Taking apart the Bachman Wilson House at its site in Millstone, New Jersey, was one thing; putting it back together on the grounds of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville has been something else entirely.
The contractor who originally built the house, designed in 1954 by Frank Lloyd Wright, “built it in a way that he felt was right,” said Scott Eccleston, the museum’s director of grounds and facilities. Eccleston is overseeing the reassembly of the house.
“Well, those [changes] were never captured in the blueprints, and so when we go to put it back together, we go, ‘Oh, my gosh, something’s a little short.’ Of course, he never intended on the house being moved.”
“We don’t have that builder right here to ask, ‘Why did you do this? How does this go back together?’ So we have to — it’s like you take one board and you twist it and you turn it and it’s almost like a jigsaw puzzle,” Eccleston said.
The museum bought the house to save it from the frequent flooding that had threatened it. Its owners, Sharon and Lawrence Tarantino, saw their decision to sell as a way to save a house they had lovingly tended since their purchase of it in 1988.
The house is an example of what Wright called Usonian architecture, which sought to marry quality architecture with modest materials at a price affordable for the middle class. Wright designed it for Abraham Wilson and Gloria Bachman, whose brother, Marvin Bachman, had studied with Wright.
The original builder whom Eccleston would like to consult was Abe Wilson, said Sharon Tarantino. “Morton Delson was Frank Lloyd Wright’s apprentice in the early stages of the project and he hired the original subcontractors,” Tarantino said in an email to Arkansas Business. Delson was a Manhattan architect who died in 1991.
“After a period of time Abe Wilson (the original owner) took over as general contractor and supervised construction,” she said. Wilson, who died in 2008, was a chemist and lawyer — and, for a time, contractor.
Despite the obstacles posed by the contractor’s idiosyncrasies, the museum has nearly finished reassembly of the 1,700-SF Bachman Wilson House. Crystal Bridges will soon announce events to celebrate that completion, and the house should be open to visitors to tour by the fall, Eccleston said.
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