The Alan I W Frank House

With four levels of living space and an indoor swimming pool, the main building encloses 12,000 square feet, complete with curved glass facade, nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms.

The stonework of the exterior walls and the dramatic entry of this innovative house suggest a detailed and richly textured building.

Inside, graceful curves prevail throughout with paneled walls of warm pearwood, English sycamore, and redwood, or of travertine or stone.

[1] Barry Bergdoll, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at MoMA wrote in Hauser magazine, "The home’s three-story window wall swells in the facade next to the circular stair, which sweeps visitors from the ground floor entry and recreational area to the first-floor living area and then continues to rise to the next level.

The theme is echoed in a sculptural outside stair of concrete taking visitors from the front to the back garden via an open terrace, an alternative dramatic path through the house.

[2] The Frank House has been described as a unique synthesis between the modernism of the interwar years and the sumptuous ethos of Breuer's so-called New Humanism.

[1] Gropius, Breuer and the Franks envisioned the home's design as skillfully integrating all the requisite disciplines — structure, materials, furnishings and landscape.

[3] Cecelia and Robert considered Walter Gropius, who had recently come to the United States and become head of Harvard's Department of Architecture, to be the world's leading architect.

Interested in what the new architecture could achieve and its potential to realize their ideals — Cecelia, Robert and their young son Alan met with the architect at his office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and visited Gropius’ home in Lincoln.

Its sunlit rooms, outdoor terraces and indoor pool provided a warm and friendly environment in which to raise a young family.

The family's dedication to preserving the work of Gropius and Breuer has kept the original features and furnishings intact, making the home a valuable example of a unique turning point in the timeline of modern architecture.

John Carter Brown III, director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, described the house as “the nation’s crown jewel.” Toshiko Mori, Chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, said the experience of visiting is “one of those rare occasions when you enter a house and it’s absolutely authentic.

For the last eight years, they have been on exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art through the efforts of former director Richard Armstrong, and the support of the Hillman Foundation.