Melvin and Sara Smith House
Bloomfield Hills, MI 1946
This 1,800-square-foot Usonian house is tucked into a small hill on nearly three acres of wooded land in a suburb of Detroit. It has an elongated, L-shaped, single-floor plan laid out on a two-by-four-foot grid. Characteristic of many Usonian designs, it presents a simple facade at the front, with brick and red tidewater cypress board-and-batten walls topped by a band of clerestory windows. In the rear, floor-to-ceiling windows open to a pond and marshes. The landscaping was designed in the late 1950s by Thomas Church. The house is now owned by a private foundation, which undertook a meticulous restoration in 2010-11. The Cranbrook Center for Collections and Research conducts regular guided seasonal tours.
For more information:
center.cranbrook.edu/visit/frank-lloyd-wright-smith-house