Located just down the block from where Frank Lloyd Wright lived & worked for 20 yrs are a row of Queen Anne-style homes that most people wouldn’t guess were done by the famous architect.

In the early part of FLW’s career in the 1890s he designed a number of traditional and historical revival homes like the Walter Gale House (1893), which is dominated by a very large circular turret. The second floor master bedroom is encircled by a continuous band of curved windows with diamond-paned leaded glass. The home’s strong geometric shapes & window banding (as well as a hidden entrance) foreshadow elements of the modern Prairie Style he’d be known for in the next decade.

Then there are the twins, the Robert Parker and Thomas Gale Houses (1892), Queen Anne designs with bold and geometric forms that show how a twenty-something-yr-old Wright was experimenting with his own style at the time.

A few decades ago I used to know the family who restored the Parker House. Their cat Ferdinand would visit me at the FLW Home & Studio every single day, sometimes sitting on tourists’ heads. People got a good laugh. I’d like to think it was Frank himself checking out his former abode and putting on a show.photo bye @theamericanhome

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