Description:

Frank Lloyd Wright Superb ALS, His Own House is Falling Apart

An autograph letter signed by America’s most influential architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) as “Wright”, 2pp on a single sheet of his blind-embossed Orchestra Hall stationery measuring 7.25” x 9.25”, Chicago, August 23, 1912. A few pin holes at upper left, a bit of minor foxing, folds and creasing, else in near fine condition.

Wright writes to his client, friend and benefactor, New York businessman Darwin D. Martin (1865-1935), for whom he designed the Martin House in Buffalo, in full, “Yes – I got them all – all three and my silence has been owing to the lack of the statement I required from Sanderson so that I might pay up. He has just made it. I find he has deceived me in important particulars and has kept me in a curious tangle financially which I am now having an expert accountant straighten out for me.

It appears that it has cost me to date more than $9000.00 to take $9600.00 in fees – and shows Mr. Sanderson to be – (I dislike to use the word) dishonest. He has put me into a hole for the time being – but I am now getting hold of things – beginning by dispensing with him. (I could put him in the penitentiary for some of his offences but have no desire to do so-) and I will soon be better off. / Meantime I am getting together a few items on account of drawings made for various things – and will send the bill with the check for interest due.

I am not so haughty as I was for many reasons. I have the For[es]t Av[e]. home now in repair – have added screens complete to both houses, repaired the damage done by the freezing up of the radiators last winter (owing to the fact that the water was not drained off) and the cracking of the inside walls and consequent redecoration of everything – to the tune of six hundred dollars. / Two-thirds of the radiators were broken and had to be replaced. I have expended the $4000 loan secured by prints in paying up debts on the property and seven hundred eighty beside.

It makes me fairly sick to keep on putting money and time into it but I can not do anything else – for it must be either rented or sold. / I have a man who says he is in earnest and will buy and is waiting to see it in shape. / I am taking advantage of the family’s absence to go in and fix up everything possible – and hope soon to report something cheerful.

I will sell it outright and send you your money completely if I can possibly do so, you may be sure. Failing that I will turn over the rent money to you to pay your interest if it seems that I can pay it in no other way. The places look fine and are so – too fine altogether. That is the trouble.

I am preparing a booklet illustrated with plans and photographs and well written matter to help move it and will send you one in a week or two. / Not dead yet – working hard – Sorry to have lost your respect. I hope not to sacrifice your friendship. Wish you might promote me still as an architect. I need it and it might not hurt you – now. I have had much experience.”

As a young architect with a growing family, Wright borrowed money from his employer, Louis Sullivan, to build, in 1889, a wood-shingled home at 428 Forest Avenue in Chicago’s Oak Park neighborhood. There he and his wife raised their family, while Wright executed numerous residential commissions in the area (including a few prominent examples on Forest Avenue) and developed his signature Prairie School style. However, in 1909, Wright abandoned his family and eloped to Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney, the wife of a client. Returning home in 1910, he briefly attempted to reconcile with his wife and moved his family into his adjacent Oak Park studio while converting the family home on Forest Avenue into a rental apartment for income, the trials of which are fully described in our letter. The couple’s attempted reconciliation was unsuccessful and in 1911 Wright moved to Wisconsin with Cheney, where he built a home and studio, Taliesin, and where, on August 15, 1914, a domestic worker, Julian Carlton, murdered Cheney, her two children and four others while setting the house ablaze.

Martin began working for Buffalo’s Larkin Soap Company at the age of 13, helping turn the company into one of the most successful retailers of its day. For a time, Martin’s boss was Elbert Hubbard (the founder of the Roycroft artisan community who died aboard the Lusitania in 1915). Tasked with finding an architect to create a new corporate headquarters for the growing company, Martin was introduced to Wright who, in 1903, designed both the Larkin Administration Building, his first commercial project, (completed in 1906) and a family compound for Martin located at 125 Jewett Parkway in Buffalo, and known today as the Darwin D. Martin House Complex. Completed in 1905, the house is considered one of the finest examples of Wright’s Prairie School style and among the most important designs of his entire career. Martin and Wright developed a longstanding friendship such that Martin engaged Wright to design a second home, Graycliff, in 1925 and lent Wright financial support throughout his career, loans which were never repaid in full. Following the stock market crash of 1929, Martin lost his entire fortune and was so impoverished that he was unable to afford six dollars to purchase Wright’s 1932 Autobiography, a copy of which Wright promised to send his destitute former patron. Wright’s reference to having lost Martin’s respect likely refers to his recent abandonment of his wife and family.

Wright went on to design such strikingly original buildings as New York’s Guggenheim Museum and the Pennsylvania residence Fallingwater. Not inclined to modesty, Wright said of his influence, “When I came to architecture, it had been slumbering for five hundred years. [I] woke it up…made it organic…Does this sound arrogant? Let it sound arrogant, then!” A superb early letter with an important association.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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