You do not have to travel to the Midwest to go inside a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Believe it or not, there are two Wright houses in Manchester, NH. One is privately owned and one is owned by the Currier Museum in Manchester, NH and is open to the public. Manchester’s riches of Wrightian architecture is unusual here. There are a mere scattering of  Wrightian houses in New England:  two in Connecticut, one in Massachusetts, and the two in New Hampshire. The Zimmerman House is the only one in New England available for the public to tour. A mid-century modern visitable piece of architecture, right in our own backyard.

Carport with a view

The Zimmerman house was built in 1950 for Dr. Isadore and Lucille Zimmerman. The house is “Usonian” in design, meaning it is efficient, economical and possessing a panache of style available to people of moderate means. With Usonian houses, Wright designed the cabinets, shelves, furniture  and gardens as a total concept living experience. The Zimmerman house is no exception. Although Frank Lloyd Wright never set foot in Manchester, he designed a house for the Zimmermans that sits perfectly on the lot. In visiting the house, only one feature struck me as impractical. The house has a carport, not unlike many Wright houses. New England winters and carports are diametrically opposed. None the less, the carport is gorgeous and has a view of the backyard for the driver, through a picture window-sized opening. There is no paint on any exterior surface as the window frames are poured concrete forms or stained wood and the exterior walls are brick. I guess the low maintenance exterior makes up for the sleet and snow exposed, albeit sexy carport.

Golden orange Georgia cypress ceilings

The Zimmermans lived in the house from 1952 until they died. The museum took over the stewardship of the house in 1988. The Zimmermans had the foresight to realize what a gem they had and bequeathed the house and contents to the museum. Pottery, mid-century artwork, and sculpture all left by the Zimmermans are on display. The house originally was designed by Wright with radiant heat flooring under the signature red color concrete floors. Unfortunately, the heating system failed at some point during Isadore and Lucille’s time there and a forced hot air heating system with ducts was installed. The duct work ran discordantly along the sweeping interior ceiling lines. As the docent explained during the tour, the museum undertook a massive “bring it back” project and jackhammered up the floors, removed the eye jarring duct work, reinstalled new radiant flooring, re-poured the concrete  and matched the original Wright red floor color. The result is beautiful.

When the house was built, the area around it was a country-setting suburb of Manchester. Now the setting feels more  built up suburban, but once you are on the grounds and in the house the country sylvan feeling returns. During the Zimermans’ time, they hosted many musicales. Wright designed a four sided wood music stand for this musical family so a quartet can all play facing one another. The Currier Museum has a twilight tour with live music in the garden room. You can experience what it must have been like to be a guest at one of their parties. Alas, no cocktails are served as you are inside a work of art. No inebriated stumbles allowed please.

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Sylvan setting

Pairing items together that are seemingly disparate challenges the eye and sparks visual curiosity. When you flip through the shelter magazines and look at all of those perfectly pulled together rooms, do you want to step into the page, mess it up a bit, and rearrange it all to make it look less predictable and more lived in? Placing pieces together that shouldn’t work — but somehow do — shakes things up a bit and gives a room or garden a distinctive feel. When you see items together that suit each other too well — like a velvet wingback chair and a mahogany butler’s table — your mind’s eye gives a great big yawn. The eye seeks out the different and the unusual in order to be challenged and amused. A touch (emphasis on touch) of whimsy pulls out an inner smile. By whimsy here I do not mean “This way to the beach” signs placed in a seaside house, but rather a subtle pairing of pieces that evoke a “that is fun and unusual” response. Predictable = boring.

Here are some pairings that are like an odd couple marriage that somehow work to complement each other.

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The work on the house at Howlets is nearing completion. All of the systems are in place and working properly and the rooms are taking on their final looks. Fresh paint is making its way onto surfaces. A first fire burned merrily in the living room fireplace last night with the matching pair of dusty blue linen Edwardian sofas flanking the hearth. The paintings will be hung soon and books placed in the newly built bookcases, rounding out the living spaces. My attention now has turned to the outside.

The exterior spaces at Howlets are badly in need of a trim. Fall is the perfect time to accomplish this task, as the bare outlines of the trees emerge. The vegetation had been allowed to grow up over the last decade or so and has begun to take over. A “take back” attack was needed. There are many large locust trees on the property that now severely hamper the view of the ocean. Volunteer locusts have sprung up in alarming numbers throughout the yard and in the neglected garden spaces. Many of these have matured to saplings which further threaten the views. A chainsaw and a vision were needed. After consulting with owners David and Heather about what should stay and what should go, I brought over my power tool and work gloves and got to work. There is an immediate-need gratification that gets fulfilled when a view-blocking tree comes down. My excitement built as more and more of the view began to emerge. The movies Edward Scissorhands and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre sprang to mind as my chainsaw wielded its magic.

In an area of the yard that could potentially reveal a view of the lower quarry from the front porch, I had noticed a bit of poison ivy that had climbed into the trees and made a mental note to avoid it. That mental post-it somehow came loose in the excitement of the work as I pulled, cut and carried arm loads of cut woody material to the waste pile. The next morning I was vaguely aware of a slight itch on my arms, but did not give it much thought. As the itching turned to a burn and then blistering, I remembered the poison ivy and the 5-watt light bulb went off in my head. Uh oh.

As the week progressed the itching and burning began to creep from my arms to spots on my eyelid, cheek, throat, chest, armpit, hip and waist.  How could these areas be affected as I was sure that I was fully clothed that day? A check with Heather’s memory of my haberdashery that day confirmed, I was not nude swinging a chainsaw while felling trees. I am personally opposed to mixing nudity and mechanically whirring sharp objects.

Photos in blog posts help tell the story but in this case I will spare readers the horrors. New spots continue to rear their ugly blistered heads even more than a week after the confrontation. What nether regions will erupt next?  I have dreams of relieving the intense itch by dragging a fork over the affected areas. The blistering and oozing is visually arresting and makes me feel like a leper. In times past, lepers were required to carry clappers to warn others of their approach. There are a set of wood antique leper clappers available on eBay that are quite handsome. I am considering reviving that practice.

Make way for the infected

Barely dry

The polyurethane is barely dry on the floor in the studio at Howlets. After 100 years of wear and tear, the wood floorboards had a very dull dark — almost black — appearance. A thorough sanding and three coats of poly brought the detail of the graining of the southern yellow pine springing to life. The huge new window allows loads of light into the room. Now the light reflects and bounces off the floor, instead of the floor absorbing every ray. Previously, the stone walls, dark floors and old glass block window gave a gloomy, almost dungeon-like feel to the large room. No longer.

David and Heather’s youngest daughter practices piano in this room. Upon seeing the floors redone, she told me, “I had no idea this room could be made so beautiful, it now feels joyful.” Indeed.

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You light up my life

In the depths of the basement or the heights of the attic, we all have a favorite piece of old furniture that cries out “repair me” each time you pass by. The voice inside your head says, “I really should do something about repairing that.” Somehow it never gets done and keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the proverbial to do list. It all seems to be just too much of a bother to begin researching where to take such an item for repair. The contrarian voice shouts, “Oh, that old thing, you can just find a replacement for less than it costs to repair it.” The romantic side of you coos, “That is such a unique piece that has such an amazing ________ (fill in the blank).”

Re rush me

Such was the case with a Gustavian chair that Heather and David brought with them in the move to Howlets. The rush seat was in dire need of replacement and nail heads were popping out from the bent wood trim, snagging and pulling any article of clothing that came near. Rush seats are made from a natural material and have a decidedly rustic look and feel. The chair is Gustavian in style and has a grey flat paint with faded gold hand-painted details. In 1717, young King Gustav III, a Swede, returned from court in France to ascend to the throne. Having become intrigued by the French furniture he saw, he promoted furniture design reflecting both French and Swedish tastes. The marriage of the two styles is slightly whimsical and very easy on the eye, with the fussiness of the French style toned down and made more approachable.

The chair at Howlets has been languishing in a deshabille state for a while. Now that there is a perfect place for it at a drop-down desk recently built into the studio’s bookcases, the time had come for the chair’s rescue. But where to get the seat re-rushed? An internet search and many phone calls brought too many dead ends. There are many places in the area that will do caning, but very few that specialize in seat rush.

New life for an old post office

Heritage Industries in Peabody is a part of Northeast Arc, an organization that enables people with developmental and cognitive disabilities to maximize their potential. One part of the organization is a workshop in an old post office on Foster Street in downtown Peabody, Massachusetts. The individuals that work there specialize in press cane, fiber rush and porch weave. The workshop began in 1969.

I recently had the opportunity to visit the workshop. The building itself is a gem. The decommissioned post office has an old WPA Roosevelt-era mural in the lobby. The front lobby is a gallery that showcases art work by Heritage Industries members. In the back of the building where the sorting of mail and packages used to be performed in the former post office days, a workshop now exists. On the day I visited, there were three craftspersons working on replacing the seats of chairs. Finished pieces awaited their owners to put them back into service. Butt sprung and split chairs anxiously stood at attention in neat rows ready to be refreshed. Doug, the assistant manager, showed off examples of the rush repair and told me that the type of rush that was on the Gustavian chair was only done by one of the craftspeople, unfortunately not there that day. The chair will wait its turn. No rushing the rush.

Waiting room

The workshop also makes handmade brooms that look as if a European story book character should step into the room and begin sweeping the floor of a thatched cottage. Out of the several styles created in the workshop, my personal favorite is a whisk broom with a curved gnarled wood handle. Hansel and Gretel spring to mind. There are many other brooms of varied shapes and sizes, including a hearth broom and a long handled broom made for waving away cobwebs. They are all beautifully crafted and each one unique. The prices start at $20.00. I wanted one of each.

Swept away

Check out www.ne-arc.org to see the lifelong services that Northeast Arc provides its members.

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Now that the back hoes, dump trucks, and blasting equipment are not tearing up the driveway with reckless abandon, work has begun to repair the havoc wreaked on the steep front drive to Howlets. In addition to repairs, owners David and Heather wanted to extend the driveway a bit closer to the mud room entrance door so the schlep from car to house is not such a trek. A stone path from the driveway to the mud room is also in the mix. With an arm full of groceries, the steep slope of the house’s front yard becomes more obvious with each laborious step. The existing driveway is crushed stone and is perfect for the setting of Howlets against sea and stone. A blacktop driveway would undoubtedly be more practical for snow plowing and run off, but would give the place a “Housewives of New Jersey” look. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made for aesthetics. Think of those uncomfortable but dressy knock out shoes that you wear to special occasions only.

Tread on me

Stone driveways are also permeable and act as natural filters for the oil and other pollutants from cars. The residue seeps into the ground as opposed to running down blacktop into street storm drains and then into the nearby ocean.

The old driveway has been slightly regraded in problem spots and re-dressed with roadpack — a combination of soil, crushed stone and stone dust. The new extension to the driveway is at the front yard’s steepest incline and consequently presents some issues. Because of the risk of erosion, crushed stone on this portion of the driveway would not have worked well. Instead, we are installing a “tire track” driveway, composed of two strips of stone pavers with roadpack in between. The tire track design fits the home’s casual summer community vibe perfectly. Dave McGibbon, a local stone mason, is sourcing the stone from a local quarry, choosing the pieces he wants for this job, splitting and laying the stone on site. All of this is done by him and him alone. He fits all of the pieces together like a recipe puzzle for a harmonious blend of stone soup. Watching him work is like watching a painter create a painting. It is true artistry and one that thankfully is still being practiced on Cape Ann. Dave McGibbon is one of the best kept secrets on Cape Ann. He has re-built sea walls so this job is no doubt child’s play for him. However, he carefully considers each gentle turn and slope of the new driveway extension both for aesthetics and for water and snow runoff.

One hundred years ago, the original owner Ellen Day Hale hired local stone masons to quarry stone on site and build Howlets. How great that, so many years later, David and Heather continue to utilize the local material for which Rockport is named.

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Dual drive

Hammer on stone