MOUNT PLEASANT — Off
narrow, serpentine roads, rust-colored homes on circular sites perch atop
hills, drawing nature inside with their long walls of windows.
There are 47 homes on about 100
tranquil acres that blur the indoor/outdoor lines in this utopian
community known as Usonia that was inspired by the vision of famed
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
When Johanna Cooper and her husband,
Marvin, bought into Usonia in 1971, the couple had no clue of its
extraordinary origins. Instead, they were purchasing a house that they
knew -the cypress and stone structure had belonged to Johanna's
brother -and one they felt strongly drawn to.
"We adored the natural setting,
loved the house and the spaces it encompassed," said Johanna Cooper,
who was 34 when she came to Usonia. "It just spoke to us."
After completing his fellowship in
hematology in Salt Lake City, Marvin Cooper would take a job at Columbia
University and the couple would raise their three children in the Mount
Pleasant house.
It wasn't until later that the
Coopers learned of Usonia's connection to Wright.
"Then it unfolded, this
incredible history," Johanna Cooper said.
That revelation was the inspiration
and subject of her 1986 master's thesis in anthropology at Columbia
University, and now, an exhibition that she has curated titled "Frank
Lloyd Wright and Usonia: An Experiment in Living." It opens today and
runs through June 24 at The Studio in Armonk.
The retrospective includes archival
documents and audio portraying the genesis of this radical-for-its-time
community.
"The project was the brainchild
of David Hencken, a New York engineer, who saw an exhibition at the Museum
of Modern Art detailing Frank Lloyd Wright's proposal for a cooperative
community with affordable single-family homes for middle-class
Americans," said Roland Reisley, 83, one of the founding members of
Usonia and the community's de facto historian.
Wright used the term "usonian"
to describe houses that were to have a strong connection with nature,
echoing the forms of the land and using natural materials such as wood,
glass, stone or other masonry. In a word, organic, Johanna Cooper said.
Hencken, along with a group of
idealistic families who dreamed of a modernist, alternative lifestyle,
collectively bought 97 acres in 1947 for $23,000, she said.
Three of the houses were designed by
Wright himself, including Reisley's. The rest were designed by architects
who were Wright's students.
"According to the initial
advertisements, homes were to cost $10,000 to $30,000," Cooper said.
But with the cost of labor and
materials rising, and the challenge of building new, innovative designs
with inexperienced builders, expenses mounted. One home designed by Wright
ended up at $85,000.
Despite all the problems, or because
of them, the community started seeing itself as an extended family, with
three get-togethers a year that continue to this day, Cooper said.
"They felt they had to defend
themselves from people who thought of them as radical and with very
liberal tendencies," she said. "Even obtaining mortgages from
banks was difficult for these unusual homes with circular plots."
Of the 47 original owners, seven of
the families still live in the community and another five have passed on
homes to the next generation, said Reisley, a retired physicist.
"It was a bonding experience
for people living here," Reisley said. "But people who didn't
buy into it thought of it as 'insania.'"
Cooper's house, designed by Kaneji
Domoto, has an oak tree that goes through its deck.
"It's almost as if the house
were built around it," she said. "It is a symbolic design that
suggests that houses can live harmoniously with nature."
The reverence for nature that Wright
espoused is what attracted many to the community. Given today's concerns
with sustainability, as well as organic sensibilities, one can see that
Wright was a visionary, Cooper said.
"Wright was one of the earliest
environmentalists," she said.
