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Frank Lloyd Wright, Cottage for Seth Peterson, 1958

The last commission completed by Frank Lloyd Wright before his death was a small cottage for Seth Peterson. While diminutive in scale, this architectural gem incorporates many of the design features we associate with the Wright’s visionary work. A native of the region near Taliesin, Wright’s home and studio. Peterson had once sought to become one of the student-apprentices there. He later sought to commission Wright to design a personal cottage, sending a check in advance. After declining Peterson’s request more than once, Wright, having already spent the fee, was obliged to fulfill the request to provide the plans. Admirers of FLW’s architecture can be glad for Peterson’s persistence and that this small project was completed with impressive results.

Sadly, Peterson did not live to inhabit the cottage. Yet subsequent owners and devotees of Wright’s legacy helped preserve this small treasure. The fully restored cottage sits on land that is now part of a state park, and it became the first Wright home later available for guest rental (and remains so).

Attention to the relatively simple floor plan of the cottage helps orient those newly acquainted with it to identify some of the principal characteristics of Wright’s many home designs.

The entryway on the upper left side of the plan is in many ways typical of Wright’s preferences in that the structure is approached from the rear and then from the side. Slender double doors open into the compact interior which at the same time appears expansive due to the raised roof and ascending ceiling, which provide shelter over a wall of glass punctuated by warm cedar or redwood uprights. Complementing the beckoning view to the left, over a valley and lake, straight ahead the visitor sees more windows and double doors that open onto a side terrace. This prompts an initial sense that the primary orientation of this small home is toward the natural beauty of the landscape just beyond.

Passing beyond the dining table and chairs (Wright designed, of course) and into the main part of the living space, a second principal point of orientation for the cottage emerges. This is as it is with most FLW-designed homes, where one finds a massive fireplace featuring the same stone work evident throughout the structure and its surrounding terraces. While fireplaces of this kind and scale provide a central anchor point for so many of these domiciles, the plan helps us perceive something more. Wright typically grouped the kitchen (what he termed the workspace), utility room, and bathroom(s) together with the central fireplace in a practical way. Yet, visually and experientially, the fireplace always took pride of place and tended to obscure attention to those other spaces and their functions.

The relatively diminutive scale of the bedroom and bathroom in this cottage befit that of the cottage as a whole, and yet a study of many of Wright’s other house plans reveals a similar result. Just like his designs for kitchens, Wright’s apportionment of space for nighttime rest and personal hygiene was at best modest. It is as if he strongly believed that the greatest amount of waking time for a home’s residents should be in its common areas, where one might not only attend to personal needs but also pursue learning, social interaction and an experiential connection with the natural world.

In my view, the following photographs show the cottage at its best.

And, a lovely place to enjoy a summer evening.

The cottage continues to receive guests through all seasons of the year.