We attended Sunday Services at Thorncrown Chapel. Worshiping in such a beautiful place is a very special experience…
An interesting point was that the preacher was the son of the founder and of the chapel… And there was some good old hymn singing going on…
A mystery occurred behind the blue pilaster on the right. The minister suddenly appeared from behind the pilaster, then he went back again during some of the singing. Is he just sitting on a chair back there, and had he been there since before we arrived? Or is there a hidden back door there that he can slip in and out of? Or is there a stair to a basement with an exterior entrance? Any ideas?
After the service we drove to Bentonville; along the way we found, quite by accident, Hoss’s RV Repair. The place was littered with old Airstreams (23), in various stages of repair and restoration…
We traveled on…
Bentonville is home of Sam Walton and his family. And his family’s store:
The town Square is very nice…
We had brunch at a very nice modern diner…
We were very impressed with the center of this town of 70,000 people. (In 1960 when the first WalMart was built the town had about 3,000 people…)
We wondered, as we looked around at these downtown buildings, how much of this was built, rebuilt, and/or owned by WalMart? Did the first WalMart, built outside of town on the highway, kill the town? Did WalMart buy up the deserted buildings and create this Disneyesque town square? I don’t know…
(By the way, the original Walton’s 5 and dime is just a facade for the WalMart Museum. There is a WalMart Neighborhood Market just a block away…)
In any case, the reason we were here was to see Crystal Bridges, the Museum of American Art built by the Walton Family Foundation… It is about 3/4 mile from the heart of town…
The museum was designed by Moshe Safdie, world famous architect…
The museum sits atop a small creek that has been dammed to form several ponds at several levels. The weirs (dams) are under the buildings, so the surfaces of the ponds are kept mirror-still…
The vaulted roofs are supported by suspension cables. Remarkable!
But the REAL reason we are here is to see a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house. The Bachman-Wilson House was originally built in New Jersey in the mid 1950s. Over the years it was lived in by a variety of families. In 1980 it was restored; unfortunately, the adjacent river took up a bad habit of overflowing its banks on a regular basis. By 2004 the owners appealed to the Walton family and convinced them that there is no greater American Art than a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house. The house was disassembled and moved here, and it was reassembled on a site adjacent to the museum…
It is a classic Usonian, which typically turns a blank face to the street for privacy. FLlW also typically hides the front door…
There’s the door…
(Sorry, no interior photos…)
The house bears remarkable similarities to the Spring house in Tallahassee and the Rosenbaum house in Florence, AL. The board and batten siding, the views out to the forest, the horizontal lines, the cantilevered carports, and the stenciled cut-outs applied to the glass…
The house has been beautifully restored and preserved… It is, indeed, a piece of American Art…!
But we move on!
In the little town of Bella Vista, in the far northwest corner on Arkansas, within a mile or two of the Missouri and Oklahoma borders, is another Fay Jones chapel…
In contrast to Thorncrown Chapel, this chapel is built of steel. Again, the details are beautiful…
Built to honor Mildred Borum Cooper, wife of John A. Cooper, Sr., founder of Cooper Communities, Inc, the Chapel is a fitting memorial. Besides being a devoted wife, mother, and member of the community, Mrs. Cooper had a deep spirituality and a love for nature. Her family commissioned the Chapel in her honor to celebrate her life and her dedication to God and his creations.
We returned to Eureka Springs and enjoyed a dinner in a fine French bistro: Le Stick Nouveau:
We enjoyed five courses of appetizers and hors d’oeuvres… and a bottle of fine Pinot Noir from Oregon…
As is our custom, we returned to the Villa for Happy Hours and a light supper; an enjoyable time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 