Sleeping with Mr. Wright

Seth Peterson was only twenty-three when he asked Frank Lloyd Wright to design a cottage. A resident of southwest Wisconsin, home to Wright’s landmark summer home and studio, Taliesin, Peterson had aspired to a career in architecture. Having failed at attempts to study under Wright, he instead commissioned the aging architect to design a small home. Peterson bought a piece of property overlooking Mirror Lake near the Wisconsin Dells and began construction in 1959, months before Wright’s death at age ninety-one.

A year later, Peterson was dead by his own hand—a failed engagement, cost overruns on the cottage, and other mental health issues were to blame. A Milwaukee family bought the house, finished construction, and lived in it for several years. In 1966, they sold the cottage to the state of Wisconsin, which was creating Mirror Lake State Park and wanted the land. Rather than demolish it, though, the cottage sat unoccupied and rotting for the better part of two decades.

In 1986, Audrey Laatsch spied the structure while canoeing on Mirror Lake. The 1980s were a time of renewed interest in the forgotten Wright, and after some research, Latsch decided the cottage should be saved and began to raise funds and interest in doing so. The ultimate end was the $350,000 restoration of a home that cost a tenth of that to build.

The Peterson Cottage had deteriorated to the point that it essentially needed to be rebuilt. The sole surviving elements were its flagstone floors, massive sandstone fireplace, and hearth. Improvements included a radiant heat system, which Wright had designed but hadn’t been built, as well as an array of Wright-designed furniture. The costs of the reconstruction were so large, and the ongoing conservation costs so substantial, that the home was made available to paying overnight guests as a means of securing the permanent financial stability of the cottage.

If you ever wanted to spend a night or a week in a Frank Lloyd Wright dwelling, the Peterson Cottage is the option closest to the Twin Cities, and one of only a handful available in the country. At 880 square feet, it is also one of Wright’s smallest commissions. It is no architectural after-thought, though. Wright’s longtime aide William Wesley Peters described the structure as having “more architecture per square foot” than any Wright building.

The house is a late-era variant on Wright’s “usonian” design, intended to put his principles for modest sites and lifestyles into practice. As in many of Wright’s dwellings of the period, that goal was subverted by construction and design quirks that made the homes costly to build and own—with tragic consequences in this particular case.

Last spring, I spent a couple of nights at the Peterson Cottage in hopes of experiencing some of the magic—or lack thereof—of living in a Wright dwelling. The cottage sits on a stunning site at the edge of a steep ravine overlooking Mirror Lake. Windows on three sides offer forest and lake views. Though just minutes from the garish hubbub of Wisconsin Dells, the home feels isolated and private.