The big stopper was local codes, over a fire escape. Oliver Barry CRS, GRI Real Estate Broker PARKS Real Estate Services 305 B Indian Lake Blvd Suite 220 Hendersonville TN 37075 Office: 615-826-4040 Mobile: 615-972-4239 [email protected]
> On Jan 23, 2018, at 4:49 PM, Jerry D. Belloit <[email protected]> wrote: > > This was probably a big administrative mistake. I was on the advisory board > of Florida Southern for many years. We were very proud of the buildings and > many people visited the campus because of them. > > Jerry > > From: GatorTalk <[email protected]> on behalf of Oliver Barry > <[email protected]> > Reply-To: GatorTalk <[email protected]> > Date: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 at 4:45 PM > To: GatorTalk <[email protected]> > Subject: [gatortalk] FW: [gatornews] Frank Lloyd Wright Designed A Fraternity > House For UF, And It Was Never Built – WUFT News > > Dang! It is a nice looking building, too. > It would have fit in nicely with most of the other fraternity houses at UF. > > Oliver Barry, CRS, GRI > Real Estate Broker > PARKS > 305B Indian Lake Blvd > Suite 220 > Hendersonville TN 37075 > Phone: 615-826-4040 > Mobile: 615-972-4239 > [email protected] > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Woody Bass > Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 9:47 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [gatornews] Frank Lloyd Wright Designed A Fraternity House For UF, > And It Was Never Built – WUFT News > > > https://www.wuft.org/news/2018/01/23/frank-lloyd-wright-designed-a-fraternity-house-for-uf-and-it-was-never-built/?utm_source=The+Point&utm_campaign=4bcbf62c44-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_01_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5a40db04c3-4bcbf62c44-311234577 > > Frank Lloyd Wright Designed A Fraternity House For UF, And It Was Never Built > Ethan Magoc > As Ken Treister remembers it, he and his circle of friends at the University > of Florida in 1951 had two desires. > > The first was for a fraternity house. Zeta Beta Tau, of which he was a > member, was then among a group of UF fraternities looking for a permanent > campus home. > > Rebellion was his group’s other pursuit. In Treister’s estimation, the School > of Architecture’s faculty at the time had a “closed mind” and didn’t welcome > visiting faculty. Treister and his architectural studies peers wanted to > invite the guest of all guests: Frank Lloyd Wright. > > “Frank Lloyd Wright was a celebrity architect unlike any we’ve ever had and > that we don’t have today,” University of Florida archivist John Nemmers says. > “There was Frank Lloyd Wright, and there was everyone else.” > > He was already known worldwide in the 1950s for his designs. His reputation > for speaking his mind also preceded him. > > “He was a very assertive architect. He wasn’t introspective or bashful. He > was very much interested in publicity,” Treister says. “Rebels loved rebels.” > > Letters were exchanged, and Wright one day flew into the Gainesville airport. > His speaking fee was $1,000; the students sold $1 tickets to cover the cost, > and the Oct. 23, 1951, crowd at the Florida Gym was standing room only. > > He arrived and walked past the assembled architecture professors and instead > met students informally in the lobby, giving an impromptu lecture. The speech > itself was not about architecture, with Wright opting for a focus on > international affairs. > > Treister later chauffeured Wright during his trip, and he summoned the > audacity to ask him to solve that other problem. Would he design a fraternity > hosue for the University of Florida and Zeta Beta Tau? > > Yes, he told the 20-year-old student, but on one condition. Architecture > students themselves had to help construct it — the foundation digging, > bricklaying, window fitting, everything. > > His request had a precedent. One hundred and twenty miles to the south, > Florida Southern College students were building by hand a number of > Wright-designed structures on campus. It saved the school money, sure, but to > Wright’s thinking allowed students to learn by doing. > > Florida Southern College is home to the “largest single-site collection” of > Wright buildings in the world. > The case for student labor at Florida Southern was easier. It’s a private > college. In Gainesville, the situation was going to be more bureaucratically > challenging, with any UF project requiring state approval and oversight. > > “He always said that committees are a disaster,” Treister said. > > Still, Wright returned to his home in Wisconsin after the Gainesville visit > and created blueprints for a fraternity house to be built on a wooded and > hilly site on the University of Florida campus. The intended area is today > known as Fraternity Row. > > At the University of Florida’s special collections archive: blueprints of the > unbuilt fraternity home. > When the fraternity brothers received Wright’s blueprints, Treister said they > were duly impressed: “It’s one of the most beautiful things Frank Lloyd > Wright ever designed.” > > That was one group’s opinion. As Treister and his cohort graduated, the grand > plan went awry. The university had a building committee, and the state had a > Board of Control, which reviewed the Wright plan and found 22 potential code > violations — “issues of nonconformity,” as Treister later put it. > > The most significant? There was no second fire escape. > > Based on correspondence records left behind, Nemmers says, “the three parties > weren’t always in step with each other.” > > Treister remembers Wright writing in response that “any healthy college > student can jump off the rear terrace and land safely on his feet.” The > 8-foot jump from that terrace was apparently too high a hurdle for > by-the-book state officials. Couple it with the student labor and > construction cost issue, and the project was doomed. > > But what would the Wright-designed ZBT house have looked like? > > > > It was long and narrow, with an overhanging roof above the two-tiered front > porch. The showers on the second level were open air, which would have made > for cold cleansing on January mornings, and the entire structure was intended > to conform to the hillside against which it would be constructed. > > The house ZBT eventually occupied on campus was not a Frank Lloyd Wright > creation. > > “Every visitor to the University of Florida would go to see the Frank Lloyd > Wright house, and it would be a showcase worth many, many millions of > dollars,” Treister says. “But the people on the building committee weren’t > interested in Frank Lloyd Wright.” > > For those interested in seeing Wright’s creation today, an architecture > professor and her class made it possible, albeit on a smaller scale. Martha > Kohen’s students in recent years built a model from Wright’s blueprints, and > for a time that model sat in former UF President Bernie Machen’s office. > > “He also was enamored of the story,” Nemmers says. > > Today, it’s preserved at the university’s Smathers Library in the > architecture archives, and Treister this month published a book about this > unrealized part of UF history through LibraryPress@UF. It’s available online > as a PDF. > > See more of the students’ scale model below. > > > > > > > > > > > Woody > > -- > -- > GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! > 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 > National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 > National Football Champions | > Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), > Tim Tebow (2007) > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "GatorNews" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- > -- > GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! > 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 > National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 > National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier > (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "GatorTalk" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > -- > GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! > 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 > National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 > National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier > (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "GatorTalk" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- -- GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "GatorTalk" group. 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