Exhibition Catalog - Lawrence Technological University

Photograph by Harvey Croze
Photograph by Harvey Croze
After fi nishing the Affl eck and Wall houses Turner
built a residence for himself in Bloomfi eld Hills. He
later became a “designer-builder,” creating and
constructing Wrightian-styled houses for numerous
clients in the suburbs north of Detroit.
By December 1940, Gregor had enlisted Turner’s
help, paying him by the month. Technically
Turner was not the Affl ecks’ contractor, only the
supervisor, overseeing the work of individual contractors
for the heating, plumbing, and roof. The
structure rose rather swiftly when the building
season returned the following spring. Gregor later
reported that groundbreaking for his house took
place on May 1, 1941. By mid-July, Turner reported
to Wright that the house was “rapidly taking
form”: the brick layers would be fi nished within
a week, the fl oors were 60 percent done, and a
roof over the living room was completed. 40 The
family moved in some time in October, and construction
on the house was fi nished by the end
of 1941. By all accounts Gregor was very satisfi ed
except for one aspect – he felt the carport was
too small. The remaining correspondence from
the project shows that he complained about the
carport in December, shortly after the house was
completed, and again the next April. There is no
indication, however, that the carport was ever altered
beyond its original dimensions.
The house immediately proved to be a curiosity
among members of the Detroit region’s art and
architectural communities. Gregor reported that
soon after construction began architects started
visiting on a weekly basis. Later, when the house
was fi nished, the stream of callers grew deeper.
According to Gregor, “Weekends were a nightmare.
Just like rolling a snowball each person
brought a friend who immediately came back
with two more.” 41 And this continued for the entire
time the Affl ecks lived in the house.
The House as Built
The Affleck house as conceived by Wright exhibited
all the trademarks of his domestic architecture
as they had been developed in the first
decade and a half of the twentieth century – in
the so-called “Prairie Style” houses – and would
be further elaborated in the Usonian works. First
and foremost, Wright attempted to harmonize the
house with the land. Since the early 1900s, Wright
had emphasized the nexus between building and
setting as crucial. “A building should appear to
grow easily from its site and be shaped to harmonize
with its surroundings if Nature is manifest the,”
he wrote in 1908. 42 Like his other works on sloping
sites, the Affleck house emerges from the hillside
rather than sitting atop its crown.
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