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Frank Lloyd Wright was coming towards me in his trademark pork-pie hat and opera-goer's cape, frosty eyebrows raised, when I woke up. As a rule I don't dream of architects, but there were extenuating factors: I'd nodded off over a biography of Wright, reading about how he'd arrive unannounced at a house of his design to see how its owners were treating it. And the house where I lay dreaming, the Donald C Duncan House, an hour south-east of Pittsburgh, was an actual FLW, one of only a handful of properties where visitors can stay the night.
Left in sole possession, my wife and I struggled on the first evening to make ourselves at home. To begin with, we tried going for a walk. The house is at the end of a mile-long private driveway, on a 125-acre wooded estate. It was October: the trees were in their autumn finery, from deep red to palest yellow. Climbing a hill, we looked out over the rolling Laurel Highlands, one of Pennsylvania's prettiest landscapes and a favourite getaway for Pittsburghers, before following a trail to a secluded pond. On our return leg, we looked in on the estate's two other houses, both designed by a pupil of Wright's and bearing his influence.
Back at base, we tried walking around the single-storey house, considering it from every angle: the horizontal bands of bleached mahogany, the gutterless eaves, the stonework of the chimney, and the carport (Wright hated enclosed spaces like garages, attics and basements). Inside the house was a vintage 1950s American kitchen, like the set of Happy Days, but instead...