page_title: Robert and Rae Levin House
section_title: Finished House
hierarchical_section_title: Robert and Rae Levin House / Finished House
caption_attribution_description: Robert Levin House exterior, Kalamazoo, Michigan, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
context_page_description: In 1949, Robert and Rae Levin worked with Frank Lloyd Wright to build a house in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was the first house to be built in Parkwyn Village, a planned community of Usonian houses. Usonia is a word used by Frank Lloyd Wright and refers to the residents of the United States Of North America.
  Those houses were meant for the common man at that time.
  The finished house was constructed of textile blocks, big windows and skylights, built-in furniture, and a mix of shallow and grand sloping ceilings. Wright designed the house to be connected closely to nature.
context_section_description: As with many of the Usonian houses, Wright used a large amount of glass, wide roof overhangs, large fireplaces, open interiors, spacious terraces, and outdoor living facilities. He did not like the idea of a house being like a cardboard box, so his designs were far from four walls and a single flat roof. A Usonian house was intended to be "a thing loving the ground with the new sense of space, light, and freedom." 
  Wright used natural light to help dramatize forms and textures. In the Levin house there were many grand windows, as well as smaller cut-outs that light could shine through in the textile bricks.
  To help simplify the house, the garage became an open-carport, radiators became radiant heat, and paint was not used in favor of natural wood. Wright also reduced the need for free standing furniture by creating built-in furniture.
  The original finished house consisted of three bedrooms, two baths, a study, a living room, a dining room, a screened in porch, and a small basement utility room. In the original plans the kitchen was labeled as a workspace that included the clothes washer and dryer. Later a family room, two bedrooms, and a basement were added to the house.
caption: Exterior of the Levin House
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