Marin Civic Center displays Frank Lloyd Wright doghouse
Frank Lloyd Wright is known for designing some of the most acclaimed structures in modern history. But in the 1950s, he sent a design for a doghouse to a 12-year-old Marin County boy.
Officials say it is the smallest structure ever designed by the visionary American architect. Now it’s housed within the largest building he ever conceived — the Marin County Civic Center in San Rafael.
“The people love it,” said Libby Garrison of the Marin County Department of Cultural Services. “We are a pet-loving community and I think it’s an intimate kind of lovely building and I feel like it tells a bigger Frank Lloyd Wright story. The doghouse adds further dimension to Frank Lloyd Wright in Marin County, and it’s a fun family story.”
The origin of the doghouse can be traced back to a Marin family who in the early 1950s sought to have the celebrated architect design their home. They wanted a building inspired by his “Usonian style,” intended for an everyman, middle-class American family. The home, called the Berger House, is in San Anselmo.
It took the family 20 years to build the house, brick by brick, Garrison said.
The Bergers’ son Jim wanted a matching Usonian doghouse for the family pet, a Labrador retriever named Eddie. He wrote a letter to the architect, who responded with plans written on the back of the letter at no charge.
The doghouse, which is about 4 square feet and triangular, is intended to match the home. It has a triangular structure with a low-pitched roof and an overhang. The original dog house was built with Philippine mahogany and cedar, scraps from the main house.
“I didn’t think in terms of Frank Lloyd Wright being as famous as he was,” Jim Berger said in an interview with the county in 2017. “I mean, a 12-year-old kid doesn’t process things like that.”
The original piece was not built until 1963, after Jim Berger joined the Army. The family dog never used it, instead, apparently, preferring the comforts of the Usonian home designed for its human owners.
Jim Berger’s father Robert died in 1970, and the original doghouse was taken to the dump.
In 2010, Jim and his brother Eric decided to rebuild the doghouse, and their work was donated to the county in 2016.
The doghouse was previously on view in the library for about a year after the donation. It then stayed in storage before being unveiled in the Civic Center on May 25.
Garrison said she thinks the architect would have “loved” the concept, as it allows for even more tactile interaction with the architecture.
“I think this just gives one more dimension for people to appreciate the building, access the building,” Garrison said. “We are thrilled to be able to put it on view.”
The unveiling of the doghouse corresponds with the resumption of public docent tours at the Civic Center. The tours are being held at 10:30 a.m. on Fridays and run about 90 minutes long.
The tour covers the history of Vera Schultz and Mary Summers, two women responsible for hiring Wright to design the building.
“It’s a way to learn the whole history of the building and the property,” Garrison said.
Joan Brown is a county docent who directs tours of the Civic Center.
“I think with any volunteer work, if you do something you’re passionate about, you always get back more than you give,” Brown said. “I get energized when I do it.”
Brown said she developed an appreciation and affection for Wright after moving to California. She described his work as visionary.
“I think Marin County is really, really fortunate to have the Frank Lloyd Wright Civic Center and the Usonian house,” she said. “He’s been called America’s greatest architect. For Marin to have those architectural achievements is really astonishing.”
Brown encouraged the public to visit for the tours. The doghouse, she said, is “the real deal.”
