Marilyn Monroe’s house of dreams
American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (8 June 1867- 9 April 1959) is one of the most important and productive architects of the 20th century. Many of his structures were planned but never built. Fortunately, the huge amount of drawings that Wright left show what some of these unbuilt projects may have looked like and prove once more his great imagination.
Wright’s drawings for Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe caught our attention. They are surrounded by many rumours and thus contribute even more to the halo of mystery around the movie star and her private life. In 1957, Marilyn Monroe visited Frank Lloyd Wright in his apartment at the Plaza Hotel in New York and asked him to design a new house in Roxbury, Connecticut. She had great visions for it and didn’t care about cost — her dream house had to be something special and unique. Wright was fascinated by Marilyn and started the project as soon as she left. Based on an unbuilt design for a Texan couple he adapted the sketches to create Marilyn‘s dream house.
Miller told Wright that they would like to live simply, but the planned building looks impressive and ambitious. At the heart of the space is a circular living room surrounded by massive fieldstone columns, brightened by round dome skylights. From there Marilyn and Arthur could have enjoyed the view of a 70-foot swimming pool with natural stone walls. The concept is typical for Wright‘s late career style. His love for organically inspired forms, and the attention for the landscape from which architecture literally grows out of, are recurring topics in his work as an architect.
At the time Wright‘s concept was too imposing and expensive — he hadn’t considered the client‘s needs, and so they rejected it and decided to keep their old house. Later the design was combined with others and adapted to realise the Waikapu Country Club in Hawaii, completed in 1993.
