A new role for Sandy-survived Wright home
A giant banyan tree in a beach town where kings were born
AFrank Lloyd Wright house that was flooded by Superstorm Sandy in New Jersey is high and dry in Arkansas. And it’s getting thousands of visitors as part of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
The Bachman-Wilson House, originally located in Millstone, New Jersey, was one of Wright’s famed Usonian homes. The architect created these small, simple structures for middle-class Americans, and about 60 were built.
The Crystal Bridges Museum, founded by Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, had the home moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, where it was aligned on the same axis Wright used when laying out the building in 1954.
More than 80,000 people have toured the Bachman-Wilson House in the past year. The home is presented as a retreat — a place to get away from it all without having to get away.
“You’re completely immersed in your natural environment”, said Dylan Turk, a curatorial assistant at Crystal Bridges. “Wright’s using materials that are American and comfortable — woods and natural materials — because he feels that is more connectible than steel, which is what other architects were using at that time”.
Wright desired an American identity among everyday homes and labeled his style “Usonian”, for the “United States of North America”. He wanted them to be affordable, and charged just $400 for the plans for the Bachman-Wilson House. The house cost about $30,000 to build.
Wright actually never visited a Usonian home, Turk said. He was busy working on the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, when the Bachman-Wilson House was built.
Architecture
“Wright valued everything he designed, but he was also working on, at the time, The Guggenheim, which he thought would be his shining moment as an architect. He may have been a little preoccupied”, Turk said.
While it wasn’t part of the Crystal Bridges’ initial plan, the Wright-designed home fits in with the museum’s concentration on art, architecture and nature, Turk said. Crystal Bridges architect Moshe Safdie sited the museum above Town Branch Creek. The Bachman-Wilson House overlooks Crystal Spring, a tributary well out of the flood plain.
Students from the University of Arkansas’ school of architecture, which is named after Wright protege Fay Jones, designed a welcome pavilion nearby. Wright, Jones and Safdie each won the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal.
“I wish I could have said I initiated the action to get the house, but I didn’t”, Safdie said. While he hasn’t yet seen the Bachman-Wilson House in Arkansas, he said he was thrilled to hear about the acquisition and noted that he, Jones and Wright each now have an influence on the museum’s grounds. “The trilogy has pleased me”, he said. Before the house opened on a recent chilly morning, Turk sat down on the living room’s low-slung bench, which abuts a cinder block wall designed as a barrier for the world outside. Across the room is a wall of glass, broken up by mahogany door frames and window frames cut in the shape of a maple tree’s winged seed pod. The room faces southwest to catch the afternoon sun.
“He wanted you to be as close to the ground as you possibly could be because he thought that grounded you”, Turk said. “You’re looking up. You can see the tops of the trees through the clerestory windows”.
A rust-colored floor, heated from beneath, extends beyond the glass.
“He pioneered radiant heat in the United States. If you are outside on a cool night, you can feel your house”, Turk said. “He wanted you to feel your house in as many ways as you possibly could”.
The Bachman-Wilson House flooded a number of times in New Jersey, most recently when Sandy hit in 2012. When its owners considered moving it to preserve it, Crystal Bridges said it would fit in with its mission.
“Art is not just a painting that hangs on the wall”, Turk said. “If you want to be creative, it doesn’t have to be limited to a canvas.
“This is familiar. It’s a house”, he said. “Most people live in a house, so it allows us to open up this space for people to come in and go, ‘Huh, my house doesn’t look like this. Why?’ or ‘I have this in my house. Why do I have this in my house?’”
If You Go...
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art: Located in Bentonville, Arkansas. Saturday-Sunday, 10:00 am-6:00 pm; Monday 11:00 am-6:00 pm; Wednesday-Friday, 11:00 am-9:00 pm. Free general admission includes Wright house.
The beach town of Lahaina in western Maui was once the capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom, a place where kings were born. It later became a key port at the height of the 19th century whaling boom.
Though it transformed into a mostly tourist area in the 1960s, much of Lahaina’s history can still be found sprinkled around town — including in the roots of a giant banyan tree.
“There’s just a ton of historical spots in town, really precious, sacred places”, said Amy Fuqua, manager of the Lahaina Visitor’s Center.
Located about 40 minutes from Kahului Airport, Lahaina was known in ancient Hawaiian times as Lele, meaning “cruel sun”. It was conquered by Kamehameha the Great in 1795.
Front Street, which runs along the shoreline, was known as King’s Road, where only kings and queens could walk. It’s now the town’s main thoroughfare, dotted with historical sites — 62 in all around town — as well as shops and restaurants with spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and neighboring islands.
Among the historical sites is the Hauola Stone, a chair-shaped stone used by Hawaiian royalty as a birthing site starting around the 14th century. The smoothed-out rock at the north end of the harbor also was considered to have healing powers.
At the town center is the Lahaina’s famous banyan tree, a 60-foot, multi-trunked tree that covers nearly an acre. Planted in 1873, it is one of the largest banyan trees in the United States and is still used for celebrations, including one for the tree’s birthday every April. It grows new trunks via aerial roots that sink into the ground.
And make sure to visit the tree around sunset, when hundreds of mynah birds sing inside its canopy.
“It’s kind of the center of town”, Fuqua said. “Everyone knows where it’s at. It has an important significance to the town and it feels good under there”.
Not into history? Lahaina offers plenty of other touristy things to do.
Instead of whaling, the harbor has now become the launching point for fishing, parasailing, ocean cruising or whale watching in the winter. The restaurants along Front Street are top-notch, offering straight-out-ofthe-ocean fish daily.
The tiny Lahaina Civic Center transforms from a local events center into the center of the college basketball universe during the Maui Invitational in the days before Thanksgiving every year.
Lahaina also is the hub of western Maui, a gateway to golf courses in Kaanapali and Kapalua, sandy beaches and some of the best snorkeling found anywhere in the world.
“There’s a lot to do here, even for a small town”, Fuqua said. “It’s just a cool town”.
If You Go...
Lahaina, Maui: http://www.gohawaii. com/maui/regions-neighborhoods/westmaui/lahaina/. Located about 45 minutes from Kahului Airport, Maui. (AP)