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A SANDSTONE, glass and wood cottage perched on the edge of a bluff above Mirror Lake has been lovingly restored in time for the posthumous birthdays June 8 both of its famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, and its first owner, Seth Peterson.
The people who restored it would like to invite everyone to attend the birthday party the day before. The Seth Peterson Cottage, a shining jewel rescued from the brink of ruin, will be dedicated at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 7, in Mirror Lake State Park, near Wisconsin Dells.
Three years ago, vandals and weather had reduced the cottage to a soiled stone core, its roof dropped in, its glass windows missing, its fixtures stripped away as souvenirs, its remaining wood black with rot. It stood within the boundaries of Mirror Lake State Park, a structure too important to raze, too expensive to restore, and an embarrassing monument to neglect.
The problem was that its owners, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, had no idea what to do with the cottage. With 880 square feet of space, it was the smallest home Wright ever put his name to. It was far too small to hou se offices, or to be lived in by the park superintendent and his family. Its early use as a shelter for skiers invited vandalism and liability problems. Its remote location ruled it out as a nature center.
Still the cottage was valuable. Audrey Laatsch, who devoted more than three years to restoring the cottage, called it a physical outline of Wright's principles of architecture.
A massive stone fireplace anchors it to the Earth, she said, and the boundaries between the outside world and the interior are
PAPR:JRNL DATE:05/31/92 DAYW:SUN PAGE:00 SECT:MAGAZINE SLUG:COTTAGEAD1 FLD1:RESET FLD2: HEAD: BYLN: USE THIS VERSION
minimal. For instance, the flagstone floors extend from the interior of the building through the walls onto an open patio. A high southwest wall of windows gives the impression from inside of looking out at the world from a small cavity in a tree.
The woodwork high on the windows is cut into stylized patterns reminiscent of pine trees. These cause ever-changing shadows...