Introduction

Sited on an 8+ acre piece of property in the northern part of Fairfax Station is a bespoke house designed and built by local builder Jack Willmore. With due homage to the modernist architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, the Wright-Neutra House measures 6000+ square feet, with an open floor plan, large, cantilevered balconies reminiscent of Fallingwater, walls of glass, and an indoor koi pond. With fish. Big fish.

Le Corbusier wrote over one hundred years ago in his seminal book “Vers Une Architecture” (Crès, 1923): “You employ stone, wood and concrete, and within these materials you build houses and palaces. That is construction. But suddenly you touch my heart . . . and I say: ‘This is beautiful.’ That is architecture.”

The Wright-Neutra House is indeed “architecture” - - both in name and in situ.

For those who have traveled to Pennsylvania to see Frank Lloyd Wright‘s 1930s Fallingwater, the first time you walk down the path and catch sight of that masterpiece is absolutely breathtaking Sitting serenely among the trees, yet hovering majestically over the surrounding flora and fauna, the cantilevered terraces and windows seem to balance on air. In harmony with nature, Frank Lloyd Wright created a house that truly drew its inspiration from its surroundings.

You will experience something akin to that as you come around the ninety-degree angle of the pipe stem driveway at the Wright-Neutra House and see the house off in the distance amid its natural surroundings, with numerous seemingly suspended balconies cantilevered over the hillside - - balconies that seem to defy gravity.

Visitors often stop on the driveway when the house first becomes visible to contemplate the extraordinary properties of the house and the land on which it sits - - the uncluttered geometry of concrete, glass and copper; the massive glass windows looking out at the open space of Northern Virginia, replete with deer, foxes, cardinals, and all manner of critters; and, most of all, the soaring balconies that appear to be suspended among the trees.

A house that inspires such endless contemplation is indeed “architecture”. The Wright-Neutra House is built in what has been commonly referred to as the “international modern style” and borrows in concept from its namesake 20 th century architectural geniuses -- Frank Lloyd Wright, an American, and Richard Neutra, an Austrian who did most of his work in California. While soaring cantilevers and the juxtaposition of horizontal planes that seem to defy gravity are not the exclusive domain of Mr. Wright, his use of “reinforced concrete” to produce Fallingwater is considered one of the great feats of engineering and architecture of the last century. The Wright-Neutra House borrows from that, while the use of natural light through broad walls of glass and a concept of quiet spaciousness are borrowed from Mr. Neutra, who was a master of clean-line design and elegant simplicity.

The Wright-Neutra House brings Wright’s use of “reinforced concrete” to build cantilevers into the twenty-first century. All but one of the cantilevers in the house are through fourteen-inch steel beams in the floors. This allows the cantilevers to seemingly hang off the house without some of the challenges faced by the preservationists at Fallingwater.

Floor Plans

The floor plan of the Wright-Neutra House orients the best views toward the rear, attempting to bring the feeling of the woods inside.  The front of the house is deliberately minimal to provide privacy and to offset the drama in the rear.  The house siding is sheathed entirely with plywood covered with tinted cement plaster.  The color of the house and the extensive use of copper helps meld the house to the woods and its natural patinas.  

Inside the house, Richard Neutra’s inspired pin-wheel interior design requires all traffic to pass the koi pond in the center of the house with its rippling waterfall - - an ever-present feature seen from the first and second levels of the house - - and the dappling light of the rippling water careening off the walls in the afternoon sun.