The Westcott House is the first Frank Lloyd Wright house built in Ohio, and is Ohio's only Prairie Style house. It is not as well known as most of his other Prairie Style homes. In fact, until recently it was practically a secret. Most likely because it was extensively altered over the years. However, after five years of work at a cost of over $5 million, it has been fully restored to its original architectural state.

Designed in 1906, the 4,435 square foot six bedroom house was a commission by Burton J. Westcott, a civic leader and industrialist most remembered for bringing the Westcott Motor Car Company to Springfield in 1916. According to the county records, Westcott paid $5,000 for the land in July 1907 and had a small house on the property demolished to make room for the new construction.  Construction began in October 1907 and continued into 1909, interrupted by a fire in June 1908 and another in July 2008. Additional construction apparently took place a year or two later, which brought the cost of the building to around $15,000.

Wright designed the Westcott House after his first trip to Japan in 1905 but before the Robie House. The Japanese influences in the design are clear, but are beautifully integrated with Arts and Crafts (also known as Craftsman), Mission style architectural elements, and Wright's special touches to create the Prairie Style.
The house faces south on a 3/4 acre corner lot at 1340 East High Street in Springfield, Ohio, on what was once known as "millionaire's row," populated with Victorian mansions. The house extends almost to the property line on both the east and west sides. It was one of the first homes in Springfield to have electricity.

Across Greenmount Avenue on the east side of the house is a cemetery, which looks like a large city park and contributes to the beauty of the site. Its neighbor to the west is a large house of quite different, but attractive design.

I took most the photographs of the Westcott House when my wife and I toured it on August 8, 2006. Photography of the house interior was prohibited and the tour guide didn't know anything that wasn't on her set of note cards, so I was a little disappointed, but I would still recommend taking the tour.

You can find great deals on hotels near the Westcott House at Expedia.com or Hotwire.com.
  • Photo of a print of the original architectural rendering for the Westcott House, hanging on the gift shop wall
    Photo of a print of the original architectural rendering for the Westcott House, hanging on the wall of the gift shop. A 13 5/8” x 23 5/8” reproduction can be purchased from The Frank Lloyd Trust Preservation Trust.
  • Image of the original Wasmuth Portfolio page showing an elevation view of the Westcott House
    Image of the original Wasmuth Portfolio page showing an elevation view of the Westcott House. A noticeable difference between this image and the house as built is that the drawing shows the pool much larger, with the steps to the front lawn much more prominent and farther out into the lawn. The Wasmuth Portfolio has been reproduced in paperback.
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Major Sections

House Interior | House Exterior, Gardens, and Carriage House | History, Changes, and Restoration

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Books

I hand-picked the books shown below. While I have not yet read them all, they are the most highly rated (by Amazon customers) books about the residences designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses (Wright at a Glance Series) book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie Houses (Wright at a Glance Series)
    60 pages, 34 color photographs, 7 black & white photographs. Casebound, with dust jacket. Hugging the ground, with low, sheltering roofs and spacious interiors, Wright's Prairie houses have long been favorites among his hundreds of buildings. This book details the origins of the style, showing typical features and furnishings, and walks readers through ten of the most fascinating examples.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: Prairie Houses book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright:
    Prairie Houses
    272 page hardcover. With the advent of Prairie style architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright embarked on a journey that would forever change the course of architecture. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, Wright built the first great modern American houses. He cast aside many of the conventions of the past, opening up interior spaces so that there might be a more subtle flow of rooms. Their decentralized asymmetry did not follow the Beaux Arts insistence on a primary, often dominating, focal point. Following Wright's philosophy, Prairie design was emphatically democratic and non-hierarchical. Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie Houses comprehensively demonstrates this philosophy. Focusing on interiors and details, the book features more than 70 Prairie style houses and other buildings, still extant, in lavish, full-color photography.
  • Prairie Style: Houses & Gardens by Frank Lloyd Wright book cover
    Prairie Style: Houses & Gardens by Frank Lloyd Wright
    This elegant, profusely illustrated 207 page hardcover book captures the enduring spirit of Prairie Style, celebrating its indelible contribution to the closing century.

    Prairie Style opens the doors to 24 homes, ushering readers into beautifully restored and creatively furnished spaces that radiate the warmth so closely associated with Wright and the Prairie School of architects. More than 200 full-color photographs offer full room views as well as close-ups of remarkable furniture and decorative objects. In keeping with Wright's devotion to natural settings, exteriors and gardens are also pictured, placing each house in the context of its environment.
  • The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright and His Midwest Contemporaries book cover
    The Prairie School:
    Frank Lloyd Wright and His Midwest Contemporaries
    This 400 page profusely illustrated paperback provides a basic overview of the Midwestern architects who, along with Frank Lloyd Wright, were bringing about an entirely new kind of architecture in the early years of the 20th Century. Brooks takes time to explore the friends, associates, students, rivals, imitators and admirers of Mr. Wright's architectural idiom. There is also a fine overview of Louis Sullivan here.
  • Wright Style: Re-Creating the Spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright, book cover
    Wright Style: Re-Creating the Spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright
    If you've ever wanted to step inside a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright or if you've ever dreamed of living in one The Wright Style offers the next best thing: an extraordinary look inside dozens of Wright's incomparable houses, all of them filled with countless inspiring ideas from America's favorite architect.
  • At Home on the Prairie: The Houses of Purcell & Elmslie book cover
    At Home on the Prairie: The Houses of Purcell & Elmslie
    192 page hardcover. The houses of William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie built mainly in the Midwest and Northeast are the embodiment of the early 20th century marriage of fine craftsmanship and modern technology. Masterpieces of the Prairie Style, each home was designed with the groundbreaking idea that comfort and utility could harmonize with grace and style. Characterized by open plans and site-specific designs, Purcell and Elmslie residences are tied to the land by local materials and low, spreading forms. Their signature use of nature-based ornament and brilliant color further distinguished them from their contemporaries, Frank Lloyd Wright's houses among them. In 24 residential profiles and gorgeous new photographs, Prairie Style expert Dixie Legler and photographer Christian Korab vividly bring to life the pair's enduring dedication to simple elegance and honest design.
  • Purcell & Elmslie book cover
    Purcell & Elmslie
    144 page hardcover. The initiators of the Prairie School were Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, whose works and writings are the most widely known. In fact, they are so well known that there has been a tendency to dismiss the others who worked and produced in the same period as copyists or minor innovators. Such is far from the truth as the firm of William Gray Purcell and George Grant Elmslie adequately indicates. They made significant contributions that were important not only in their own day but remain important in the fabric of our towns today. The most productive of the Prairie School firms of the time, Purcell and Elmslie included in all their thinking the conviction that a building does not end with its simple structure but reaches its final and logical culmination in the clothing-color, situation and natural environment together with its decoration of glass, terra-cotta and other textural materials.
  • Hometown Architect: The Complete Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park And River Forest, Illinois book cover
    Hometown Architect:
    The Complete Buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park and River Forest, Illinois
    This 144 page hardcover book presents twenty-seven Wright homes, and Unity Temple, documenting one of the architect's most influential periods of his career. The last chapter surveys eight "lost, altered, and possibly Wright" homes. More than ninety photographs of the buildings' exteriors and interiors are accompanied by descriptive captions, while introductory text to each chapter details the story behind each commission, addressing Wright's relationships with his clients, the importance of each building in Wright's oeuvre, and the characteristics that make each house unique. The endpapers of this book feature a map locating all the sites discussed.
  • Wright-Sized Houses: Frank Lloyd Wright's Solutions for Making Small Houses Feel Big book cover
    Wright-Sized Houses: Frank Lloyd Wright's Solutions for Making Small Houses Feel Big
    This 160 page hardcover book is the only one on the master architect to focus on "the house of moderate cost," Wright expert Diane Maddex takes the reader inside a selection of his small houses from across the country, turning the spotlight on Wright's ingenious solutions to make these homes look and feel large. America's most famous architect was obsessed with small houses. Even though this exciting aspect of his work has been long overlooked, the truth is that Frank Lloyd Wright spent most of his career addressing the problems of houses intended for individuals or small families of modest means.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses: Designs for Moderate Cost One-Family Homes book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses: Designs for Moderate Cost One-Family Homes
    208 page paperback. This is a well-presented introduction to an important phase in the career of this legendary architect. Author John Sergeant has combined an insightful text with detailed floor plans and photographs of the Usonian homes themselves. The result is a book that serves equally well for light browsing and intense study.

    The book is not without flaws. Some of the floor plans are so tiny that they are difficult to analyze. And the floor plans have no captions labeling each individual room; the reader is left to decipher the plans on his/her own. But these drawbacks aside, this is an excellent work.

    Sergeant has truly captured the innovative power of Wright's genius. Look at the clustered circles of the Jester house project, the interlocking hexagons of the Bazett house, or the bold "solar-hemicycle" of the second Jacobs house, and you will get a sense of Wright's remarkable vison. Virtually every page brings a stunning image or insight. If you are fascinated by Wright's work in home architecture, you will love this book.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses (Wright at a Glance Series) book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian Houses (Wright at a Glance Series)
    One of the architectural problems that challenged Frank Lloyd Wright throughout his career was how to provide moderate-cost houses that were every bit as good as more expensive ones. His solution was the Usonian house. This book presents a dozen of these innovative structures that became models for so many American houses.

    The Wright-at-a-Glance series showcases the work of one of the world's best-known architects. Comprising twelve books in all, this series offers an overview of Wright's life, buildings, and designs.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Rosenbaum House: The Birth And Rebirth of an American Treasure book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's Rosenbaum House: The Birth And Rebirth of an American Treasure
    The second Usonian house was built in 1940 in Florence, Alabama. This 80 page hardcover book tells the story of the building's design, construction, unusual Wright-designed remodeling, and restoration. Written with lucid wit and plentifully illustrated with photographs and drawings, it is insightful and entertaining in equal measure.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: The Houses book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright:
    The Houses
    544 page hardcover. Frank Lloyd Wright is not only synonymous with architecture, his name is also synonymous with the American house in the twentieth century. In particular, his residential work has been the subject of continuing interest and controversy. Wright's Fallingwater (1935), the seminal masterpiece perched over a waterfall deep in the Pennsylvania highlands, is perhaps the best-known private house in the history of the world. For the first time, all 289 extant houses are shown here in exquisite color photographs. Along with the stunning photos and a selection of floor plans and archival images, the book includes text and essays by several leading Wright scholars.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright: The Masterworks
    Hardcover, 312 pages with 275 color plates. This stunning survey of 38 of his most influential buildings reveals how he created new patterns of living through rooms that open into one another and walls that reach out to engulf gardens and plantings. That the Wisconsin-born pioneer of organic architecture was also an innovative engineer emerges in discussions of Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum with its curved elements, the tripod design of Beth Sholom Synagogue in Elkins Park, PA, and the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael, CA, featuring a circular public library at the hub of administrative buildings ensconced in the hills. Wright's home and studio in Oak Park, IL, the "Fallingwater" house in Mills Run, PA, and the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo are among the projects selected by Pfeiffer, editor of Wright's Collected Writings and author of many books about him.
  • Drawings and Plans of Frank Lloyd Wright: The Early Period (1893 - 1909) book cover
    Drawings and Plans of Frank Lloyd Wright: The Early Period (1893 - 1909)
    This 112 page paperback includes the complete Wasmuth drawings, 1910. Wright's early experiments in organic design: 100 plates of buildings from Oak Park period from first edition. Includes Wright's iconoclastic introduction.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House: The Illustrated Story of an Architectural Masterpiece
    96 page paperback. Painstakingly researched and illuminating account of the making of the Fred C. Robie home. Revealing family documents, excerpts from a 1958 interview with Fred Robie, and 160 black-and-white illustrations illuminate design, construction, various stages of landmark of modern architecture.
  • The Robie House of Frank Lloyd Wright book cover
    The Robie House of Frank Lloyd Wright
    96 page paperback. The Robie House in Chicago is one of the world's most famous houses, a masterpiece from the end of Frank Lloyd Wright's early period and a classic example of the Prairie House. This book is intended as a companion for the visitor to the house, but it also probes beneath the surface to see how the design took shape in the mind of the architect. Wright's own writings, rare working drawings from the period, and previously unpublished photographs of the house in construction help the reader look over the shoulder of the architect at work. Beautiful new photographs of the Robie House and related Wright houses have been specially taken to illustrate the author's points, and a bibliography on Wright is provided.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Martin House: Architecture as Portraiture book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's
    Martin House:
    Architecture as Portraiture
    This 248 page hardcover book vividly illustrates the tangled-up dynamics of client/architect relations through a fascinating selection of letters, and it thoroughly documents the evolution of this Buffalo, New York house's design from concept sketch to finished product. Quinan has assembled a wealth of analytic drawings, comparison drawings with other Wright houses, details, original working drawings, period photographs, and construction photographs. There are few such thorough studies of any house in print.

    By the end of the book Quinan has documented what might be considered as failures of the house—from typical cost overruns and delays, to more serious client dissatisfaction and eventual abandonment of the house—but these are treated as merely historical accident. That the evidence could be read differently is a testament to the thoroughness and inclusiveness of Quinan's work.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Hardy House book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's
    Hardy House
    80 page hardcocer. Author and photographer Mark Hertzberg's extensive research has uncovered previously, unpublished plans and drawings for Wright's original (and unbuilt) conception of the house, along with vast amounts of correspondence between Hardy and Wright. He has documented the house (built in 1909 in Racine, Wisconsin) in all seasons and from many different perspectives, inside and out. His virtual tour includes interviews with various people who have lived in the house or had firsthand knowledge of its history—from Hardy's grandchildren to the present owners. The result is an intricate story of an architectural marvel interlaced with remembrances by its residents.
  • Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer House book cover
    Frank Lloyd Wright's
    Palmer House
    80 page hardcover. This engaging tour of Frank Lloyd Wright's Palmer House, build in the early 1950s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, brings to life one of Wright's last residential masterpieces. With a rich compendium of personal information and an extensive array of photographs, plans, and diagrams created especially for this book, Grant Hildebrand crafts the story of Billy and Mary Palmer's extraordinary home. He presents in detail the events surrounding the Palmers' selection of Wright as architect; Wright's personal creation of the design; the challenges, and the craftsmanship, of its construction; the evolution of its garden and teahouse; the role of the house as a setting for the Palmers' lives; and an analysis of its remarkable formal and spatial qualities.
  • Fifty Favorite Rooms by Frank Lloyd Wright, book cover
    Fifty Favorite Rooms by Frank Lloyd Wright
    120 page hardcover. Any admirer of the creative talent of Frank Lloyd Wright should not be without this excellent book, which records 50 of his domestic interiors. Diane Maddex, who has written several books on Wright, has assembled a photographic collection of his living and dining rooms as well as playrooms, libraries, and a few public spaces. Wright's signature style--a combination of arts and crafts and the "prairie school"--was achieved by designing human-scale spaces with beautifully crafted materials. The rooms span Wright's entire career--from the Robie House in 1906 to the Guggenheim, which was completed in 1959 (after the architect's death)--and they demonstrate the evolution of his style. The photographs are sensational; they capture the light, scale, and color of each interior. Accompanying each photo is a brief description of the clients, their requirements, and what Wright created for them.
  • Cut & Assemble Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House  book cover
    Cut & Assemble Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House
    Construct an authentic copy of the Wright's celebrated residential classic. Detailed instructions and exploded diagrams enable miniaturists to create a two-foot long replica—complete with balconies, platforms, porch and entrance court.
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