AT HOME
The
WRIGHT house
BY KATHERINE SNOW SMITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAMES BORCHUCK
A
The DeGroot home, designed by architect Sanford Goldman, has vast expanses of windows and doors that let in light and air. A spiral staircase leads to the second floor.
half century ago when he was a 30-year-old architect designing a Frank Lloyd Wright-style house on Tampa Bay, Sanford Goldman would sit on the grass near the tidal flats of Pinellas Point to sketch and think. “The property was just so nice, I wanted to take advantage of all the trees. Bring the outside in. I designed the main part of the house to be upstairs so you have the best view,” Goldman, now 81, recalled on a recent visit to the home. It is simple in some ways, made of just two materials, concrete and mahogany plywood. Three, if you count the clear heart redwood trim. Yet it is complex, with numerous floor-to-ceiling glass doors, some 18 feet high, interior balconies, a spiral staircase, built-in furniture and banks of windows in various sizes. The entire first level has brick floors, a preventive measure in case of flooding. “What I like most about it is being amongst all the trees. It’s nice to have a real handmade thing,” said Dave DeGroot, who grew up in the home Goldman built for his parents and that he and his wife inhabit. “It’s like living in a piece of furniture. The quality of the workmanship was so good back then,” said his wife, Barbara. “You feel like the keeper of the house. You want to preserve and protect it.”
It’s no coincidence the home encompasses many of Wright’s trademarks. Goldman studied with Wright in 1957 and 1958 at two of the famed architect’s homes, Taliesin East in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Arizona.
APPRENTICE TO A LEGEND In his last year of architecture school at the University of Florida, Goldman sent Wright a letter asking if he could become an apprentice. He was invited for an interview during winter break. “I was beside myself, this young kid meeting Frank Lloyd Wright. I brought my best work to show him,” Goldman recalled. “He said, ‘It’s not very good,’ and my heart sank, and then he took a breath and said, ‘Once you’re here you’ll really learn about architecture.’ I went from the lowest point to the highest point in about five seconds.” Though Wright wanted him to start right away, Goldman explained he had to finish one more semester of school.
APRIL 2016
bay
69