Thursday, July 14, 2005

The Gordon House at Oregon Garden

The Gordon House is the only Wright-designed building in Oregon and the only one in the Pacific Northwest that is open to the public.

The house was designed to follow Wright's “Usonian” model, a design concept that changed the course of small house construction. His innovations included an open floor plan, gravity floor heat, carports, cantilevered roofs with broad overhangs and floor-to-ceiling windows.

Wright designed the home in 1957 for Conrad and Evelyn Gordon for their farm on the south side of the Willamette River in Wilsonville. The house was completed in 1964, and the Gordons lived there for over thirty years.

Descendants of the Gordons sold the property in 2000. The new owners agreed to donate the property to the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy with a requirement that the house be moved off the property. In January, 2001, The Oregon Garden agreed to move the house by a March 15 deadline. The house was moved 24 miles south to The Oregon Garden where it was restored and dedicated as a public museum in March 2002.

Guided tours of the house are $5 and begin on the top of the hour. Those purchasing a $2 tram shuttle ticket in The Oregon Garden also receive a narrated introduction and self-guided preview tour of the main floor. Preview tours begin every 20 min.

Oregon Gardens

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