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I would have liked to stay for the night, or at least until dark, but at least I had access to the next best thing: two women whose words and passion could help describe the architectural gem on Adams Street in Two Rivers.
Jean Schelhorn of Ohio and Frances Crockett of North Carolina are longtime friends who this month paid $295 per night to stay in an ordinary working class Wisconsin neighborhood. When I met them, they were doing the laundry and talked about raking leaves.
This was a house that they wanted to take care of, they explained. It was not enough to simply pay to stay.
"You FEEL the outside while you're inside," Jean said, and she was not talking about temperature. "When you're sitting here at night, that's when you'll notice the little things," Frances added. Jean raps on a door, noting it is simply plywood, and points out a light switch that was installed horizontally. She persuades me lie on the biggest bed, so I can see the view from it.
Frances talks up the kitchen, not because of amenities, but because of how a skylight brightens the room. "It feels like a tower," she says.
Come nightfall, you'll only be able to read a book at a desk or in the master bedroom. The soft amber lighting will make the space seem sacred.
This is an unusual house with many moods, and it seems destined to become Two Rivers' biggest tourist attraction. Every window is a picture frame, every corner full of history and style. The Bernard Schwartz House is the newest of three Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the nation that can be rented for as little as two nights. (The other two are the Seth Peterson...