Day Trip - The Wescott House, Springfield

July 28, 2009 we visited The Wescott House in Springfield, OH. We started this trip with a nice meal at Teaberries. The food was outstanding and they also have a nice gift shop that many of our group enjoyed.

Teaberries is a renovated school house and is nicely done. They have several dining rooms but I think we had the largest one. We had a fine looking group of 27 people.

Remember, You can click on the images below to see larger ones.

After lunch, we drove on up to The Wescott House. This was a forgotten Frank Lloyd Wright structure that had been forgotten. Even worse, it was converted into apartments and then severely neglected. A foundation purchased the building and spent 5.8 million dollars renovating the structure and furnishing it to the way it was when the Wescotts lived there.

Our tour of the house began with a short video explaining the renovation and other information about the house.
Side View of The Wescott House property
View showing the main house and the garage (behind our bus). The garage is currently used for the gift shop and tour entry.
The front of the building is equally imposing. In front of the canopy (behind the white wall) there is a reflecting pool that cannot be seen from this view.
They split our group into two separate tour groups and our docent did a very nice job of explaining the structure and providing information about Frank Lloyd Wright and the Wescott family. Has anyone ever seen a Wescott automobile?
Frank Lloyd Wright often included the physical habitat in his structures so they fit together. This view illustrates how the foliage played an important part in his architecture. This home is his Prairie Architecture.
Now it is time for a test to see how good attention you paid to the docents as they explained the architecture. Everything had a function. What is the function of this structure? See the end for the answer.
Next, our tour took us inside the home. Unfortunately, they would not allow us to use cameras inside, so this part will need to be experienced first-hand. I think it is worth the effort. Most of the woodwork and the glass in the building are original. Furnishings are replicas.

Finally we walked between the home and the garage. We learned that the garage was originally intended to have a turntable because cars at that time did not have reverse. However, before the turntable could be included, cars were built with reverse and both Mr. and Mrs. Wescott had nice new automobiles.
The backside of the home is not nearly as imposing as the view from the front but it is still a nice large home.

This concludes our short virtual tour (minus the inside). If you would like to know more about The Wescott House or perhaps visit on your own, you can check out their website, The Wescott House

OK, did you answer the question above? The structure is a Purple Martin Bird House; to keep the bugs away. Unfortunately, the birds were not attracted to this because these birds prefer round hole openings and Mr. Wright used rectangular opens for appearance sake! Mr. Wright had other idiosyncrasies such as not liking basements or attics. Basements were not part of the natural terrain and attics were for things you don't use, so is of no need, itself!