Exhibition Catalog - Lawrence Technological University

1
History of Frank Lloyd
Wright’s Affleck House
Dr. Dale Allen Gyure
Tucked away on a wooded knoll less than 100
yards from a major eight-lane thoroughfare leading
through Detroit’s northwest suburbs, the Gregor and
Elizabeth Affleck house is a hidden gem from Frank
Lloyd Wright’s early Usonian house period. The home
captures everything that was best about Wright’s
“organic” approach to architecture, and it served
the Afflecks well for over three decades. Its history
and design can tell us much about Wright’s architectural
philosophy and the Afflecks’ unique tastes.
The Afflecks
The story of the house begins with Gregor Sidney Affleck,
who was born in Chicago in 1893 and raised
in Wisconsin. Little is known of his early life. His father’s
family was from Muscoda, Wisconsin, about
twenty miles west of Frank Lloyd Wright’s home
territory. Gregor recalled that as a boy he lived in
Spring Green, Wisconsin, across the river from where
Wright’s family owned land and where Wright would
build his own home “Taliesin.” Gregor “often visited
the Hillside Home School” run by Wright’s aunts Jane
and Ellen Lloyd-Jones, and he knew the Lloyd-Jones
family (from Wright’s mother’s side). 1 A cousin of
Gregor’s father was said to have worked at Taliesin
as a secretary. Whether or not young Gregor had
any other exposure to Wright is unknown.
After graduating from Muscoda High School, Gregor
enrolled at the University of Wisconsin to study chemical
engineering. He joined the Navy ROTC program
and the Chemical Engineer’s Society. Upon receiving
his bachelor’s degree in 1918, Gregor briefly attended
the Stevens Institute of Technology in New
Jersey before heading to France at the end of World
War I as an ensign in the Engineering Bureau of the
Naval Reserve. 2 Then he drifted for a short period,
briefly working for the Union Dye and Chemical Corporation
in Kingsport, Tennessee and the French Battery
Company of Madison, Wisconsin. 3 Eventually,
like many other young professionals at the time, he
was drawn to Detroit and the burgeoning automobile
industry. By the early 1920s Gregor was working
as a metallurgist for the Dodge Corporation in Detroit.
A University of Wisconsin alumni magazine listed
him as being “in charge of the physical testing laboratory
of the Dodge Motor Co.” at the time.4 While
there he met and fell in love with Elizabeth Besterci,
a secretary for the Michigan Central Railroad who
originally came from east central Pennsylvania. They
were married on September 14, 1923; Gregor had
just turned thirty and Elizabeth was almost twenty-two.
Photograph by Harvey Croze