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At Home With James Dennis
In the Wright place
Retired UW professor loves the calming effect of an architectural legend
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Madison -- The low-slung little house all but turns its back on the street, its entrance off to the side, its facade interrupted only by a narrow band of clerestory windows and a cantilevered carport. No show-off flourishes here.
And that was exactly the point. The redwood-sided dwelling, tucked into a double lot in a west side subdivision where Cape Cods predominate, was the first of Frank Lloyd Wright's low-cost "Usonian" designs ever to be built. It was also the first of two homes he created for journalist Herbert Jacobs and his wife, Katherine.
Constructed for $5,500 in 1936 and lovingly restored by its current owner, James Dennis, "Jacobs I" is one of six Wright- designed houses that will be open to the public Saturday in "Wright and Like: Madison," a self-drive tour sponsored by the non-profit Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin. (See story, Page 10.)
If Dennis, a retired professor of art history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has ever felt intimidated by living in what the American Institute of Architects considers one of the most important buildings of the 20th century, he doesn't show it.
"When I'd come back from a day on campus, teaching and attending meetings, the house always had an immediate calming effect," he says. "The proportions, the materials, the way everything interrelates -- it all brings your life into a focused perspective and makes your visual sense more organic."
Wright, who built 35 Usonian houses (the word is a play on "USA"), wanted to bring technological innovation and good design within reach of the average person, showing that "a small house on the side street might have charm...