Hear From the Residents

When you put two buildings next to one another they will begin a conversation. There is no helping our want for comparison, and because of the proximity of these houses, visitors are bound to find similarities when they look for them. They were constructed over a century apart. One is on top of a hill, while the other is built into a hill. The shapes are different, but the intention is quite similar.

The Pope-Leighey House, commissioned from Frank Lloyd Wright in 1939, was originally built for Loren Pope and his wife in Fall Church, Va. When the next owner (Marjorie Leighey) wanted to save her home from demolition, she contacted the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which moved the house to the property of Woodlawn for its similarity to the original landscape. The house was built in the Usonian style, which was a mission taken on by Wright and other modernist architects to create a style of building distinctly representative of the United States of America, affordable to the average family, and practically built. On my tour of the building, the docent highlighted the belief that Frank Lloyd Wright designed all of his houses for himself—low clearance, emphasis on living space over private spaces, compact storage, etc.

Woodlawn, the Federalist-style house whose preservation began this historic site, is the house of a former plantation and site of enslavement, which was given to and built for George Washington’s step-granddaughter, Nelly Washington, (who was also his adopted daughter) and nephew, Lawrence Lewis, upon their marriage. When Woodlawn originally fell into the care of the Nation Trust, it was branded as a picture of American heritage for its ties to George Washington. I was able to read a pamphlet from early conservation efforts, which demonstrated a glorifying image of the house and history. Such a perspective that overlooks and further enables the erasure of the fact that homes like these were built with the labor of enslaved people of African descent.

While discussing Pope-Leighey—what it is and what it was supposed to be—with the Program Assistant, they highlighted the idea that it wasn’t the only house on the property that was intended as a vision of America. At the time Woodlawn was built, the house and all of its context was not unique. Many Founding Fathers were plantation owners who enslaved people. They built with the assumption that these horrible systems were ethical and sustainable. Pope-Leighey and other usonian style homes rest on a different sort of assumptions. The two-bedroom layout promoted the development of the nuclear family through their structure. Like many households of the time period, I expect that the Pope family rested on the domestic labor of the mother, Charlotte Pope, yet there is no space within the house’s construction that is dedicated to her. Further the kitchen is open to the dining room, giving her little privacy until a sliding curtain-door was installed. I found it interesting to hear about how Wright dismissed standards of the time such as having a  garage or large pantries. Women are so often expected to be mistresses of the house, but then when they develop needs for that career, the needs are treated as frivilous. The trend of imposing and then ridiculing needs is a cycle that even continues today in places such as the beauty industry.

In the introduction of his book Democracy Builds, Wright described the United States as a dying oak tree—looking solid, but truly rotting and hollow inside. He argues that what was once alive is now composed mostly of the cultures of Europeans who migrated there rather than having developed its own unique aesthetic. And life aesthetically lacking is headed towards spiritual dispare. Usonian architecture was an attempt to create something with life, but with the way it continues traditions of oversight, it seems that we still only know how to build a shell.