Lloyd Wright House Moved To Arkansas

How many truckloads does it take to transport a 2,800 sq. ft house, designed by one of America’s most revered Modern architects, more than 1,200 miles from New Jersey to Arkansas? Surprisingly, the answer is considerably fewer than one might think. Staff at the three-year-old Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art put that question to the test recently when Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1950s Bachman Wilson House was moved from its flood-prone location on a riverbank in Millstone, New Jersey, to the institution’s sprawling 120-acre campus in Bentonville, Arkansas. After months of preparation, Wright’s two-storey concrete-block, glass and mahogany structure is beginning to take shape; the structure’s first posts are due to be raised this month. The house was built for Abraham Wilson and his wife Gloria Bachman, whose brother had an apprenticeship with the architect. Designed in 1954, the building is one of Wright’s “Usonian” houses—the architect’s answer to good-quality homes for middle-income families.

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