Frank Lloyd Wright's
SAMARA
John E. Christian, Owner


SAMARAQuest


Benton Third Grade Team

Lafayette Live

Katie Hands / Trevor Younce
Jenna Brummet / Jocelyn Sell

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SAMARAQuest
    1   How long have you lived in the house?
    2   When/How did you get the idea to build a FLW House?

My wife, Catherine, and I and our four-year old daughter, Linda, moved into SAMARA on September 6, 1956. At that time, the house was not complete; so we continued to add Mr. Wright's designs for a number of details including furniture and landscaping.


My wife deceased in 1986 and my daughter is now married and lives in Houston, Texas. I continue to live in SAMARA as I have for the past 41 years.

Catherine and I were married in 1948 and we immediately started thinking about what we would like for our home. We decided we would like a design that was somewhat unusual where we could entertain students, faculty and other guests.

This meant we would need an architect to design our home. We did not think about asking Mr. Wright to do it for us until we saw one of his homes in Pleasantville, New York. We liked the design of that home so much that we started to check up on Frank Lloyd Wright designs in detail by reading about and studying the buildings he had completed.

Soon it was 1950 and Mr. Wright had become quite famous and was very much sought after for his designs. Even so, we decided to try to see him and ask him to design our home.

I called him on the phone and was surprised that he was so easy to talk to and was willing to meet us. We drove to his home in Spring Green, Wisconsin where I asked him if he would design a home for us.

Much to our pleasure, he said, "But of course, I will design you a house." Five years later (January 1, 1955) we received our final plans for SAMARA.

I've enjoyed responding to your questions. To learn more about SAMARA, I encourage you to visit the other Benton Third Grade Team pages. You may also be interested in taking a look at the Benton SAMARAQuest Challenge.

The Benton SAMARAQuest Challenge is designed to expand your learnings beyond what you already know about Frank Lloyd Wright and SAMARA. The Challenge suggests activities for exploring things you're interested in learning more about in your studies of the world's greatest architect.

Be sure to visit other
Benton Third Grade Teams
to learn more about
SAMARA
The Benton SAMARAQuest Third Grade Teams Samara / Samara2 / Cherokees
The Usonians / Lafayette Live / The Dragons
Visit these other Benton SAMARAQuest Teams
Grade 3 / Grade 4 / Grade 5 / Grade 6

Return to the Benton SAMARAQuest Main Directory

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Copyright © 1998   All rights reserved.
The John Christian Family Memorial Trust, Inc. and LEARNING ASSOCIATES
Latest revision September 30, 1998