Frank Lloyd Wright Zimmerman House

This room is inspired by the Frank Lloyd Wright Zimmerman House in Manchester, NH. I live a few miles from the house and I thought it would be nice to pay homage to a local landmark. The Zimmerman House is the only FLW structure that is open to the public in New England. The home was designed in Wright's Usonian style which is basically described here as one story houses with little ornamentation that utilized natural materials. I don't pretend to be very knowledgeable about architecture or Frank Lloyd Wright so I just wanted to capture the feeling of the house's interior, not so much the philosophy.

The house was built in 1950 so it is decked out in lots of oak and autumnal colors that were popular at the time. I didn't want to make a dated office so I tried to incorporate a little more vibrancy into the space. The house was filled with chunky hexagonal tables that were built into the walls, my nod to that element are the nesting hexagon tables. I also added a barrel chair that is a nod to the wooden armed barrel chairs in the home. If this were an actual room I would have two of those chairs and the tables in between them.

There are shelves and shelves of books and pottery throughout the house so of course I had to add those elements also. The shelves are another surprise find from Walmart. They are on the small side so I would probably stack four on top of one another. The pottery vases are in the arts and crafts style popular during FLW's era and seen throughout the Zimmerman house. I also added a swanky shag rug made up of Flor tiles. A nice modernized take on the old classic shag.

I wanted to add a few nods to Frank Lloyd Wright himself to I added a clock in the Unsonian Style and a framed stained glass panel based on a window in his Illinois studio.

I would say this room was more of a challenge than my previous ones. Mostly because anything in the FLW style these days is either going to be pricey or cheesy. As I try to do with all of my rooms, I didn't want to make achieving this look cost prohibitive. There are several re-issues and re-makes and original Frank Lloyd designs I could have used but what would be the fun in that? Nothing is more boring to me than a room full of high-end designer pieces.


Resources:

Paint color is Benjamin Moore Bronze Tone.
Wasabi Barrel Club Chair ($499.99) from Lamps Plus
Neu Home Structure Collection Wall Shelf ($19.88) from Walmart
Yellow Flowerhead Vase ($165) from Etsy
Green Contour Vase ($95) from Etsy
Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian Mantal Clock ($67.31) from CSNClocks.com
Studio Skylight Arts and Crafts Framed Tile ($160) from Shopwright.org
Newport Country Style Home Office Desk (379.99) from Overstock
2" Wood Blinds (around $148 a window) from Smith and Noble
302 Desk Phone ($49) from Home Decorators Collection
Mica Desk Lamp ($39.99) from Target
Wood Office Chair ($119.95) from Amazon.com
Short Shag Flor tiles in moon ($16.99 per tile) from Flor