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Alvin Miller House | |
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| Location | 1107 Court St Charles City, Iowa, USA |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 43°4′0.75″N 92°41′1.65″W / 43.0668750°N 92.6837917°W |
| Built | 1946 |
| Architect | Frank Lloyd Wright |
| Architectural style | Usonian |
| NRHP reference No. | 78001221[1] |
| Added to NRHP | 11/16/1978 |
The Alvin Miller House, also known as Dietrich House, is a Usonian house designed by noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright that was constructed in Charles City, Iowa beginning in 1946 and completed in 1950. Located at 1107 Court Street on the southwest bank of the Cedar River, this single-story home features a two-level flat roof that allows for clerestory windows. It illustrates some of the common characteristics of Wright’s Usonian houses.
History edit
Alvin L. Miller (1880-1963) was a dentist born and schooled in Iowa, active in the Boy Scouts both as a young person and as an adult. [Heinz Guide] With his own dental practice, he fits the profile of the typical Wright Usonian house client identified by John Sargeant – independent-minded professionals, academics, and small business owners. [John Sargeant, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Houses: The Case for Organic Architecture, p. 38] Miller was 66 with his children grown when he engaged the famous Frank Lloyd Wright to design a house for him on the banks of the Cedar River. As a result, though more than a decade younger than his architect, Miller was one of Wright’s oldest clients. [Heinz Guide, Midwestern Midcentury] Miller died in 1963 after living in the house for 12 years. [Heinz Guide]
The planned dental office was never built, but designs of Wright’s became the basis for a substantial addition to the south in the 1990s. Although it adds another space and another hearth, the addition blends into the original house, in part by using tidewater cypress wood and limestone – the stone even being from the same quarry. [Midwestern Midcentury, Charles City, Storrer Architecture I think]. The addition nearly tripled the size of the house – no longer small, it now totals 3000 square feet with 175 floor-to-ceiling windows. [Wright Conservancy, Storrer Companion p. 299]
The spectacular site along the Cedar River leaves the house vulnerable to flooding, and it was hit hard when the river overflowed in June 2008 as part of the widespread Iowa Flood of 2008. The occupants evacuated and about four feet of water poured in, causing an estimated $1 million damage to the interior but leaving the house structurally sound. Exterior damage is no longer visible, and at least some of the interior has been restored. [various sources including Wright something and Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, Cyndi Pederson, Director, Talking Points, Rebuild Iowa Advisory Commission, August 5, 2008 at http://www.rio.iowa.gov/about_us/meetings/080508/01_pederson_notes.pdf and more]
Architecture edit
blah blah
Significance edit
The Miller House illustrates the development of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian houses in the period after the Second World War, a period characterized by escalating costs for both labor and materials. [Sargeant p. 81] As completed by Moltz Construction Company in 1950, the house cost Dr. Miller about $35,000, a moderately high price for the era. [Heinz Guide; Midwestern Midcentury; Wright, Olgivanna Lloyd (1966). Frank Lloyd Wright: His Life, His Work, His Words. New York: Horizon Press. ISBN 9780273314691 [verify], p. 218 {date}; Maria Costantino (sp?) {date} ] As a result, although the Miller House and the other post-World War II Usonian houses were designed using the same ideas as those of the first Herbert Jacobs House, they cannot be viewed as viable solutions to the small, reasonably priced house problem. [find Wright’s phrase, if possible] [Sargeant p. 81, 86, and 140 and maybe more] Recognizing this, Wright would soon turn to other experiments to meet that challenge, such as the Usonian Automatic and Marshall Erdman Prefabricated designs of the 1950s [Sargeant pp 144 and more]
References edit
- ^ "National Register of Historical Places - Iowa - Floyd County". National Park Service.
- Storrer, William Allin. The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion. University Of Chicago Press, 2006, ISBN 0226776212 (S.289)