A Wright House in Rochester
Refurbishment of this Prairie School house took a team.
MORE THAN 30 YEARS AGO, Jane Parker saw her first Frank Lloyd Wright building—Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona— and the way it evoked serenity and harmony never left her. At about that same time, Fran Cosentino came upon the Boynton House in Rochester, New York. The furthest east of Wright’s Prairie homes, the house was built in 1908 for successful lantern salesman Edward Boynton and his daughter Beulah. Its horizontal elevation, dramatic cantilevered roof, and flowing, light-filled spaces impressed Fran. The two preservation-minded people later married and settled around the corner from the Boynton House. But it wasn’t until 2009 that they finally could call this Wright-designed house their own . . . and almost three more years before they could move in.
“Restoring a Wright house is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Jane says. “It allows us to be custodians of the past while we work to preserve the house so it can be shared for another hundred years.” Although Jane and Fran knew the Boynton House needed restoration, they hadn’t fully realized the extent of the job.
Damage from termites and carpenter ants extended from the basement to the second floor, requiring structural repairs to all interior corners. The 27-foot-long main beam in the dining room ceiling also had to be replaced. “Wright had specified an 8" x 12" beam but the builder installed a6" x 8" instead,” Fran explains. “Over 100 years, the undersized beam sagged and the roof began to leak.” Adding to the house’s frowning façade, instability and further sagging was caused by the removal of basement bearing walls by a previous owner.
The couple assembled a crew who shared their vision. Led by contractor Scott Braley, the team grew to 150 people including the lead architecture firm Bero Architecture, specialists in window and wood restoration, and Mark Bayer and a team from Bayer Landscape Architecture, who designed the outdoor spaces.
The biggest challenge was restoration of the front porch. Originally cantilevered from the façade, the 14-foot-wide porch was an architectural feat. But the house’s second owners enclosed it for year-round use, lowering the walls a foot and a half and adding more art-glass windows. Jane felt strongly about restoring the original design, and Fran ultimately agreed. It took them two months to reconstruct the porch, relying on a new steel beam buried in the stucco ceiling. They raised the walls to their original height, retiled the floor, and added storm doors to the original bank of doors leading to the living room. The windows that were removed found new use in the kitchen ceiling light and in a glass cocktail table.
After seven months of structural work, the house was ready for restoration. “We went through every room in the house and looked at what could be restored or rehabilitated,” says Fran. “If it couldn’t be done, then we replaced the element matching the original design and materials.” Almost five miles of oak trim and woodwork in the 4,200-square-foot home were stripped and preserved, including many pieces that had weathered decades of changing trends in paint. Wood that was too damaged to restore was archived in a special room in the basement, and meticulously replaced with oak that had the same grain. More than 250 art-glass panels in windows, doors, and light lenses were also repaired or replaced. Seamlessly integrating new with old, the new zinc in replacement glass panels was darkened by hand to match the century-old patina.
Following years of water damage due to the failing roof, the
dining room had to be disassembled, restored, and then reassembled. Wright’s sensitivity to nature and acute attention to detail are evident in this room, the center of the house. The dining tables and chairs designed by Wright fill the space, as they did at the beginning. The tables, chairs, a server and a plant stand, as well as a large library table in the living room, make up the 17 pieces of original furniture in the house.
The kitchen renovation retained the traditional layout and hid modern appliances behind custom cabinets, to avoid anachronism. Radiators cleverly concealed by Wright’s built-ins were restored during the HVAC update, which also added a discreet small-duct system to more efficiently serve as the primary source of heating and cooling. A gas-fired, nine-zone heating system replaced the old oil-fired boiler.
Thorough to the last detail, Fran and Jane ordered custom builtins and furniture, all inspired by George Niedecken, the interior architect who designed furniture for Wright’s houses. The couple finished the house in Prairie School-friendly tones that infuse the interior with autumnal light. The harmonious blend of old and new reflects Wright’s philosophy: creating an environment of peace and comfort through the balance and continuity of nature.