A well-preserved Frank Lloyd Wright home in St. Louis, Missouri, is now on the market for $1.2 million.
Located in the suburbs, the Theodore and Bette Pappas House is one of Wright’s few Usonian Automatic designs to be constructed. One of the reasons the four-bedroom, three-bath home is so well preserved is because it’s only had one pair of owners—Ted and Bette Pappas.
Wright’s Usonian Automatic styling is on display throughout in the 1960-built residence: the early modular design is strongly defined by the shape of its essential building element: the masonry block. The materials were made offsite and shipped as a package to the owner, who constructed the house. Construction proved to be difficult; only a handful of homes of this particular style were ever completed.
The result is potently stylized, even by Wright standards. The block motif is rigidly ubiquitous, and accumulates into a visual mantra of the Usonian Automatic ideal. The home is also rendered entirely in earth tones, making for an intensely warm series of spaces that continually reinforce the organic architectural ideal.
The Pappas actually built much of the home on their own as Wright intended…with the help of a contractor and finish craftsmen. The iconic architect developed the style with economy in mind, but, according to the owners, the residence ended up costing four times the original estimates to complete.