FLW Offspring on the Lake

     About a year ago a lot of us noticed a new home going up the lakeshore in Wanakah,  It looked like an FLW design to the point that our intrepid Admin Assistant, Shannon Lyons, stated that it looked like Graycliff and the Darwin Martin House got together and produced a baby.  The house at 5190 Lakeshore Rd., opposite the Wanakah Country Club, clearly has many pieces of the designs of both homes.  It has the same L shaped design with the garage and house that Graycliff does.  Then you realize that the covered front entrance is a version of Graycliff's "porte cochere."   The longer you look at the house, the more similarities you notice to the point of realizing it had to be deliberate.

     After a year of thinking about it, I reached out to the owners to see if they would be willing to chat with me about their home and allow me to snap some photos of the property.  David Frech and Joe Marks were very gracious to allow me the opportunity to do so.  They were as happy to show off and explain their home as I was in learning about it from them.

     It turns out they had owned and lived in another house on the property for a number of years and were thinking of remodeling it to make it their dream house.  At some point, it dawned on them that it made more sense to demolish the house instead and start fresh to get exactly what they wanted.  They were both Frank Lloyd Wright fans and felt his homes offered a feel-good level of comfort that they wanted for their own home.  They were taken with the prairie style concept and had both visited the Darwin Martin House and Graycliff several times as well as read extensively on FLW creations.  They knew what they wanted and found an architect, Gary Shaffer, who was willing to work with them to incorporate their design ideas and they had plenty.  The house was built by Phillip Vogt Construction.  Building the house financially put their retirement so far off into the future that they might have to live as long as Wright did to be able to retire but they wanted it done "Wright". 

     They had originally envisioned a second floor over the garage with a small apartment that they could live in while the original house was being demolished and new one built (think Foster House.)  However, the Town of Hamburg was only willing to allow them to do that if they removed the kitchen from the apartment after the house was built.  Hamburg would not allow two separate living units on the same piece of property.  Joe and David did not like the idea of having to destroy something they had just built, so they made other plans for housing instead of staying on the property during demolition and construction. The house has many FLW themed features from the side porch swiped from the Barton house to the wall of windows and doors facing the lake duplicating Graycliff's living room.  The fireplace in the living room was one David had seen in photos of another Wright design that he liked and had it duplicated here.  The entry into the home has the same lowered ceiling line (compress and release) that we have at Graycliff and like Graycliff, that line continues into the rest of the house via a wood molding.  They even found square recessed lighting fixtures and requested that they be installed on the diagonal so that they mimicked the diamond recessed lighting fixtures at Graycliff.

     The hipped roof (red, of course) with a large overhang matches numerous Wright designs as well as Graycliff and the Martin House.  The windows are positioned to appear as Wright's cornered windows and arranged in a band across the second floor.  The Roman bricks used are like those on the Martin House and they even had the bricklayers rake the mortar on the bricks as Wright had done.

     The first floor is very much an open concept which shouts Wright.  Even the white countertops pay homage to the ceramic glass countertops used in both Graycliff and the Martin house.  The simple built-in design to the kitchen cabinetry honors Wright's use of the same  in many of his homes.  David and Joe utilized everything that they admired in Wright's prairie and arts and crafts designs to make their house their own while still giving clear credit to Wright for the initial concepts.

     If you look at the structure of the driveway, you will notice a circular design in the concrete in front of the house to reproduce the feeling of Graycliff's  circular drive.  When I told them jokingly that it needed a pond in front, they seriously informed me that they intend to put one there.

They have done a marvelous job of building their home Wright-like.  I told them I would help them train docents and then they could charge for tours and maybe get to retire a bit earlier.  The house is gorgeous and I can't thank David and Joe enough for sharing it with me for an afternoon.  It is fascinating to see Wright design in a modern newly built house.  Below are photos  to help explain why I am so taken with this house

Front of house showing windows, roof, porte cochere, side porch, circular drive.

 The diamond shaped recessed lights.

 The back of the wrap-a-around porch

 Rear of the house

 More diamond shaped lights

 Garage and porte cochere

 Porte cochere

 Not from local houses, but still Wright fireplace design

 Compress and release line from the back, looking through front entrance

 The view out to the lake; solid band of doors and windows

Dining area with Wright inspired furnishing although of Roycroft design.

Living room to kitchen with dining area beyond


Great house, great owners, really nice guys.  May they live long enough to really enjoy the wonder that they have helped create in this home.  It is a masterpiece.

George Struebel