Skip to main content

Fitting Wright In: New Builds at Rush Creek Village.

Rush Creek Village is one of those hidden gems that most people seem to know about. It gets pretty regular press on the blog circuit, and once every ten years or so The New York Times sends someone out to do a feature on it. Located on the southeast side of Worthington, OH, Rush Creek Village is a unique community of like-minded homes that remains a prime example of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian style.

Welcome to Rush Creek Village

The community was founded (if that's the right word) by Wright admirer Martha Wakefield and her husband Richard. Construction began on the first Rush Creek house in 1956. The principal designer was Theodore van Fossen, a young man whose prior work consisted of working on a couple of Frank Lloyd Wright's projects. (It should also be noted that Van Fossen, who passed away December 20, 2010, was also the designer of the Robert and Mary Gunning House near Blacklick.) When all was said and done Van Fossen had coordinated the design and construction of 48 homes in Rush Creek; each one site specific, and each one unique. It's a charming community; well maintained and designed to stay pretty much the way it is in perpetuity.

All of this is more or less old news. What's new news is the two new Rush Creek homes sprouting up at the eastern most boundary of the subdivision. According to Van Fossen's obituary in the Columbus Dispatch the architect weighed in on the design of these as well. By my count that's an even 50 for the architect and Rush Creek.

"The Round House"; probably Rush Creek's most famous home.

I'm pretty familiar with Worthington, and Rush Creek Village has always been one of my favorite places to walk. Today as I was out I snapped a few pictures of the newest additions to this unique enclave. Not surprisingly they fit right in.

New Build - the horizontalish one

New Build - verticalish one

New Builds, both together

Comments

  1. I didn't mention this in the post, but I saw house for sale too. Here's a link if you want to check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9919755@N06/6965803245/ Maybe you're in the market?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#library30

  On Wednesday April 1, 2026 I'll be rebooting the #library30 photo challenge and inviting people to participate in this year's event. What is it? Even though I work in a library, it's not uncommon for me (and others in the field) to look to related cultural institutions for new ideas and new perspectives. That's how #library30 happened. My wife (who worked directly with museum professionals at the time), alerted me to the #museum30 initiative that had been launched by  Magnifying Zoology  in 2017. The premise was pretty simple. Participants worked from a set of daily prompts and posted pictures on social media related to the prompt along with the #museum30 hashtag. As I followed that hashtag and saw the amazing stories that were being shared, I thought, "Libraries should do that...". And #library30 was born. A plain text list of these prompts are provided at the end of this blog post.  How does it work? All you have to do is upload a photo related to the dail...

The Ohio Historical Center: A Defense

A couple weeks ago I was contacted by Carrie Ghose at Business First to share my thoughts on architecture in central Ohio. The recent controversy surrounding the new Student Union at Ohio State had apparently sparked a number of conversations regarding what constitutes "good" building design. Carrie was following that story , and developing a second piece to get feedback on other notable Columbus buildings. At the time I offered a staunch a defense of what I believe might be the most maligned and misunderstood building in central Ohio, the Ohio Historical Center. Business First wasn't able to run the whole piece, so I've decided to turn it into a blog post. photo courtesy of OHS/ www.ohiomemory.org The refrain is a as old as the building itself, "It's ugly. It's just a giant brown box. It doesn't even look like a museum". Sadly, it's that exact line of thinking that poses the greatest threat to the building Architectural Record referre...

Renovation Vacation

Back in August my wife and I decided to each take a week off from our respective works and embark on a "Renovation Vacation" at the Akron almost-mansion. The impetus behind the trip was two-fold. One consideration was our realization that it's really hard to make any kind of concerted progress when you live two hours from a job site. By the time we get everything packed for a typical trip, drive to the house, get our work area organized and start working, it's just about time to head back home. The other consideration was that with all the delays we've seen with this house, we thought it would be good for morale if we could make even some small progress on our own. The plan then was to spend a week "camping out" at the house and doing light projects and cleaning while we were there. I say camping out since it's kind of what it was like. Yes, the house has electric and 70% plumbing (including two functional toilets), but there's no heat, no kitche...