Krause House

Short drive today, but lots to see…

It is only about a two hour drive from Springfield, IL, to St. Louis, MO.

Coming into the city and crossing the Mississippi River again we were able to see the Gateway Arch. The architect was the talented Eero Saarinen. We were able to see it up close and ride the frightening “elevator” to the top in 2017… Today we can see it in context with the rest of downtown St. Louis…

Crossing the Mississippi River…

After several detours due to a closed interchange we finally arrived at our campsite…

We quickly set up and then we were off again to see the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Kruase House in the nearby city of Kirkwood…

The Frank Lloyd Wright “Krause House”, in Ebsworth Park, was designed by Wright in 1950 at the request of Russell Kraus and his wife Ruth. Located in Kirkwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, the 1,900-square-foot house is sited in a grassy meadow beside a grove of persimmon trees. The house is an excellent example of Wright’s Usonian architecture, intended to provide middle-class Americans with beautiful design at moderate cost.

For his Usonian homes, Wright developed a “unit system” based on geometric shapes. The Kraus House is based on an equilateral parallelogram with a complex floor plan of intersecting parallelograms. Typical of Usonians, the house has an open living area, a central hearth, concrete slab floors with radiant heat, and a wall of glass doors that affords views of the landscape. The same materials are used both inside and out: brick, concrete, glass, and tidewater red cypress. The doors to the main terrace incorporate stained glass designed by Russell Kraus, a mosaic and stained glass artist.

The Krauses moved into their home in January 1956 and lived there together until Ruth’s death in 1992. In 2001 a non-profit organization, The Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park (FLWHEP), purchased the house and grounds from Russell and deeded the property to St. Louis County for the creation of a public park and house museum. Subsequently, the FLWHEP completed an extensive restoration of the brick, woodwork, furniture, and textiles in the home.

Today, the FLWHEP remains responsible for the preservation and operation of the house museum. The organization also serves as a focal point in the St. Louis region for educational programming on Wright’s legacy, as well as architecture and design in general. The St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department maintains the grounds, known as Ebsworth Park. Due to a generous donation from Barney Ebsworth, the park was named in memory of his parents, Alec W. and Bernice W. Ebsworth.

The design of the house is typical of most of the “Usonian” houses we’ve seen. (The Dana-Thomas house was “Prairie Style”…) Usonian houses still maintain the horizontal lines Wright was so fond of, and, of course, outrageous cantilevers. Usonian houses are generally one story, on a slab foundation, with similar materials used inside and out.

Arriving at the house we marveled at the entrance gate, clearly denoting that something special was ahead… We passed through the gate, drove up the hill, and around the house, and entered the motor court on the backside of the house…

The Krause house is one of the more complex houses, yet also one of the simplest. There are no right angles, nor rectangular or square rooms in the house. The house is arranged over a grid of equilateral parallelograms. You can see what results from this model:

We arrived at the motor court and carport…

The motor court follows the shape of the parallelogram as it cuts into the site. The house does not sit atop the site, but cuts into it…

Walking around the house we see the cantilevers, the brick walls with the mortar joints emphsizing the horizontal, and the integration of the house into the site…

The front door is not at the “front” of the house, but is where it ought to be – in the motor court. The art glass windows were designed by Wright or by the owner, a great artist in his own right…

The interiors are all brick walls or wood board and batt walls. Most lighting is indirect and all the light fixtures and all the furniture was designed by Wright…