{"id":2703,"date":"2021-03-28T12:22:50","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T12:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omnihomeideas.com\/design\/organic-architecture\/frank-lloyd-wright\/clarence-sondern-house-kansas-city-missouri\/"},"modified":"2024-01-14T21:06:11","modified_gmt":"2024-01-14T21:06:11","slug":"clarence-sondern-house-kansas-city-missouri","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/design\/organic-architecture\/frank-lloyd-wright\/clarence-sondern-house-kansas-city-missouri\/","title":{"rendered":"Clarence Sondern House, Kansas City, Missouri"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Photos of the Sondern House<\/p>\n

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Monument to Privacy<\/p>\n

I sought out this house with my father on one of my many trips to the area.\u00a0 My dad was a great companion for my many journeys of Frank Lloyd Wright discovery.\u00a0 He was always fascinated by the things that interested me and was great at giving me an alternative point of view on things.\u00a0 He found his own love for Wright when I helped him discover the Allen\/Lambe house in Wichita, Kansas… about 2 miles from his home.<\/p>\n

On this occasion, dad was very disappointed that we didn’t get to see anything of this house.\u00a0 It was early on a rainy Sunday morning and he kept trying to come up with plausible scenarios that would justify us going up and knocking on the front door.\u00a0 “Sir, Here’s your news paper.” was his favorite.\u00a0 I, presumably, would have been subtly snapping photos as he handed the owner their Sunday paper.<\/p>\n

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The stone at the entrance wall.<\/p>\n

Finding this home was a bit of work.\u00a0 The owners obviously like their privacy and Mr. Wright helped them with his design.\u00a0 They’d built up a ridge in the driveway so that you couldn’t see the home from the street.\u00a0 They changed the house number so it didn’t match the published address of the home.\u00a0 They also planted a lot of trees and bushes that prevent the casual observer from peeping in.<\/p>\n

It worked.\u00a0 It was obvious to me, though not my father, that they wanted privacy.\u00a0 I respected that.\u00a0 I took a photo from down the hill and one of the stone at the end of their drive, and let them be.<\/p>\n

My father and I had many great adventures in seeking out Frank Lloyd Wright homes and buildings.\u00a0 I am sad to say that this was one of the last ones.\u00a0 We toured the Allen\/Lambe house not long before he died in 2001.\u00a0 That is probably why it is one of my favorite homes. One of my only regrets with my dad is that we didn’t get a chance to go to Bartlesville, OK to see the Price Tower<\/a> and home that are there.\u00a0 He would have loved them.\u00a0 We constantly encouraged each other to go, but by the time we were able to sync up for a trip, he was too sick to travel.<\/p>\n

Clarence Sondern commissioned Mr. Wright to build this home in 1939.\u00a0 It was completed in 1940.\u00a0 The home demonstrates so many of Wright’s Usonian principles.\u00a0 The home is single level with a flat roof.\u00a0 Masonry sections provide the support for many walls of glass.\u00a0 There are long overhang on many portions of the house and a carport for the families vehicle.\u00a0 According to Storrer, this was the first home on which Jack Howe supervised the construction.<\/p>\n

In 1948, the second owner, Arnold Adler contacted Wright to make an addition.\u00a0 This greatly expanded the house and added additonal space for both living and for carports<\/a>.\u00a0 The whole layout of the house was changed, including the location of the front door.\u00a0 Since the home was built near a hill, the expanded living room was built a few steps down from the rest of the house, allowing for a higher ceiling and clerestory windows.\u00a0 The addition continued the use of tidewater cypress for the exterior and interior woodwork.<\/p>\n

Recent pics of the Clarence Sondern House.<\/p>\n

I got an e-mail in the Fall of 2003 from a man named Steve Murdick who lives near the Clarnece Sondern Home.\u00a0 It had been up for sale this year and he and his wife had toured the home with the realtor.\u00a0 He’d seen some of the info on my web site and e-mailed me about the photos.\u00a0 He’s generously allowed me to host his photos on my web site.\u00a0 In addition, he sent me images from the realtor’s web site and copies of the home inspector’s report.\u00a0 I won’t post up the last two sets of things because I don’t have permission to and for privacy reasons, but I’ll keep them stored away for future reference.\u00a0 Infinite thanks to Steve for sending me these photos.\u00a0 I appreciate your willingness to let me host them.<\/p>\n

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Plunge Pool<\/p>\n

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Outside the Living Room<\/p>\n

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Fence and shed (not Wright) built after 1948<\/p>\n

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View from top of Terrace.\u00a0 This is the Laundry\/Heater rooms<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Storage shed<\/p>\n

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View of Carports and Kitchen area from top of Terrace.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Metal Cabinets in the kitchen… looking in from the gallery<\/p>\n

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View from the other side of the Kitchen.\u00a0 Notice the air conditioner behind the cabinet in the lower right corner.<\/p>\n

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Looking into the Gallery and out to the plunge pool.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dining area and Gallery.\u00a0 The kitchen is beyond.\u00a0 At the far right is a Wright sound system built into the wall.\u00a0 It doesn’t work.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Living Room fireplace.\u00a0 The fireplaces have serious damage and will need around $11,000 worth of repairs<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Wooden deck in the garden outside the living room.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Terrace with nursery windows on the left.\u00a0 The sitting room windows are on the right.<\/p>\n

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Master Bedroom.\u00a0 The fireplace is behind the chair on the right<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The sitting room.\u00a0 This was the original living room.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sitting room looking toward the terrace<\/p>\n

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Looking at the sitting room fireplace.\u00a0 Notice the wet bar to the right.\u00a0 This was the original hallway to the original front doorway.<\/p>\n

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Bathroom right next to the entry .<\/p>\n

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Semi hidden radiator in the same bathroom to the left of the vanity.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Servants bedroom.\u00a0 This was used by the care-taker as the main bedroom.\u00a0 This room originally was much smaller.\u00a0 A wall was moved so that the heater room became smaller and the servant’s room is much bigger.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is the enlarged area of the servant’s room.\u00a0 Part of the heater room was turned into two large walk-in closets.\u00a0 The sliding glass door goes out to the terrace.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another view of the servant’s room.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Laundry room:\u00a0 This is what my friend Steve calls Frank Lloyd Wright’s nightmare.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This is the water heater for the radiant heating.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Water heater on the left and the radiant heat water heater on the right.<\/p>\n

About three weeks after I got these photos from Steve, I got an e-mail from another reader of my web site who happens to live near the Clarence Sondern Home.\u00a0 Tim sent me the link to his neighborhood’s home page.\u00a0 On it there is a really nice article about the Sondern house.\u00a0 You can find that web site by clicking here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Photos of the Sondern House Monument to Privacy I sought out this house with my father on one of my many trips to the area.\u00a0 My dad was a great companion for my many journeys of Frank Lloyd Wright discovery.\u00a0 He was always fascinated by the things that interested me and was great at … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1284,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[18,31],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Peter Beers*","author_link":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/author\/peter\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"New Photos of the Sondern House Monument to Privacy I sought out this house with my father on one of my many trips to the area.\u00a0 My dad was a great companion for my many journeys of Frank Lloyd Wright discovery.\u00a0 He was always fascinated by the things that interested me and was great at…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2703\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omnihomeideas.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}