With $435,000 Asking Price, Unique Home Has the 'Wright' Look
Designed by architect often compared to Frank Lloyd Wright, this Racine County home in wooded surrounding overlooks a ravine and the Root River.
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The exterior of Trilogy in Mount Pleasant
Flickr/chicagogeek
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From elegant and stately mansions to modern, environmentally friendly abodes, southeastern Wisconsin is chock-full of one-of-a-kind homes for sale. Each week, Patch highlights one "Wow House" that caught our attention.
This week, it's a home at 1505 Valley View Drive in Mount Pleasant known as "Trilogy" that was designed by architect John Randal McDonald, whose work is often compared to that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Also known as the John E. and Catherine Erskine House, the home has been featured on tours of homes designed by Wright and architects like him.
According the website Wright in Wisconsin, Trilogy "is designed on an equilateral triangular grid, with triangularity as a repeated design motif throughout the entire home."
The home features stone walls, Philippine mahagony paneling and trim, and a stone fireplace surrounded by a pool and garden. Located at the end of a cul-de-sac, the home overlooks a ravine and the Root River, providing privacy, tranquility and spectacular views for its occupants, Wright in Wisconsin says.
A triangular roof sunwell permits natural light into the very center of the house into a small pond, raised fireplace and stairway to the lower level.
Built in 1955, the home is being offered by BuyHomes.com for $435,000. It has four bedrooms, four full bathrooms and four half-baths. To schedule a showing, contact Corey Scholtka at 414-940-5555.
If you're a real estate agent and would like to have one of your homes included in our free "Wow House" feature, send an email to milwaukee@patch.com.
John T. Pokrandt
4:58 pm on Sunday, January 13, 2013
Longbow, another John Randall McDonald house was for sale in Tosa last spring. One of my favorite architects.
Steve ®
12:11 am on Monday, January 14, 2013
HVAC and stand pipes needed to be hidden on the roof
Bob McBride
7:18 am on Monday, January 14, 2013
HVAC is always a problem with these homes. That's not the most graceful of solutions, but it might have been the only option given the nature of the lot. The regular heating on these tends to be of the radiant floor variety.
McDonald's homes probably come closest to emulating the feel of Wright's Usonian style homes. A number of them were built for people who originally contacted Wright, but who balked at Wright's pricing. I've been in about 5 or 6 of his homes and met McDonald during one of the Wright and Like tours, held in Racine in 98. Got to visit with him again at another Wright and Like tour of homes in the northern Milwaukee suburbs. He was quite a character. Real gregarious, liked his cocktails and enjoyed the attention of the ladies. A friend of mine owned a very small house of his for a short time, not far from the Cousin's center on south Lake Drive.
There was a guy working to put together a catalogue of his works, drawing a lot of his material from the collection of a Catholic priest who lived in a McDonald house in Milwaukee. I think the priest's name was Fr. Benno. I don't know what ever came of the project. We toured another McDonald home just a couple years back owned by an offspring of the Clark Oil company who was, himself, an architect and pretty familiar with McDonald and he said he wasn't aware of anything ever being completed in that regard.
Jay Sykes
8:27 am on Monday, January 14, 2013
This home likely has less than the usual roof problems that can be found in many, if not all, 'Wright like' homes. One can thank its namesake theme 'trilogy' that allowed for the pitched roof.
CulinaryWasteland
12:04 pm on Monday, January 14, 2013
I have toured this home. It has many of the signature elements of a McDonald design. With the good comes the bad. The HVAC only serves the top main floor; there is no AC on the lower levels including the master bedroom. The home site is precarious due to the home's positioning on a hillside. Reinforcements to the "cat walk" which borders the outside foundation were necessary to keep them from sliding down the hill. This house will need a "hands on" caretaker to maintain its integrity.
@Bob McBride-Fr.Beno is trying to sell his JRM home in Beaver Dam, WI. I do not know if the catalog was ever completed.