Mark Hertzberg
Wright’s Fred B. Jones House, also known as Penwern, looks out on Delavan Lake.
Forget the house! I want to live in the gatehouse.
Such is the charm, splendor and scale of the Penwern estate, Frank Lloyd Wright’s “cottage” in Delavan, just west of Lake Geneva.
Designed for Chicago bachelor Fred B. Jones as a summer retreat, the name its owner supposedly applied means “great house” in Gaelic. And Penwern is indeed a great house, with a great boathouse, stable and more, on three acres next to Delavan’s namesake lake.
The so-called gatehouse is itself a splendid home. If Jones lived like this on weekends, one wonders what his Chicago place looked like. Whatever the Gaelic is for “party bachelor pad” would be as appropriate.
Jones’ activities there call to mind The Great Gatsby. “His jolly face is like a sunbeam at any assemblage,” according to a contemporary news story describing the mustachioed bon vivant, an executive in a firm that made fittings for the interiors of railroad passenger cars.
Penwern is privately held, but tours of the grounds are occasionally offered by the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust. Another way to visit can be via Mark Hertzberg’s entertaining new book, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Penwern: A Summer Estate, published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. In addition to stories and family recollections, it includes historic images and architectural drawings. But the greatest delight is found in the author’s lavish color photos, exploring every aspect of a rich man’s playground, inside and out.
Built in stages from 1900 to 1903, Penwern was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
Others have called Penwern an example of Wright’s famed Prairie Style, but it looks pretty Arts & Crafts and Mission Oak-y to me. All three styles can go together, but the main building is plainly a manor house pretending to be a bungalow, though with a surprising tower and enclosed walkway.
Wright was in his early 30s at the time, with another 60 or so years of life and career
ahead of him. The professional and personal turns that define him today had yet to occur. The year Penwern was completed, Wright met his mistress. Two years later, he traveled to Japan, which deeply affected his design ethos. Four years later, he abandoned his wife and six children to live in Italy.
It was a scandal. But all of that was unthinkable while Wright was working on Penwern — the precocious young architect was untraveled, parochial and unscarred.
With its deep, deep dormers and unexpected curves, the overall impression is whimsy. This is a place for play. In parts it appropriately harkens back to the work of Wright’s mentor, Louis Sullivan, at the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.
Wright designed four other “cottages” next to Delavan Lake, as well as the community’s yacht club.
As Hertzberg explains, in Welsh, the term “penwern” has multiple meanings. It can mean “at the head of the field,” or “the head of the alder tree,” or “end of the wetland.”
The estate, its architect, and the book are at the heads of their respective fields.