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Custom reproduction roof tiles are installed on the Robie House in Chicago. Photos Courtesy Of Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust
The Robie House, Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie-style masterpiece, was built for about $27,000 in 1909. Today, about half its restoration has been completed for $3.5 million.
The exterior repairs are almost finished, and heating, cooling, electrical and alarm systems have been added to the interior.
The good news about all this dust and construction is that tours are continuing in the house - on the University of Chicago campus on Chicago's South Side - throughout the renovation.
One of the home's most glamorous features is the 174 art glass windows and doors, marching around the house in long bands.
They often have little iridescent panes in gold, violet, turquoise, rose, browns and green. Fragments of zinc and copper in the glass accomplished this, said Janet Van Delft, the home's operations manager.
The window patterns vary, but Van Delft points out that a diamond shape used in all of them has the same angle as the home's roof line.
Windows are an important part of the prows - the distinctive pointed bays that contribute to the ship feeling of the house.
The home could be Wright's best prairie-style creation, and he twice led campaigns against its demolition before his death at 91 in 1959.
Donations for the restoration have included a $2 million Illinois First state grant and $1 million from the Pritzker Foundation's Save America's Treasures program.
Funding has been scarce since Sept. 11, 2001, and the number of visitors - 25,000 in good years - has also declined, Van Delft said. A capital drive will have to be launched to finish the restoration, she said.
Features to enjoy inside Robie House include the living and dining rooms, which are 75 feet long and 20 feet wide and take up most of the second floor. They are separated only by the fireplace and feature walls of windows and glass doors.
Twelve pairs of art glass doors face south, for example. Residents could sit on a built-in bench in the inglenook near the fireplace and look out at the Midway Plaissance. That was before University of Chicago buildings were constructed in the intervening blocks.
The...