Death tends to have a negative impact on an artist’s productivity. There are certain deceased creatives, however, whose output doesn’t stop entirely. Look at Antoni Gaudí. Or Tupac Shakur.
Similarly, a new house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has recently been completed, despite the famed architect having died in 1959.
Located in the Cleveland suburb of Willoughby Hills, Ohio, RiverRock House, as the structure is known, is based on blueprints found on Wright’s drawing board after his death, according to the RiverRock website.
History of Frank Lloyd Wright’s RiverRock House
Wright created the plans for the Penfield family, for whom he had already designed one of his Usonian homes—Wright’s term for his relatively small, relatively affordable residences that nevertheless bear his usual trademarks. First and foremost, that means a design that strives to harmonize with its natural setting.
But when the setting of the original Louis Penfield House was slated to become a highway, the family commissioned Wright to come up with a sequel.
After the architect’s death, though, the interstate scheme didn’t happen, the Penfield House stayed where it was (and remains to this day), and the blueprints for the new design remained unrealized.
Then, in 2018, local contractors Sarah and Debbie Dykstra purchased the property that RiverRock was originally intended to occupy (2217 River Rd.) and set about building Wright’s final project to his specifications, making allowances only for modern-day building regulations, according to Ohio’s News-Herald newspaper.
Working with the 1959 blueprints and a “handpicked team of architects and engineers who are also Wright enthusiasts,” per the News-Herald, the Dykstras have ended up with a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house with heated floors, a full kitchen, a wood-burning fireplace, and a large glass-walled living room overlooking the woodsy property.
But can this be considered a genuine Frank Lloyd Wright structure? Despite relying on Wright’s vision and using local building materials as he would, some purists argue that newly constructed projects such as RiverRock don’t really have the Wright stuff.
As Afar points out, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, for one, holds that newly built structures “cannot faithfully represent the intentions of Wright himself”—even if using his blueprints—because the contemporary builders will “necessarily” have to make “varying degrees of interpretation as to how Wright would himself have constructed the project.”
You can decide for yourself how well RiverRock House measures up by booking an overnight stay in the home. The house can be reserved for a minimum 2-night stay at the RiverRock website for rates starting at $800 per night.
That amount gets you the entire house, which can accommodate up to six guests, and gives you access to the surrounding 30 wooded acres in Lake County, Ohio. The Chagrin River runs through the property, and Cleveland is just a half-hour drive to the west. Go to RiverRockHouse.com to book.
5 More Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings Where You Can Spend the Night
Or, if you prefer to stay in a building completed during Wright’s lifetime, you have several alternatives. Here’s a sampling.
• The Louis Penfield House is just down the road from RiverRock House in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. The original Penfield building has three bedrooms and can sleep up to five guests. You’ll note the home’s proportions are bigger than the norm to accommodate the original owner’s height of 6 feet, 8 inches. From $450 per night.
• The one-bedroom Seth Peterson Cottage in Wisconsin’s Mirror Lake State Park sleeps up to two guests. It’s one of the architect’s smallest homes at just 880 square feet. From $300 per night.
• The Palmer House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, has a unique geometric design “based on an equilateral triangle” and incorporating “hexagonal beds and polygonal cutouts,” according to Midwest Living. The three bedrooms can accommodate a total of up to five guests. From $800 per night.
• The Schwartz House, also known as Still Bend, is Wright’s idea of a “dream house,” designed for an issue of Life magazine. The three-bedroom home in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, can sleep up to eight people. From $595 per night.
• And the Historic Park Inn Hotel in Mason City, Iowa, bills itself as the last remaining Wright-designed hotel. The property has 27 guest rooms, each with a different layout. From $158 per night.
For a fuller list of the architect’s buildings that offer overnight stays, see the directory maintained by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy.