BENTONVILLE -- The elongated banquette catches visitors' eyes as they enter the Bachman-Wilson House, a Frank Lloyd Wright design dismantled in New Jersey and put back together at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.
Facing the living room's wall of glass, the built-in piece of furniture is fitted with 10 green cushions that match four nearby footstools. Long enough to seat a baseball team complete with manager, this sofa surrogate is among assorted distinctive touches in the Wright house, a prime attraction here since it opened to the public six months ago.
Now in its fifth year, Crystal Bridges has established itself as a world-class museum. It displays more than 400 works by American painters and sculptors in a stunning architectural complex surrounded by woodlands laced with art-accented walking trails. Thanks to the largess of multi-billionaire founder and board chairman Alice Walton, it is free to the public (except for some visiting exhibitions).
There's no charge to tour the Bachman-Wilson House, although reservations are required due to the 1,750-square-foot home's limited capacity. Hour-long guided tours are available, but a self-guided visit is ample, aided by exhaustive information panels at the house's Welcome Pavilion. On a self-guided visit last week, it also turned out that the cheerful security guard had a ready answer to just about every question.
Wright was 86 when he built Bachman-Wilson along a New Jersey river. It was one of more than 100 houses he designed in a style he called "Usonian," an abbreviation for "United States of North America." These houses, simpler than his custom residences, were intended to be affordable for the average middle-class family -- although Bachman-Wilson cost $30,000, a chunk of cash in 1954.
Repeated flooding led the last private owners to sell the house to Crystal Bridges as the best option for preservation. The second story, containing two bedrooms and the only full bath, cannot be visited, in part because the suspended staircase is apparently as flimsy as it looks. The original radiant heating in the floors still functions; air conditioning has been installed to deal with Arkansas summers.
Reporting on the opening of the house in November, the Democrat-Gazette's Philip Martin quoted a museum official saying that "the most common reaction from early visitors to the house has been, 'I could live here.'"
By that, wrote Martin, "he means they are not awestruck by the structure, which reveals its genius in the details, or discomfited by the squeeziness that sometimes afflicts Wright's smaller houses. They could imagine themselves actually waking up and having coffee in a house like this."
Last week, the friendly security guard said much the same thing about typical visitor reaction. It's evidently true despite such drawbacks as the dark, cramped kitchen with its low ceiling. And there's definitely a lot to like about the woodland view from one of the world's longest banquettes.
There is no charge to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Bachman-Wilson House at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way, Bentonville. Timed tickets are required for either a self-guided tour or a one-hour guided tour. Tickets can be reserved online at CrystalBridges.org or by calling (479) 657-2335.
Crystal Bridges Museum is open 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday. General admission is also free. Some temporary exhibits, such as "The Open Road" photography show through May 30, require payment.
Style on 05/10/2016