“I was trying to restore it to its original splendor, and that goes with a lot of responsibility, both artistically and financially,” he explains. With most of the renovation work in the past, he says the home promotes a certain type of existence. “The house sort of tells you how to live,” he says. “I live differently when I’m there.” Though LaBrecque says he’s not a morning person, when in the Wright home, he finds himself getting up early. “The sun comes in sort of like a sundial, and I get up, have my coffee, sit and watch the birds. That’s my routine,” he says. “It makes you live alongside nature.”
Practically, the house doesn’t have much storage, so he says it nudges him to live more minimally and avoid collecting unnecessary items. However, like the Bauers, LaBrecque agrees there is a certain anxiety that comes with the responsibility of owning and honoring the late architect’s work. “You’re always worried about messing it up,” he explains. “You don’t want to screw it up.”
Laura Gale House (Oak Park, Illinois)
Andrea Kayne’s favorite memory of living in the Laura Gale House—which she bought with her now husband in 2017—was the day they got married. “It was just us, our kids, and my really good friend who married us, and I felt like the house was this container that just brought us all together,” she says. “There’s something about the windows and lights…it was super special.” Both Kayne and her husband, Andy Mead, had been previously married, and when looking to combine their families, the Laura Gale House felt like a picture-perfect scenario. “I remember Andy and I took a walk along the street and we passed the house and thought it would be a dream to live there.”
Lucky for them, the property hit the market soon after, and the pair were able to scoop it up. Located in the Oak Park neighborhood just west of Chicago—a unique enclave full of multiple Wright designs from the early years of his practice—the home is often regarded as one of his most influential Prairie-style houses. Featuring cantilevered balconies and roofs, Wright later described the home as a progenitor to Fallingwater. “We just loved it,” Kayne says. “There were rooms for all our kids—it’s actually much bigger than it looks on the street—and we loved the cantilevers.”