the University in 1930. Mary
Palmer, a pianist, graduated
from the music theory program
in 1937, and the couple married
that same year.
It was Mary Palmer who
reached out to Frank Lloyd
Wright to design the home,
and it was she who put in the
work to see the initiative to
completion — a trend true for
many women with spectacled
husbands who spend too much
time in the study. The Palmers
were living in a farm home
on Geddes Avenue when they
purchased two lots on Orchard
Hills Drive with a generous
donation from Mary Palmer’s
father, who was involved in
various banking and business
interests. By then, they’d had
their two children, Adrian in
1940 and Mary Louise in 1942.
But it wasn’t just for them that
they wanted the new home: The
Palmers loved to entertain, and
found it exceedingly difficult
to do so at the more cramped
estate. So the Palmers shopped
around for an architect, looking
at local homes for inspiration.
They were especially attracted
to the Margaret and Harry
Towsley home on Vinewood
Avenue, which was owned by
and built for the Towsleys in
1932. Dr. Harry Towsley was a
professor and a pediatrician at
the University’s Medical School,
while Margaret Towsley was
an active community member,
volunteering
for
Planned
Parenthood,
the
community
center and the Republican Party.
The Towsley home is arguably
the beginning of the modernist
architecture movement in Ann
Arbor, with its flat roof and its
garage that faced the street —
a bold move then, and a first
for the city. It was designed by
Alden Dow, a Michigan architect
who apprenticed under Wright.
He would go on to design many
prominent buildings in Ann
Arbor, including the City Hall
(on Huron Street, just down the
street from those monstrous,
ever-under-construction,
brand-new student apartment
buildings),
the
Ann
Arbor
District Library, the Matthaei
Botanical Gardens and several
on-campus facilities.
It was Bill Palmer’s brother,
Carlos, who first suggested to
the Palmers at a cocktail party
that they seek out Dow’s mentor
himself, Frank Lloyd Wright.
Carlos
Palmer
was
familiar
with Wright’s work, and stated
matter-of-factly their architect
should be, “Wright, of course.”
Though Mary and Bill Palmer
are no longer alive, conversations
with the family regarding the
house were recorded by Grant
Hildebrand
and
synthesized
into a book, published nearly
a decade ago. Cox presents a
volume to me, titled simply
“Frank Lloyd Wright’s Palmer
House,”
with
a
sense
of
inherited pride. It rests on the
living room coffee table, which
is shaped as a parallelogram.
These conversations illuminate
a
meticulousness
by
the
Palmers in planning their home,
especially from Mary Palmer’s
end; she speaks in big ideas,
and with poetic eloquence. She
explained her first time walking
through a Wright home with her
husband as so:
“We sensed a new experience
immediately on entering the
carport and on into the loggia.
… But inside there was warmth
everywhere — in the fireplace, in
the beautiful cypress throughout
the house, and in the marvelous,
warm floors.”
And
yet
she
was
not
immediately sold on Wright.
She explained, “I was attracted
to his philosophy but … did
I really want to live in one
of those houses?” Here, she
gets at something that feels
tangible walking through this
museum-home.
The
almost
overbearing intention of the
place
doesn’t
necessarily
scream “homey.” “There was no
basement rec room, no place that
wasn’t
absolutely
beautiful,”
remembers
the
daughter
Mary Louise, describing the
tenseness that comes with such
beauty. Indeed, there’s a strict
atmosphere in the air as we walk
around; Cox has disallowed
photographs of nearly all the
interior, since it was stayed in just
last night. When we walk into
the bedrooms, with the bedding
slightly unmade, he seems a bit
embarrassed.
He
apologizes.
The house is “not quite perfect
right now.” Yet there’s a comfort
in seeing the parallelogram beds
imperfect, some humanity in
those wrinkled sheets.
But on the drive home from
a visit to a Wright house, Mary
Palmer explained that she and
Bill Palmer looked one another
in the eyes and said, “Let’s get
Mr. Wright,” and so they — or
rather, she — did. Wright was
83 and it was May when Mary
Palmer tracked him down at
North Carolina State University.
Wright was giving a lecture
to their architectural school,
and Palmer approached him
and gave him extensive notes
about the plot on Orchard Hills.
Wright accepted the job, and
replied to Palmer: “Now you go
back to your husband and take
care of those children. They
need to live in one of my houses.
I’ll take these things with me.”
Wright
presented
the
Palmers with the original “plan
geometry” in January 1951, and
Mary, one of the few Wright
homeowners
to
push
back
successfully on parts of his plan,
made a few changes. Red brick
was exchanged for the concrete
originally proposed; a shower
was added, an amenity which
Wright was often reluctant to
include in his homes, being a
man of baths himself. After
revisions, construction began
that April, and the house was
completed the following year,
just in time for the Christmas of
1952.
Mary Palmer, like her home,
was a woman strict in her
structure. Cox pauses while
describing her, and lands on
“feisty” — “quite a gal.” She often
told her children to maintain
“visual order,” in their home, and
in all things, and her son Adrian
later complained that he missed
a place where he could “have just
messed around.” There seems to
be a price paid for the home’s
impeccable beauty. Still, he says
he later recognized the higher
pleasure of the home — and,
unspoken but understood, of his
own mother’s order.
Mary Palmer was integral to
the local community, heading
the Ann Arbor music society
and often hosting elaborate
recitals in her home, where she
kept a Steinway Grand for such
occasions. She had an interest
in the spiritual and bodily, and
became dedicated to yoga later
in her life. A remembrance for
her, published by the National
Iyengar Yoga Association after
her death in 2011, describes
her passion for the practice.
According to the piece, Palmer’s
fascination with yoga began
in the ’60s; the passion, as the
story goes, blossomed from her
studies under B.K.S. Iyengar of
India. Palmer tracked him down
in 1969, and sat in on his classes
for nearly three weeks before
he would speak with her. He
had seen her as another of the
floating tourist types from the
United States who were common
in this period of Revolver and
Sgt. Pepper’s, coming only for
photos and a story to bring back
West. But Palmer was not, and
proved her allegiance with a
15-minute headstand.
A line from her book on the
subject
elaborates
on
such
dedication:
“The lure of yoga demands
from one the highest potential.
At the same time it reveals one’s
weaknesses. The moment of
truth cannot be experienced
without the constant play of
these opposing forces.”
Palmer
passed
away
in
2011. She had been living in a
“memory facility” in Ypsilanti,
as Cox describes it, for the last
few years of her life.
2B —Thursday, December 7, 2017
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
CEREN DAG/DAILY
House on Orchard Hills: Frank
Llyod Wright’s modernist haven
B-SIDE LEAD
Consider
triangles,
and
consider
geometry.
These
structures are here, literally
and
in
spirit:
The
small
interior benches are triangles;
the shower is a triangle; the
lampshades are triangles; the
roof, too, is a triangle, though
it’s an especially idiosyncratic
example. Consisting of cedar
shingles and wooden fascias,
it folds downward just slightly
and moves into an aggressive
point in the backyard, where it
hangs over a patio that expands
into the grass. The roof looks
almost like a spaceship, moving
through the stars — except this
spaceship stands among blowing
leaves, and atop a hill. That is,
it’s almost winter now, and the
trees are beginning to prepare
for it, shedding their green and
yellow onto the ground, making
a red circle around the wooden
bench in the backyard. The
circle of red leaves is fallen from
the apple tree that stands behind
the bench. The roof looks right
at it.
Geometry can be confusing.
There’s an adage that parents
tell their children who are
bad at geometry: If you’re bad
at geometry, you’ll be good at
algebra. If you’re bad at algebra,
you’ll be good at geometry. For
those kids in the first camp,
who took to numbers rather
than shapes, geometry might
have felt forced, oddly unreal —
inapplicable — with its sines and
cosines, linear planes and precise
measurements of the angles of a
hexagon. The consequences of
3.14 and antipodal points might
feel too abstract and separated
from the ball you smack in a
tennis match. It can be hard to
see how math relates at all to
this strange-ceilinged home on
a hill.
But there is an approachable
geometry
at
Frank
Lloyd
Wright’s Palmer House, situated
at the top of Orchard Hills Drive,
right on the edge of Ann Arbor’s
city limits. When you drive up the
lightly graveled driveway after
curving back and forth a few
times, you first notice the sharp
edges of the outdoor garage.
There’s a flat awning supported
by triangular brick columns for
vehicles, and for most cars, the
back bumper will stick out just
a little farther than the awning
supports. Then you notice more
shapes. There are the long and
thin rectangular prisms of the
stairs that lead to the front door,
and a corner of the home stands
to the left of the stairs (when you
enter, you’ll then notice this is
the kitchen), with two separate,
horizontal rows of identical
designs running through it.
These are little windows cut
into concrete blocks, and there
are 40 of them that surround
the kitchen, though only about
half face out to the stairs by the
entryway. This is a structure
with a meticulousness for edges
and lines. It feels hyperaware of
where the eye will go, and where
it wants to lead it. This home’s
geometry leads first to the door.
The two front doors are in
the French style and could
pass as windows, if it weren’t
for the dainty handles at waist
level. Gary Cox, a resident of
Plymouth, opens one. Cox is
wearing a horizontally striped
polo and blue jeans, and his
rimless reading spectacles sit on
a counter, facing the entryway.
Cox is the father of the
current owner of the Palmer
House, Jeffrey Schox. Schox,
who does not live in Ann Arbor,
is a graduate of the University
of
Michigan’s
mechanical
engineering program, and he
now runs a patent law firm
focused on startups; it has a
sleek website that uses words
like “transparency,” “passion”
and “excellence.” He also has
a soul patch, and resides in San
Francisco.
Cox is responsible for most
of the daily upkeep of the home,
which now operates as a guest
house
year-round.
(This
is
discounting assorted holidays.
The family likes to spend their
Christmases here.) He gives the
rare tour and checks on the state
of the infrastructure. Cox walks
into the living room, where he
begins to revel in his knowledge
of the home. The room feels
massive, though by square feet
it’s a little larger than most
American lounges.
Cox meets each client before
turning over the keys, and this
is at least in part for vetting
purposes.
He
reserves
the
right, he says, to turn a renter
away at the door if he feels it’s
necessary. But he has never done
so, and these door greetings
act more as an introduction to
the home, which Cox says is
the most difficult part of his
job. To articulate to the clients
what this all means; “to get the
clients to … understand,” he
says, requires this introduction.
Cox speaks eloquently, at times
impassionedly, when he talks
about the Palmer House. He
sometimes chuckles slightly as
he recounts the details of the
lives of the original owners.
He has given this talk and tour
many times — gave it just last
week, to a group of students
from the University’s Taubman
College of Architecture and
Urban Planning.
Keeping the name, “Palmer
House,” is one of the stipulations
for owning the home, which was
designed by famed American
architect Frank Lloyd Wright
in the early 1950s. The home is
under easement by the National
Register of Historic Places, and
beyond keeping the title, the
new owners must also consult
— and get approval from — the
conservatory register to make
any design changes, no matter
how mundane. Every so often,
the conservatory register makes
a visit to inspect conditions. He
speaks on these visits as if they
were coffee dates among friends,
chatting about the latest shift in
furniture.
The title comes from the
home’s original owners, William
Palmer and his wife, Mary. Both
were graduates of the University.
William Palmer, known more
commonly as Bill, or Billy,
became a professor of economics
after earning his master’s from
MATT GALLATIN
Daily Music Editor
The roof looks
almost like
a spaceship,
moving through
the stars; except
this spaceship
stands among
blowing leaves,
and atop a hill.
CEREN DAG/DAILY
But inside there
was warmth
everywhere —
in the fireplace,
in the beautiful
cypress
throughout the
house, and in
the marvelous,
warm floors.