The same principle of copper being used both to add visual interest, and to protect the underlying wood can be found in the cladding of the terrace blocks and the awning over the terrace. The terrace is supported by steel posts, which rise from a partial brick wall.
Wooden blocks clad in copper were spaced along the poles to make them seem merely decorative, when in fact they are supporting the awning. At this writing, with the landscaping fully matured, the poles seem only to support the foliage and vines which grow along the terrace, giving the awning the appearance of a floating cantilever; an effect Wright surely intended.
The Price Home in Phoenix (1955) has a similar treatment of blocks on the posts that support its two flat roofs, giving those roofs the appearance of floating also.
The mahogany awning over the terrace has two features designed to protect and preserve the wood:
First, the boards narrow from top to bottom, so that when rain hits the top horizontal surface it falls off the edge instead of running down the vertical width of the board; second, the tops of the boards are clad in copper, so that the top horizontal surface of the board is never exposed directly to the elements.
The exposed vertical surfaces of the wood are treated with polyurethane every other year. Not surprisingly, all the original wood is still sound.
Thus the expense of the copper cladding is justified by the preservation of the original wood and the absence of any expensive replacement work.
Patterson describes how copper cladding was used on the Coonley Home to preserve the underlying wood and describes this as a feature "unique" to the Coonley Home. Clearly Patterson was unaware that a similar treatment was used at Samara.