Rosenbaum house

There is a house in Tuscumbia Alabama designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The house was built in 1939 in the Usonian style. Stacey and I toured this house not long ago and it was a really good tour. The guide was very informative and had tons of knowledge on many different aspects of the whole project. She told us the house was commissioned by the Rosenbaum Family. The lot was a wedding gift from the grooms Mom and Dad, who lived across the street.

At first, Wright did not want to do the job. After a few years of getting nowhere on the idea, Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum went to see him, and he finally agreed to design the house.

The two strangest things the guide told us was Wright never visited the property or the job site. And it was the only house he ever agreed to do a addition to. So in 1948, Wright designed the additional wing.

Mrs. Rosenbaum lived in the house until she passed in 1999, then it was purchased by the City of Florence. The house was in very poor condition by this time and the city stepped up and put out hundreds of thousands of dollars in to renovating it. Funny, the original house cost approximately $40,000 to build in 1939 and the addition cost in the $70,000 range.

It was restored to the original state after the addition. I was amazed at how much plywood was used. It was used for lots of the cabinets, used in the ceilings and was prevalent in the kitchen. It was also used for a bunch of furniture Frank Lloyd Wright designed for the house. Check out the photos. The guide told us plywood was hot at the time. It was the newest, coolest material and he loved using it for this project.

We had no idea that Frank Lloyd Wright designed a home in Alabama.
Wonder why he never went to the job site ? Wonder why he agreed to do an addition to the home ?