Though Frank Lloyd Wright designed many hundreds of buildings over the course of his prolific career, his final project – Circular Sun House (also known as the Norman Lykes House) – was an oasis of calm in the heat of the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. The elegantly contoured residence has arrived on the market, with an asking price of US$8.95 million (AU$12.77 million).
Situated on a 1.3-acre block near the edge of the Arizona parklands, the structure was carefully designed to disappear into the surrounding landscape, while the three-bedroom home offers 3,200 square feet of interior space. As one of just 14 circular homes that Wright designed in his lifetime, the basic principle of the design is one of overlapping concentric circles which allows for spaces to flow seamlessly from one to the next.
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The outside pool is lined with mother-of-pearl and feels close to nature while still offering ample privacy and much of the cabinetry inside is constructed using handcrafted Philippine mahogany. With almost all of the windows angled to avoid the harshness of direct sunlight, the interior remains light-filled and provides occupants with blissfully uninterrupted views out across Palm Canyon below.
“The Norman and Aimee Lykes house is the ultimate progression of Wright’s fascination with geometry, drawn entirely of circles, intersecting and interacting,” said Brent Lewis, director of design for Heritage Auctions, about the home.
“In this way, it’s consistent with some of the other well-known projects completed by Wright in the 1950s, such as the spiralling Guggenheim Museum in New York and Dallas’s Kalita Humphreys Theater.”
While not as well-known as the famed Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Circular Sun House represents an opportunity to be a custodian of a piece of American architecture history.
