself and a "city dweller." Would a sophisticate be willing to come to this oasis on weekends, or during breaks from a busy life elsewhere -- and not know who to invite for cocktails ? I'm sure there's someone, somewhere, who will . . . or I'd like to think so. With a bit of sprucing up, and a local airport available, someone from the Southland would love to have a getaway like this ? Mr Silver ?

SDR

[dleach]

SDR, remember the landscape was the environment that Buck lived in his whole life, so it was more the familiar to him. I had the same feeling that you did in regard to the house being an oasis. That's the marvel of it. When I first saw the house the fields were empty, just tilled earth not yet planted. That emphasized the isolation and seclusion feeling.
With their agrarian backgrounds, Wright and Fawcett must have been kindred spirits.
Also, my unease with the waterfall and shop stems from my belief that the aspect from the motor court was meant to be through the carport and garden to the walnut orchard.
The house deserves an owner that will understand and care for it.

[Roderick Grant]

Farmland, tilled or with corn as high as an elephant's eye, is not easy to appreciate. It seems to most people to lack drama. Mountains (real ones: a mountain is something to be climbed; if you can walk to the summit, it's a hill), forests and raging rivers are more spectacular. But I'm from the prairie, and I appreciate the flatness, the eternal vastness of the sky, the distant, plaintive song of a meadowlark. Driving through the Rockies or being anywhere in the East, where the land is 'small,' gives me a slight feeling of claustrophobia. Both Fawcett and Muirhead are expressive of a sense of freedom one can only feel on flat farmland with purple horizons in the far distance.

I'll stop now, before my prose becomes too purple...

[SDR]

Heh-heh. Well, it is Spring !

My impression was gained at the house itself. Immediately across the street are fields of some unidentified crop, growing high enough to cut off any view of more distant land -- in the direction of town, presumably. The only nearby structures, as I recall it, are work buildings. The property itself contains the remains of an orchard. The forecourt paving is not distinguished in any way from what would be expected in front of a barn. Contrast all this to the house itself, which immediately projects "otherness" -- from its triangular plan geometry, to the copper eave detail, to the saucer planter gracing the prow of the nearest battered concrete-block wall. And the relaxed luxury of the interior carries the theme further. In toto, this is the last thing one expects to see in an undistinguished -- and frankly not at all romantic -- agrarian setting.

Concrete floors or not, one can hardly picture muddy boots passing through the generous pivoting glass-panel entrance door. If a farmer lived here, he was a most gentlemanly, not to say exotic, farmer, indeed !

SDR

[KevinW]

Oh my dear Stephen, I must say I am a bit surprised that a person with your insight and passion, couldn't recognize the romance of that site. Has the city dulled your romantic qualities?

_________________
KevinW

[ross]

While most of Kansas is very flat, I live in an area of gently rolling hills covered in ancient prairie grass.

One day a friend from Santa Fe was visiting, and, with some other friends, we went on a tour. Mr. Santa Fe finally commented that the landscape was dull and he didn’t understand why I liked it.

Another friend replied: “Oh. You are just used to a more ostentatious landscape.”

Love the line.

[SDR]

Ostentatious: "Characterized by vulgar or pretentious display."


No, I'm afraid I found the Fawcett residence to be "pearls before swine." It's simply misplaced -- in terms of future owners, though apparently not wrongly conceived for its original client. There's really nothing very romantic, to me, about dusty, sweltering, flat farmland. The house is literally an oasis, turning its back on the mundane and offering some welcome relief and inspiration. Its swimming pool and orientation speak to that. It's a treasure, situated far away from other forms of culture and enlightenment -- from an urban or suburban perspective, at least. If there are any Wrightian farmers out there, this is the spot for them !

I don't detect features of the house that make it specific to its site. To my way of thinking, it's a luxurious and comfortable ranch-type home -- perhaps a solar hemicycle ? -- that would be just as suitable to a flat site in Santa Barbara, Palo Verdes, or Palm Springs. It's a treasure, no doubt. I hope someone will turn up who appreciates what it has to offer, and who enjoys the specifics of its locale.

SDR

[Roderick Grant]

Stephen, you have spent too many years in the hilly, noisy, foggy, self-indulgent, self-satisfied City by the Bay, with the ocean pounding away at the back door. So much drama! San Fran is truly a Drama Queen. The simple beauty of flat land escapes you. Perhaps one must be born into it.

[Paul Ringstrom]

I have visited the Fawcett House and the perfect description of it and its location is: AN OASIS.

[SDR]

Before moving to San Francisco, I spent 15 happy years in Massachusetts, most of them in the sleepy burgs and fields south of Boston and inland from the Cape. I know rural bliss. The immediate environs of the Fawcett don't represent bliss to me. But I will withhold final judgement until I have spent a full year on site . . .

Despite his best efforts, Mr Wright had no real control over where his clients chose to build. The houses may be nirvana inside, but they have always existed at the mercy of their neighbors.


Not all of us in San Francisco are drama queens, sir ! I for one will be staying in, with my head down, during this weekend's Pride extravaganza -- for instance.

SDR

[peterm]

Here's the reality of the Fawcett property vs. many other rural settings, for example, in Massachusetts, as Stephen mentions. Can you really imagine going for a long walk into those fields? Many agricultural settings also have patches of nature, or at least some shade trees, that are not just planted in rows. It's somewhat optimistic to compare a summer in the Central Valley to that of the midwest. There is no rain from May through October, the hottest months.

It is an oasis, but with no meadow, no winding trails, no creek or lake to walk to...

But what a house!

With a car, I would think one could experience some lovely day trips, especially heading east into the Sierras...

[dleach]

You guys are making me CRAZY!!!
Try thinking like a westerner.
Appreciate the vastness.
Appreciate the golden (not brown) hills.
Know that the boundless Pacific is only 60 miles to the west.
Know that the incomparable Sierra (that is the plural form - no S at the end) are only 60 miles to the east.
Know that you are in the most productive agricultural valley in the WORLD.
Please, gentlemen, wake up and smell the roses.
The Fawcett House is in and of that valley.