User:Yngvadottir/R. W. Lindholm Residence

The R. W. Lindholm Residence, also known as Mäntylä, is one of the Usonian houses designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright as models for middle-income housing. Built in 1952 in Cloquet, Minnesota, it was dissassembled in 2016 and relocated to Polymath Park in Pennsylvania, where it was opened for visits in 2019.

House
At 2,300 square feet (214 square metres) with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, the house is larger than many other Usonian houses. It has an "L" plan modified to form a "T": the bedroom wing is behind and to one side rather than extending directly from the "workspace", and the carport is more enclosed than in most of Wright's designs. Both the living room and the carport have modernistic upswept roofs, with an 11-inch steel i-beam carrying the cantilever. Two steel columns found embedded in a wall during disassembly carry most of the weight of the roof but do not appear in the designs; they may have been added during construction without Wright being informed.

It is built of concrete blocks with reddish Ludowici roof tiles and cedar interior paneling and window trim. The floor is concrete with underfloor heating, and is painted in the Cherokee red Wright favored; the kitchen countertops are also red. The living room looks out onto a terrace. A triangular open fireplace is next to the angled built-in dining table. There are built-in bookcases, including in a secluded study, and a repeated decorative "M" motif, but the interior has less textural complexity than in most, especially earlier, Usonian houses.

The original location is in northern Minnesota, which has very cold winters; Wright used double glazing in this house despite his usual disapproval of what he called "twindows". The site sloped to the west; the living and sleeping spaces are oriented toward the setting sun, and at midwinter the sun at noon touched the base of the north wall in the living room, while at midsummer the room was shaded at noon. Part of the living room ceiling is sloped at 30 degrees to increase natural light, and the room has both 10-foot windows and clerestory windows.

History
Wright designed the house for Finnish immigrants Ray W. and Emma Lindholm; he later designed the R. W. Lindholm Service Station, also in Cloquet, for the Lindholm business. Estimates for constructing the house exceeded the couple's budget, and only after an Iowa craftsman bid less than half the amount they had budgeted for the cabinetry was the house built, in 1955 or 1956. The 15-acre lot was originally outside the town and surrounded by pine trees; the house's name, Mäntylä, is Finnish for "of the pines" or "house among the pines".

The Lindholms' grandson, Peter McKinney, and his wife lived there for 22 years, raising their son there, but by the early 21st century the nearby highway had become a commercial strip with a Walmart opposite. For a decade, with the assistance of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, the McKinneys tried unsuccessfully to find a sympathetic buyer for the house; it was unoccupied for about two years and began to deteriorate. When the heating system ceased to function, they donated it to Usonian Preservation, the owners of Polymath Park, to which Wright's Donald C. Duncan House had already been moved. The donation included the original furnishings designed by Wright, plus porch furniture and art. In April and May 2016 the house was dissassembled, with the concrete slab, concrete block walls, and rafters being demolished and the remaining elements packed for transportation by truck. It was then rebuilt at Polymath Park following the U.S. Secretary of the Interior's Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties, with the Wright Conservancy holding an easement to ensure it is not altered and is maintained. A Buffalo architect, Patrick Mahoney, oversaw the reconstruction and orientation to replicate the original light exposure as accurately as possible. Its reconstruction was completed in April 2019, and it was opened in May to tours and overnight stays. Archival materials and copies of the plans are stored on the premises.