First impressions of the Weekend House

On March 27th, 2023, I discovered the house I would devote myself to. It was all the things I loved best. Growing up in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, I longed for foggy forested quiet. During the pandemic, I spend long hours studying Frank Lloyd Wright's evolution from Arts & Crafts to Prairie School Style, Usonian, and Organic. I dreamed of living in one of his buildings one day, but there are so few, and I was hoping for something near the Point Reyes National Seashore. I first came to Point Reyes in November 2010 and was smitten. Originally I planned to stay in a local hotel whenever I wanted to visit. Still, I found it impossible to find places to stay here over time. I began working with a realtor and looked at properties for nearly a decade, but nothing inspired me to action.

When I first visited the property, there were two houses there. The first was a small house designed by Turnbull Griffin Haesloop in the typical Sea Ranch style. It was nice, only twenty years old, and an excellent jumping-off point for adventure. It also featured an awe-inspiring view.

But then I walked up the hill and glimpsed the Weekend House. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a tiny jewel box gem of a house. Tiny and demure but packed with architectural details and stylings that captured the best of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian ideals, with the optimism of the atomic architecture of the mid-century modern period. I tried to hold in my excitement but mostly failed. This house was everything I'd been looking for. At only 525 square feet (48.7 square meters), it was a house small enough for me to manage and restore. Made of Fir, Cedar, glass, and concrete, it was an organic spaceship in the middle of the forest. I was spellbound.

With the classic Wrightian Cherokee Red concrete floors in 3'x3' sections, the soffit details, and the view, I was committed. Of course, this was unwise, and I knew I was in dire danger of committing years to this house's restoration. Outside, the walls around the landing were crumbling, and the concrete floors had cracked as the house settled. The outside wood had dry rot, and in the 1990s, the house had been abandoned and left unlocked, and some juvenile miscreants had carved their names into the built-in table. But it was perfect.

When I discovered her name, the researcher in me was overjoyed. I was told it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's only female apprentice, but of course, he had dozens of women that were fellows at Taliesin. Lois Davidson Gottlieb was a prolific architect, and she was a fastidious archivist as well. I was overjoyed to find so much of her work, especially this house, saved and documented for future researchers.

The first thing I found was her book, "Environment and Design in Housing," which she wrote in 1965, eight years after completing her first house -- my house -- the Weekend House. In this book about architecture primarily written for women in the 1960s, she wrote a case study on developing a 24'x24' weekend house. She described the person she built it for, the design elements, and all her considerations. This chapter also includes stunning black & white photos from 1952 by Morley Baer, a contemporary of Ansel Adams. I learned that many of Baer's original negatives were archived at the University of Santa Cruz, so I tried to see if they were held, but they were not included in the collection, as far as the librarians knew.

I also began researching Lois and the original owner, Gregory Val-Goeschen. Val Goeschen was a marriage counselor and therapist who purchased twenty acres at the top of Inverness Ridge in California. Lois' family lived in Point Reyes, and her father worked for the oil industry. My searches turned up odd Airbnb-style photos of the cabin, blog posts from past visitors, and occasional Frank Lloyd Wright communities rediscovering her. But the house itself was incredible. I spent weeks reviewing its appealing lines and designs at night, imagining what it would be like to live there.