Home lives up to Frank Lloyd Wright legend, owner says

Three years ago, Times staff writer Diane Haithman traveled to Lake Mahopac, N.Y., to report on a retired contractor's attempt at a rare feat: to take one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s unbuilt designs and construct it exactly as Wright intended. Haithman recently went back to see the finished house and spoke with its owner. What follows is a photo tour of the home believed to be the first, since the architect's death, to rise on its intended site.

To settle a lawsuit filed by the notoriously picky Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Joe Massaro agreed to designate his home on a private island in Lake Mahopac as “inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright” rather than “designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.”

But Massaro, who had the home constructed from preliminary drawings of a house Wright designed for the rocky island, believes that, if Wright were still living, he would have made the same sort of structural changes Massaro did to take advantage of advancing technology and to meet current construction codes.

“You hear these purists that talk about how no unbuilt Frank Lloyd Wright house should ever be built because Frank Lloyd Wright isn’t here anymore,” Massaro told The Times. “And then you take a look at this masterpiece of his – I’m sure Frank would rather have it built than not built at all.”

Added Massaro, “Now that I stay on the island, I see the genius of this guy. Every view is different; it’s an amazing place to live.”