Allen–Lambe House
The Allen–Lambe House is a Prairie Style home in Wichita, Kansas, designed by Frank [Lloyd Wright] in 1915 for former Kansas Governor Henry Justin Allen and his wife, Elsie.
Description and history
It was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's last Prairie Houses. The design influence of the prairie and Japanese architecture is apparent on both the exterior and interior.The building's exterior features a horizontal grey Carthage marble water table as a transitional element between the ground and the house, white horizontal brick joints and flush ocher head joints. The roof was designed with an emphasis on horizontal lines and covered with Ludowici tiles, featuring a unique Japanese-inspired starting course.
The house's interior continued the use of brick in a blend of ochre and buff colors, with joints gilded horizontally. The living and dining rooms wrap around a sunken garden filled with lilies and koi fish. A terrace paved in quarry tile extends in from the outside, and helps to blend the two spaces. The building was designed with a central vacuuming unit, an alarm system and gas fireplace logs. Another innovation was the first firewall in a residential home. The bricks contain iron, giving it a rust color.
It is currently run by the Allen House Foundation as a museum under the stewardship of the Wichita Center for the Arts. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 7, 1973.