Structure Type: built works - dwellings - houses

Designers: Taliesin Fellowship (firm); Frank Lloyd Wright (architect)

Dates: constructed 1955

1 story, total floor area: 1,150 sq. ft.

18971 Edgecliff Drive SW
Normandy Park, WA 98166

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An email from DOCOMOMO WEWA (04/11/2011) announced a tour of the Tracy House for 04/22-24/2011 and summarized its design as follows: "In 1955 Frank Lloyd Wright designed a unique Usonian house for Bill and Elizabeth Tracy for their beautiful waterfront site in Normandy Park. The “Usonian Automatic” included organic design features which were, by then, well known--red concrete floors, handmade custom concrete blocks, natural redwood and full height glass doors that open the house to the out-of-doors. The house receives natural light throughout the day via the perforated blocks creating interesting patterns of light throughout the day." (See alsoAccessed 04/11/2011.) The residence contained three bedrooms and one bath, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and utility/laundry room. The master bedroom projected from the south end of the house and had Puget Sound views to the west, as did the kitchen, living room and dining room. The two remaining bedrooms faced east.

Writer Lawrence Cheek and a Seattle Met magazine panel included the Tracy House as one of the 10 best in Seattle history; in the article, Cheek stated: "Frank Lloyd Wright remains conspicuously alone among A-list architects in addressing the issue of modest homes for people who might have vision and artistic impulse but not wealth." Of course, one may quibble with who's on the "A-list" but many accomplished architects tried to create houses affordable by the masses, including Walter Gropius (and Konrad Wachsmann), Gregory Ain, Paul Hayden Kirk, Wallace Neff, Jones and Emmons, Anshen and Allen, to name a few. (See Lawrence Cheek, "Seattle's 10 Greatest Homes," Seattle Met, 01/2012, p. 42.)

National Register of Historic Places (July 13, 1995): 95000830 NRHP Images (pdf) NHRP Registration Form (pdf)

PCAD id: 16350