Building a Dream: A Family Affair

This video documents the construction of a custom home God might build...if He had a lot of money. No, it's not the gizmo-cluttered Microsoft Mansion being built by Big Brother Bill, but an ecologically elegant Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired domicile in Northern Virginia. The home, serenely situated in a forest overlooking a beaver pond, was designed by an eighty-year-old grandmother (who was a former Wright apprentice at Taliesin) for her son's family. The video nicely chronicles the familial collaboration on the house's development, detailing the concerns, set-backs and triumphs augmenting each phase of completion. For armchair spectators, (like moi), who vicariously enjoy good old hard hat construction--This Old House, Hometime, et al.--this is a rare treat: the stage-by-stage erection of an original Wright Usonian from the subterranean Swiss-made retaining walls to the hipped roof skylights. Architecture students and those aesthetically in the know will appreciate the new structure's homage--angled wide eaves, interior waterfall, De Stijl spatial design--to the century's greatest architect. Nicely filmed, with ambiance music throughout and narration provided by the inspired modernist grandmother. Recommended primarily for academic architecture collections. Aud: C, P. (W. Pierce)