Cool Spaces: A Frank Lloyd Wright home in Okemos

Vickki Dozier
Lansing State Journal

OKEMOS — The modest, one-story house on a triangular-shaped lot sits among majestic trees, woods and nature on Hulett Road.

A built in couch and shelves seen in the main living area inside the Goetsch-Winckler House on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Okemos. The home was built in 1940 and was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Goetsch-Winckler Home is one of only four in the Lansing area designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, considered by many to be the greatest American architect of all time.

It is the second of Wright’s "Usonian" house designs to have been built. The first, the Herbert Jacobs House, is in Madison, Wisconsin.

Audrey and Dan Seidman purchased the home in 2007. It wasn't something they had planned. But it happened.

"We try to live in it the way it was intended to be used," Audrey Seidman said. "We're kind of trying to channel that 'Usonian' 1940s lifestyle. It is a livable house for today. But you need to be maybe a more minimalist person. It works for two people, not more." 

The term "Usonian" is a play on the abbreviation “U.S.” The style was designed to be affordable, livable and simple.

The home, which sits on two parcels of land, just shy of three acres, was designed for Alma Goetsch and Kathrine Winckler, art professors at what would become Michigan State University. 

Constructed during the summer of 1940, the house was originally intended to be one of several built in a Usonian community in Okemos; however, theirs was the only house constructed.

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A view of the Goetsch-Winckler House at the front of the property on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Okemos. The home was built in 1940 and was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

After the two professors died, the house passed through many hands, and fell into disrepair. In 2001, the Frank Lloyd Wright building conservancy was notified of the run-down condition of the house. One of those who notified the conservancy was Susan Bandes, executive director of the Kresge Art Museum at MSU, who wrote the book "Affordable Dreams: the Goetscher-Winckler House and Frank Lloyd Wright," and had been monitoring the house.

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Thanks to hard work and due diligence, from many individuals, the home was saved from foreclosure and possible demolition.

Originally from Pennsylvania, the Seidmans lived in California. Dan had done graduate work at MSU in the 70s, and after a long career in K-12 education in Pennsylvania and California, began working at MSU nine years ago.

He enjoyed following MSU sports and events. He was approaching, but not quite near retirement. Over conversations with friends about what to do in retirement, there was talk of buying a home here.

"Audrey and I both like architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright was certainly someone of interest to us," Dan Seidman said. "Periodically I would look at real estate listings and there was one called Wright for Sale." 

He found a listing for the Goetsch-Winckler House, printed it out and put it on the table at home.

"My birthday is around the end of September and I jokingly said, "Audrey, if you didn't get me anything for my birthday...," Dan Seidman said. "She laughed about it and said I should at least call on it."

Things aligned and in October they acquired the home.

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 Dan is now manager of west coast recruitment for Michigan State University. Audrey is a musician and retired elementary school teacher.

"I felt the house should still kind of remain connected to MSU," Dan Seidman said. "The women who originally owned the house were both instructors at MSU. I thought it would be nice if we could keep a little bit of an MSU presence or feeling to the property."

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Usonian homes are distinguished by features such as built-in furniture and natural light through ample use of glass and placement in a natural setting.

"The key to this house is being able to open and close all of the doors and windows. And not to seal it up by putting draperies and everything else on it," Dan Seidman said. "That was the whole idea, to allow all of the glass and the windows and doors, to all be seen."

A bank of glazed doors along the home's entrance provide light to the interior and opens onto a small, semicircular lawn.

Just inside the house the decor is paneling, and the panels in the hallway drop down for storage. The house offers a lot of built-in storage.

"You think you're just walking down a line of windows down the hallway towards the bedrooms, but on the wooden wall side, all of the panels open on piano hinges with a chain," Audrey Seidman said. "And it creates a storage shelf."

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The hallway from the bedrooms that lead to the main living area inside the Goetsch-Winckler House photographed on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Okemos. The home was built in 1940 and was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The home's interior is basically a central open living core with a bedroom wing and small usonian bathroom, extending away from the living core to the northwest and the kitchen and fireplace alcove tucked into the southeast edge of the open core.

The Seidmans use the smaller bedroom as a storage space.

"Alma Goetsch wanted the tiny bedroom because she was afraid of being in the woods," Audrey Seidman explained. "Kathrine Winckler was a taller woman, a night owl, and had the larger bedroom with a desk."

The red brick walls and brick-colored concrete floors, and textiles throughout the house are all done in earth tones.

The Seidmans are musicians and have both a black Steinway piano and a vibraphone in the large living area.

To their knowledge, Dan Seidman said, most of the furniture, if not original to the house, was designed for the house, then additional chairs or tables and such may have been made.

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A view from inside the Goetsch-Winckler House seen on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Okemos. The home was built in 1940 and was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The couple has rented the home out to a couple different people over the years. It was interesting to them that most people wanted to make the large open area their living room.

"They would try to put a TV in there, " Dan Seidman said. "But if you take a look at the smaller area where the sofa, chairs and fireplace are, the ceiling drops down there and that gives you this very protected kind of seating area.

"If you try to sit on chairs and sofas out there in the larger area, you feel a little less comfortable because of the large space that goes up."

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The smaller living area has a gas fireplace, built-in shelves, and a low sofa designed to fit against the wall, with brightly-colored throw pillows. 

Two prints, lithographs done by Alma Goetsch, hang on the wall.

The bathroom is more or less original, Dan Seidman said. "The color is Persian brown American Standard from 1939. That’s the color that was there and that’s the design of how it was."

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A view of the bathroom inside the Goetsch-Winckler House on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, in Okemos. The home was built in 1940 and was designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Seidmans have also had lots of restoration and preservatory work done, on doors, windows, floors. 

"We've left the marks of history, though," Audrey Seidman said. "We haven’t fixed every scratch, or every hole, we’ve kind of made things look clean and livable."

The Seidmans have also covered the outdoor area Frank Lloyd Wright called the lanai, with a synthetic turf to recreate the original lanai which was natural grass.

A root cellar, added by the builder, was not part of Wright's design. Cellars and basements were not part of the minimalist features, and added to the cost of the house.

But Goetsch and Winckler did canning and wanted storage for their jams and jellies, so it was done.

In 1995, the Goetsch-Winckler house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Contact Vickki Dozier at (517) 267-1342 or vdozier@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @vickkiD.

Goetsch-Winckler House

2410 Hulett Road, Okemos

Links to Goetsch-Winckler House

https://www.facebook.com/goetschwinckler/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/14960965@N08/albums

http://thegoetschwincklerhouse.com/