Making it Wright
New Life for Detroit's Only Frank Lloyd Wright House
By Paul Vachon | Online Only | Nov. 9, 2009
The Dorothy Tunkel House
Credit: Preservation Wayne
Restoring a tarnished architectural gem takes guts, patience, and nerves of steel—especially when the project is your future home. On Detroit's west side, two visionary homeowners have taken on this challenge.
Their project is the Dorothy Turkel house; the only confirmed Frank Lloyd Wright structure within the city of Detroit. Two years ago Norman Silk and Dale Morgan, two enterprising residents who wanted to move to a more contemporary residence, saw the house and made the decision to purchase and rehabilitate it. "It needed to be done," Morgan says.
Wright in Detroit
Dorothy Turkel and her husband, admirers of contemporary art and architecture, commissioned Wright to design their dream home in the mid-1950s. During construction the couple divorced, leaving Dorothy to move into the house alone with her children.
The design of the Turkel residence reflected the evolution of 87-year-old Wright's style from the classic Prairie style, with its sumptuous use of stone and soft color palette, to the more practical Usonian model. He identified Usonian (an acronym for United States of North America) as the architectural equivalent of the American spirit—"distinct and free from previous conventions."
The Turkel house falls within a subgroup of Usonian designs known as Usonian automatics, inexpensive houses aimed at middle class homeowners who could assemble the structures for as little as $5,000.00.
The primary medium for the Turkel house is a series of precast concrete blocks held together with steel rods and mortar. The interior walls and floors consist of concrete slabs conceived on a two-by-two-foot module for consistency. All plumbing and electrical conduit was roughed in prior to the pouring of the concrete slab—the home has no basement. (Wright envisioned underfloor radiant heat in his Usonian designs, but Turkel opted for a forced-air system.)
Wright's designs often faced opposition from local zoning boards, building authorities and neighbors. This was especially true with the Detroit project, which is situated in the upscale Palmer Woods neighborhood—an area filled with Tudors, Colonials, and Greek Revivals. Turkel was thus forced to fight the bureaucracy of the Detroit Building Department for over a year until a permit was finally issued. Upon completion in 1957, the house represented a new standard for architecture in Detroit; one that would often inspire imitation.
Dorothy Turkel lived in the home until 1978, when she sold it to Loretta Benbow, who secured local and state historic designation for the property. In later years the home frequently changed hands, suffered from inadequate maintenance and occasionally stood vacant.
Bringing Back the House
Stephen Vogel, dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Detroit Mercy and a consultant on the project, is particularity pleased to see Silk and Morgan as the home's new owners. "If someone else had managed to buy the house, chances are whatever job they were to do would not have this level of historic integrity," Vogel says. "What these two gentlemen are doing is tremendous."
With the owners' encouragement, the project architect unearthed original drawings and correspondence between Wright and Turkel, much of which proved very detailed. The historical documents provided an invaluable road map directing the contractor in the reconstruction of built-in furniture for the Music Room, and in determining the precise color of red for the concrete floors.
Other necessary tasks included the upgrading of mechanical systems, installation of an energy conserving rubber roof, refinishing of Philippine mahogany in the kitchen and Music Room, and recasting of approximately one sixth of the Usonian blocks. This step required the same high level of precision demanded by the entire project. Some 20 different mixtures of concrete were tested to produce a shade that would best match the existing blocks. Hand-mixed cement was then poured into molds and allowed to cure for 60 days before installation.
Silk and Morgan speak proudly of the steady stream of visitors arriving to view the $1.2 million project. Both owners see themselves as stewards of the Wright and Turkel legacies, and as stewards of Detroit's rich urban history. Restoring this property is their way of giving back to a city in desperate need of rejuvenation.
Says Morgan of his home: "Not only is this the only two-story Usonian Automatic home in the world, it can also be viewed as a unique piece of sculpture, one that deserves to be preserved."
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Comments
Submitted by Marym at: December 12, 2009
As a Detroit native who currently is very involved in FLWright in Oak Park, Illinois where I now live, I find this project very exciting. I used to work on the December house tours of Palmer Woods and do not recall any special attention to the Turkel House. Congratulations to Silk and Morgan!
Submitted by unbrook at: November 30, 2009
By 1957 the cost of the Usonian houses designed by Mr. Wright had risen above the $5,000.00 mentioned in the article. The first "Usonian" was designed for Mr Herbert Jacobs of Madison, Wisconsin and it did cost $5,000.00( in 1936-1937). The Usonian Automatics were an attempt by Mr. Wright to readdress the cost of the buildings. It is true the target client was from the middle class. Mr. Wright felt the "small house problem" was the major architectural problem not addressed by architects. I hope there will a publication about the house as the restoration draws to a close. Information on the furniture designed for the Music Room and the exact color of the concrete floors is invaluable to the Wright afficionados.