the edith farnsworth house

by ludwig mies van der rohe (1951)

it feels appropriate to start things off with my most recent tour, the one that inspired me to start this. i took 200+ photos in this 1,500 sqft house and realized maybe i should do something else with them besides letting them rot in my camera roll. so, here we go…

recently i’ve gotten into a habit of planning very last minute trips to go look at beautiful architecture. that’s what this trip was. a few weeks ago, i decided on a monday that on friday, i was going to drive myself to illinois to finally see this house, along with the schweikher house (we’ll talk about that one soon.)

if you find yourself doing the same, there’s also a handful of frank lloyd wright buildings in the area. they are some of his earlier works, which are personally not my favorite, so i skipped them this time. don’t tell anyone, but i did buy a ticket to tour his home and studio in oak park then decided the night before that i wanted to sleep a few hours longer in my very cozy hotel bed instead. sorry frank.

i’m not going to do what the tour guide did to me on this tour and make you wait out in the cold while i ramble on about every little detail about the steel beams used for this house. no offense to the tour guide, he was very sweet and knowledgable, but sometimes you just want to get inside the house because you are underdressed (don’t wear your ferragamo heeled boots on this tour! you have to hike through the woods to get there!) and very cold. so please, come in.

i was bad during this tour and did something i never do, which was wander away from the group and explore the house on my own. we were explicitly told not to do this… but i was feeling rebellious and the tour group was so big, no one even noticed. plus, the house is just one big room, so i really couldn’t wander that far. for that reason, i can’t tell you exactly what the tour guide talked about once we were inside, but that’s not what i’m here for. i strongly encourage you to go on these tours yourself if you can and maybe pay better attention than i did.

one thing i did pay attention to was that mies sent farnsworth an entire shipping container full of custom furniture for the house, but because he went so over budget with the construction of the house (look up the story of them suing each other for more info on that) she refused the furniture and furnished it on her own. i’m dying to know what that original furniture looked like and where it ended up.

i’m always most excited to see the bathrooms of the houses i tour because these rooms are the least photographed/shared online in my experience. seeing the bathrooms at fallingwater for the first time was like a transcendent experience for me. i went back a year later and paid for the more expensive tour just so i could photograph them for reference when i redo the bathrooms in my house. maybe i am ruining the possibility of such experiences for people by sharing all of these photos. but i know not everyone can go on these tours, so forgive me if you want to be surprised and just close your eyes as you scroll through the next few photos.

if you say comment calling this chair in the bedroom a “cuck chair” i’m blocking you <3

i’m usually equally as excited about kitchens as i am about the bathrooms, but this kitchen was a bit disappointing. it is beautiful of course, it just didn’t impress me as much as some others have (like the stahl house and gerald luss house for example.) i will always love a stainless steel countertop and metal cabinets though.

when the tour was over and we were all scattering across the property to take our final photos, an older woman came up to me and said “what are you doing here all by yourself? i can’t imagine being interested in this stuff when i was your age!” i thought this was funny because i’m always talking about how i’m usually the youngest one on these tours (even though i’m really not that young anymore.) a man visiting from germany also asked if i wanted him to take a photo of me with the house. i will not be sharing this photo, sorry, but it was very sweet of him.

i took some better exterior shots with my film camera that i’ve yet to get developed. maybe i’ll share them when i do, i think you’ve heard enough from me by now. i wasn’t expecting this to be so long, this is obviously very new to me and things may look different going forward. be gentle with me as i figure this out.

one last thing: whenever i take these trips, i try to find an architecturally special hotel or airbnb to stay at. this trip was a bit of a challenge for that. i didn’t want to stay in chicago proper because it’s a bit of a drive out of the city to these houses and i was only there for the weekend. the first spot i found was the hyatt regency o'hare. i didn’t stay here and the rooms don’t look great in photos. but it’s a john c. portman jr. building and his westin bonaventure hotel in DTLA is one of my favorite places i’ve ever been, so i imagine it’s worth a visit. RIP to the incredible pool it used to have.

favorite little details

the second is the hyatt lodge in oak brook. this is where i stayed and it was fine, but! i recommend this one because they have a mies van der rohe suite. it was booked when i was there but it looks so nice, i promised my mom we’ll take a trip just to stay there. the building was also designed by mies’ grandson, dirk lohan, and used to be the mcdonald's corporate headquarters campus. i didn’t explore the building much or take any photos, but that’s ok. sometimes you just need to eat takeout and watch house hunters in your heavenly hotel bed.

xoxo

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p.s. going forward, most of these posts are going to behind my tiny paywall. i hope you enjoyed this enough to upgrade your subscription if you haven’t already. i promise you will not be disappointed in what’s to come and i’m so grateful for all of your support <3

map of all my favorite locations in the US coming soon!