My Frank Lloyd Wright Ward Willits Chairs At the Bunn House of 104 Langdon St. Madison, Wisconsin
Bernard Pyron
Figure 1, Me With Two Ward Willitts High Back Chairs and the Willitts High Back With Arm Rests In My Basement Apartment In the Bunn House of 104 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin, in 1977.
Figure 2, My High Back Ward Willitts House Chair That Was Sold in 1977 to the St Louis Art Museum. Lynn Springer came to Madison to get this chair from me at the Bunn House of 104 Langdon Street. In this photo this chair is seen outside along the north wall of the Bunn House.
Figure 3- Ward Willitts House High Back Chair With Arm Rests and A Willitts High Back Chair Without Arm Rests outside the south wall of the Bunn House and Near the Northwest Corner of the House - 1977.
"Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, Nomination Form: Langdon Street Historic District: Along with the high concentration of period revival styles in the district, there are also a significant number of nineteenth century architectural styles. although they have almost all had some alterations or additions since their date of construction. Also, this district has a number of post-1900 architectural styles within its boundaries, including examples of the prairie and bungalow styles."
Remember that Frank Lloyd Wright began designing his larger upper middle class Prairie houses with the Thomas house,(1901,210 Forest Ave., Oak Park, Illinois) and Willits House (1901, 1445 Sheridan Rd, Highland Park, IL).
When Frank Lloyd Wright left his practice in his studio in Oak Park, Illinois, and left his family in 1909, to go to Europe with Mrs Mamah Borthwick Cheney, this marked the beginning of the end of Wright's Prairie Style period.
William Storrer says that the "... Prairie School had died out by the early 1920s. In the Prairie era, Wright had created an American - some would say only a Midwestern - architecture. He had not, however, created a Democratic architecture (1)." Wright's democratic, more affordable and compact houses from 1936 to 1959 were called "Usonians."
Remember that Frank Lloyd Wright began designing his larger upper middle class Prairie houses with the Thomas house,(1901,210 Forest Ave., Oak Park, Illinois) and Willits House (1901, 1445 Sheridan Rd, Highland Park, IL).
When Frank Lloyd Wright left his practice in his studio in Oak Park, Illinois, and left his family in 1909, to go to Europe with Mrs Mamah Borthwick Cheney, this marked the beginning of the end of Wright's Prairie Style period.
William Storrer says that the "... Prairie School had died out by the early 1920s. In the Prairie era, Wright had created an American - some would say only a Midwestern - architecture. He had not, however, created a Democratic architecture (1)." Wright's democratic, more affordable and compact houses from 1936 to 1959 were called "Usonians."
The Prairie homes of about 1901 to 1913 are larger than the Usonians, since they were designed for the Upper Middle Class. And because there was a lingering caste system at that time in America, in part because these mansions contained quarters for live-in servants they were larger than they might have been. In addition, many of the prairie homes had an extra entry for servants and delivery men, while the family and guests entered at another door.
BY 1914 WRIGHT TURNED TO DESIGNING FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE
Wright's Wisconsin Populism and Progressivism led him to finally turn from his Prairie houses for the Upper Middle Class to finding ways to create affordable houses for the Middle and Lower Middle Classes which also reached toward the level of art.
John Dos Passos .said that Frank Lloyd Wright, the son of a preacher, preached in stone.
And Frank Lloyd Wright translated the American Spirit into art as architecture more than anyone had done before or after him. Some of what Wright defined as the American Spirit came out of his experience as a boy growing up on his mother's family land in his ancestral valley near the Wisconsin River, east of Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Wright's Unitarianism and , Taoism, are not necesssarily populist, but Wright got some of his populism from his friend Robert La Follette, and behind Wisconsin Progressivism was the Midwest, South, and Texas Populist movement. After he stopped designing Prairie houses, and got back from Europe, Wright turned his attention to designing homes for the lower middle class. His first designs were for Arthur l. Richards, using the American System Built home process. Four duplex apartment units and two bungalows were built in Milwaukee in 1915-1916. Lumber was cut at a factory and shipped to the sites to be assembled, which reduced the cost of the dwellings. Later, during the fifties,Madison builder Marshall Erdman
constructed two versions of Wright's Pre-Fab Plan Number One in Madison. The first built was the Eugene Van Tamelen house (1956) on the south edge of Madison's Crestwood, which was largely surrounded by woods in 1956. This is the only Wright house I was in during its construction. Five houses were built using the Pre-Fab Design Number one. A second pre-fab in Madison, on the South Belt Line, the Arnold Jackson house, is based on the Number One pre-Fab Plan but uses stone rather than the masonite of the Van Tamelen house(1956). Wright's goal was to create houses that the common people could afford, and yet would also rise to the level of art. He did not fail in this goal, either in his pre-fabs of the middle fifties, nor in his Usonian square and diamond module houses of the thirties, forties and fifties, which did not use the pre-fab method of construction to any great extent. https://npgallery.nps.gov/...
"104 Langdon St. Romanzo Bunn house 1878-79 The French Second Empire style house was built for Romanzo Bunn, a jurist and law professor. It is a cream brick structure with the style's trademark mansard roof. Several dormers project from the roof and have elliptically arched roofs, matching the segmental pediments of the central tower and corner bay roofs. The wide eaves of the roof have modillions and a decorated brick course running under the frieze imitating dentils. An identical belt course runs between the first and second stories of the house. Windows have carved stone lintels and the corner box bay projection has a stone cornice. A later classical veranda, part of which is enclosed, has recently been restored. Despite some lack of maintenance by previous owners, the Bunn house has retained much of its nineteenth century appearance. "
BY 1914 WRIGHT TURNED TO DESIGNING FOR THE COMMON PEOPLE
Wright's Wisconsin Populism and Progressivism led him to finally turn from his Prairie houses for the Upper Middle Class to finding ways to create affordable houses for the Middle and Lower Middle Classes which also reached toward the level of art.
John Dos Passos .said that Frank Lloyd Wright, the son of a preacher, preached in stone.
And Frank Lloyd Wright translated the American Spirit into art as architecture more than anyone had done before or after him. Some of what Wright defined as the American Spirit came out of his experience as a boy growing up on his mother's family land in his ancestral valley near the Wisconsin River, east of Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Wright's Unitarianism and , Taoism, are not necesssarily populist, but Wright got some of his populism from his friend Robert La Follette, and behind Wisconsin Progressivism was the Midwest, South, and Texas Populist movement. After he stopped designing Prairie houses, and got back from Europe, Wright turned his attention to designing homes for the lower middle class. His first designs were for Arthur l. Richards, using the American System Built home process. Four duplex apartment units and two bungalows were built in Milwaukee in 1915-1916. Lumber was cut at a factory and shipped to the sites to be assembled, which reduced the cost of the dwellings. Later, during the fifties,Madison builder Marshall Erdman
constructed two versions of Wright's Pre-Fab Plan Number One in Madison. The first built was the Eugene Van Tamelen house (1956) on the south edge of Madison's Crestwood, which was largely surrounded by woods in 1956. This is the only Wright house I was in during its construction. Five houses were built using the Pre-Fab Design Number one. A second pre-fab in Madison, on the South Belt Line, the Arnold Jackson house, is based on the Number One pre-Fab Plan but uses stone rather than the masonite of the Van Tamelen house(1956). Wright's goal was to create houses that the common people could afford, and yet would also rise to the level of art. He did not fail in this goal, either in his pre-fabs of the middle fifties, nor in his Usonian square and diamond module houses of the thirties, forties and fifties, which did not use the pre-fab method of construction to any great extent. https://npgallery.nps.gov/...
"104 Langdon St. Romanzo Bunn house 1878-79 The French Second Empire style house was built for Romanzo Bunn, a jurist and law professor. It is a cream brick structure with the style's trademark mansard roof. Several dormers project from the roof and have elliptically arched roofs, matching the segmental pediments of the central tower and corner bay roofs. The wide eaves of the roof have modillions and a decorated brick course running under the frieze imitating dentils. An identical belt course runs between the first and second stories of the house. Windows have carved stone lintels and the corner box bay projection has a stone cornice. A later classical veranda, part of which is enclosed, has recently been restored. Despite some lack of maintenance by previous owners, the Bunn house has retained much of its nineteenth century appearance. "
Figure 2, My High Back Ward Willitts House Chair That Was Sold in 1977 to the St Louis Art Museum. Lynn Springer came to Madison to get this chair from me at the Bunn House of 104 Langdon Street. In this photo this chair is seen outside along the north wall of the Bunn House.
Figure 3- Ward Willitts House High Back Chair With Arm Rests and A Willitts High Back Chair Without Arm Rests outside the south wall of the Bunn House and Near the Northwest Corner of the House - 1977.
Figure 4 - My Ward Willitts House low back chair, which was in
storage in the basement of an apartment building on Madison's Near East Side in the Summer of 1971.
5905 Wilshire Blvd • Los Angeles California 90036 • 323-857-6000 •
publicinfo@lacma.org "Side Chair from the Ward M. Willits House, Highland Park, Illinois, 1902." Most likely this is the chair that was taken from storage at 1037 Jenifer Street on Madison's near east side in 1971, but it was left in the building. When a woman who lived in the apartment where the chair was when she moved in, moved out, she took the chair.with her. In 1985 I ran an ad, showing a photo of the chair, in the Madison newspapers and she responded. The chair was placed in storage in Madison for me and Beth Cathers went to Madison to see it and bought it. in 1985, and it is now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This Willits Low-Back Chair above is Identical to the high backs but
not as tall. The New York Art Gallery Beth Cathers was associated with sold the chair to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Figure 6- All three of My Ward Willitts House High Back Dining Room Chairs Outside at 525 W. Washington, Madison, in 1965, for a 16mm Dennis Murphy Gang Movie
"On Savewright, an Internet site, I found this post from Feb 1, 2011 on the story of the Ward Willitts
dining room table on www.savewright.com:
Outside In. ,Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2011,
Roderick, I'm afraid that the owner was not offered a chance to buy
the table for $15,000. Milt and I visited Graves at his home in
Wisconsin where the table was being stored in a chicken coop. Graves
DID NOT want cash, because of the tax implications, so he asked if he
could trade something for the table, i.e., a car. Milt purchased an
Audi for him, but Graves started getting nervous about the value of
the table and contacted Scott Elliot, who traveled to Wisconsin to
appraise the table with a suitcase full of cash. Elliot later sold the
table to Daniel Wolf in NY for an undisclosed amount, but some say it
was $35k. Milt kept the Audi and drove it for a few years. Luckily I
snapped quite a few photos of the table during our visit, and, with
the drawings on file at the Univ. of Michigan, was able to reproduce
the original table quite accurately."
Who is "outside in?" Is it John A. Eifler, the Chicago architect who
supervised the restoration of the Ward Willitts house.
And who is "Milt" mentioned here? I just dug out my correspondence on
the Willitts stuff and looked at the letters I have from John Eifler.
In an October 24, 1984 letter John Eifler says "Wilbert Hasbrouck has
appraised the value of the table at $35,000, much higher than any of
us expected. Milt is not interested in paying anything near that - so
we have not bought the table..." Milt is the new owner of the Ward Williss house.
Wilbert R. Hasbrouch was the Chicago expert on Frank Lloyd Wright and the Chicago Prairie School architecture who appraised my Frank Lloyd Wright chairs from the Willitts house. At the time when Hasbrouch made his appraisal, my former wife owned the Willitts House Dining Room Table.
John Eifler and Milt, the new owner of the Willitts
house in 1984, were at the home of Robert Graves and saw the Willitts
table in the chicken coop of Graves. This is a part of the story I
had not known then.
I am not sure that Homer Fieldhouse knew the table was from from the
Willitts house when it was given to him. Graves might not have known
it either. I wonder how Eifler and Milt found the table?
I have an August 13, 1984 letter from David A. Hanks saying the
Willitts dining room table would bring $15,000 to $20,000 in New York.
I found a "Spring, 1985" letter from John Eifler saying that "The
table and chair were sold to Scott Eliott of Kelmscott Galleries in
Chicago by Graves. Scott Eliott in turn sold it to Wolfe Galleries in NYC for
$45,000. Eifler had mentioned also a "lost" chair, which might have been the "lost" Willitts low back chair of mine I was looking
for in Wisconsin in 1984. I got it back in 1985. I don't know what chair Scott Elliott sold along with the table.
Scott Eliott, the Wolfe Galleries or Robert Graves or his wife, Derry, if still living, might know where the Willitts House Dining Room Table ended up.
Here is another part of the story:
I found the letter of of Chicago sent along with
his appraisal of the Ward Willitts chairs. The table was not included
since, in 1977, when the appraisal was made, my former wife owned the
table. In addition, the low back chair lost in 1971 was not included
in the appraisal. He said each of four high back chairs were worth
$4,500 in 1977. One of the high backs is wider and has arm rests. It
was sold to the Atlanta Art Museum. One high back was sold to the St
Louis Art Museum, one to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and
the last high back without arm rests was sold to an unidentified
collector.
I am sorry I allowed the chair to be sold to someone whose identity
has been kept secret. The Willitts lounge chair which Clayton Bailey
acquired when he was with me in Highland Park, Illinois in the summer
of 1961 at the art fair was sold by Christie's in late 2001 for
$110,000 to a collector whose name was kept secret. On page 75 Thomas
A. Heinz in his 1994 book Frank Lloyd Wright: Interiors and Furniture
shows a color photo of a Ward Willitts house living room chair
identical to the one that Clayton Bailey owned from 1961 until 2001.
And here is a note from Derry Graves, wife of Robert Graves, dated
August 11, 1984, saying "We have made a decision on the Wright table
and that is not to sell it."
I also have a letter which mentions the Ward Willitts dining room
table in the possession of my former wife. Its dated January 17, 1982
and says the table was in the house at Cabot Lane when the new owner bought the
house owned by my former wife and her husband. However, he says "..when I took possession of the house it was not there." Cabot Lane is in Madison, Wisconsin.
It was sometime between early 1982 and the summer of 1984 that the
table was given to Homer Fieldhouse of Madison, Wisconsin.
I sold my Ward Willitts Wright chairs at an early time, from 1977 until the mid eighties, but mostly in the late seventies. The price on the few Wright high back chairs of his Chicago area Prairie Period that appeared on the market went up in the eighties. A high back Willitts chair identical to my three chairs was sold by Christie's to Tomas Monaghan, owner of Domino's Pizza on December 15, 1986 - for $198,000. The most I got for a Willitts chair was in 1985 for the low back - at $22,000.
The Willitts high back chair with arm rests, we called the "Papa Bear Chair,' was one of the Willitts pieces I sold to an art museum through David A. Hanks, who paid the exact appraisal value put on the Willits chairs in 1977 by Wilbert R. Hasbrouch. The chair may have had a greater market value than that in 1977. Remember than Hasbrouck appraised the Willits dining room table at a higher value in the eighties than did Hanks.
Figure 8 - - The 1878 Bunns House Exterior At 104 Langdon Street
In about 1901 to 1909 Wright could have designed one or more large Prairie style houses for the Langdon Street Historic District. Above, the National Registry of Historical Places says "this district has a number of post-1900 architectural styles with in its boundaries, including examples of the prairie and bungalow styles." This District is the Langdon Street Historic District. There was a dislike for Frank Lloyd Wright among someolder Madison residents back in the fifties, but I don't know if this dislike goes back in history to the early 20th century.
