Eighty Five Years of Hardy House Friendship

Posted on September 16, 2026 by Mark Hertzberg

I have posted many stories about Anne Sporer Ruetz and her passion for the house she grew up in between 1938 – 1947, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House south of downtown Racine, Wisconsin. Anne was five when her parents became the second stewards of the house after Hardy lost the house in a sheriff’s auction from the steps of the Racine County Courthouse the year before. Hardy, who was deeply in debt over the house, appealed the sale but the bank prevailed.

We are fortunate that Anne was given a Brownie camera when she was about 10 years old, and enjoyed taking pictures of her home.

Anne wrote “my dream house” on the back of this photo she had taken as a child. She told me that she would sometimes dream that her husband, Russ, bought her the house as a birthday present.

She took many photos of her friends at the house, especially of Mary Johnson who would be a lifetime friend, later as Mary Johnson Hill:

Mary fastens her roller skates in front of the wood gates that hung across the entry ways until 1950.

The only furniture that we know Wright designed for the house were the dining room set and beds that were so constricting that Anne and Mary called them the “coffin beds.” Mary graciously drew a photo from memory for my 2006 book about the house:

Mary a frequent guest at the house, is not certain there was paneling on the sides.

Anne celebrated her 14th or golden birthday on Wednesday August 14, 1946. The Racine Journal Times published a photo of the birthday breakfast at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed dining room table in the Thursday August 15 edition of the newspaper. Mary Johnson is the second girl from the right.

Mary, left, and Anne, both 94, visited the house together again this summer. Mary’s daughter, Anne Hill Bird, Director of Outreach and Engagement for the Society of Architecture Historians, sent me this lovely photo:

I wish that photo were the end of the story of this friendship, but it is not. I got this email September 14 from Mary’s daughter:

Dear Mark:

I wanted to let you know that my mother, Mary Hill passed away yesterday. She was 94, and recently had a bad fall… We will miss her dearly, but she definitely had a good run, and a fabulous life full of love, family, travel, experiences, friends, significant civic work and lots of laughter. We should all be so lucky.

I know you asked for permission to publish the image of both her and Anne Ruetz in front of the Hardy House. I checked with her about a week ago, and she said if Anne was OK with it, she would be fine with that image on your website. I know she loved participating in your book where she drew the pictures of the “coffin beds” that she and Anne Ruetz had slept in as young girls.

(I talked with Anne yesterday, and gave her my condolences over the loss of her friend. She looks forward to their friendship being remembered on-line).

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Racine’s Secret is Revealed

Posted on July 26, 2026 by Mark Hertzberg

Racine, Wisconsin has a long-hidden architectural secret. I have known this secret for several decades. Now, thanks to the latest OA+D Journal of Organic Architecture + Design, the secret is out in the open.

The secret is not an artifact. It is not a drawing. It is not a building. It is a person…the multi-talented Robert Hartmann. Bob is a designer and a photographer. Most important to me, he lives near me and he knows a whale of a lot about architecture and design. He was my sounding board when I wrote my books about Frank Lloyd Wright’s work in southeastern Wisconsin.

Designer Robert Hartmann at his drafting table at his home in Racine, March 17, 2018.

We spent many hours together exploring the Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine, and Penwern, the Fred B. Jones estate on Delavan Lake, Wisconsin. He made numerous observations about this detail or that one, pointing me on different paths of discovery in my research.

Bob measures the cantilever on the post-World War II rebuilt dining room terrace at the Hardy House in 2005.

Bob was first exposed to organic architecture in 1950 when he was eight years old. The family had taken a drive in their black 1948 Buick Roadmaster from their suburban Milwaukee home to Racine, and they saw Frank Lloyd Wright’s new SC Johnson Research Tower. He earned a BA from the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee and his Masters in Environmental Design at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture at Wisconsin before moving to Racine and opening his design office in 1976. He designed a number of downtown Racine storefronts.

Bob with Bill Orkild, the construction manager at Penwern, in 2017.
They are comparing Wright’s drawings for the stable to the extant building.

His time in Madison yielded much of the treasure trove of photographs in the Journal. Bob set out in his Sunbeam compact car to document Wright and Louis Sullivan’s work soon after Wright’s death in 1959. Some of those buildings were demolished over the next 15 years. Bob’s crisp black and white photos are some of the only contemporary photographs of such buildings as Wright’s Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Hotel (Demolished in 1970); Wright’s Northome in Wayzata, Minnesota (demolished in 1972); and Wright’s Munkwitz American-System Built apartments in Milwaukee (demolished in 1974). Two of his photographs of Adler & Sullivan’s Chicago Stock Exchange (demolished in 1972) grace the front and back covers of the Journal.

Bob’s photograph of the Munkwitz Apartments in Milwaukee. They were demolished to widen the street.

In 1967 Bob documented the construction of Wright’s Spring Green Restaurant, now the Frank Lloyd Wright Visitor Center. He was Johnny-on-the-spot on March 18, 1972, rushing over to the Harold and Josephine Bradley House in Madison the morning after fire tore through the house which had been designed by Sullivan’s and George Elmslie in 1909, five years before it was sold to the Sigma Phi Fraternity (Sigma Phi restored the house and it was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976).

Photographing the City National Bank building in Mason City, 2012.

Walter House, Quasqueton, Iowa, October 11, 2012.

The Journal also features a rich collection of work from Bob’s drafting table. In 1971 Bob volunteered to make a color rendering for William Wesley Peters of his proposal for Wright’s never-realized Monona Terrace project.

Bob with his drawing for Peters of the first phase of the Monona Basin proposal, January 19, 2006.

When I was working on my book about Penwern Bob stared at Wright’s “Wallis Scheme 1” drawing from 1900 for Henry H. Wallis’s summer cottage on Delavan Lake. (Scheme 2 was realized). Faint pencil marks caught Bob’s eye. He enlarged the drawing on his computer. The pencil marks showed a possible tower at the end of the porte-cochère, and a covered walkway above it. Those were both features realized on Wright’s nearby Penwern summer cottage.

Patrick Mahoney, an architect and well-known Wright scholar from Buffalo then suggested to me that it is possible that rather than proposing those for Wallis, Wright may have used the Wallis drawing to sketch out preliminary ideas for Penwern. We will, of course, never know for certain, but it is thanks to Bob that we can discuss the question. He took Wright’s drawing and finished it to show what Wallis it would have looked with those features. Two of Wright’s elevation drawings of Penwern have been lost; Bob gave the stewards of Penwern his rendition of what they would have looked like.

Bob was commissioned to design a logo and homes for a housing project near the SC Johnson campus in Racine in the early 2000s. The project was never realized

Bob’s drawings are also an integral part of the story of Eugene Masselink‘s wall mural, “Heavenly Spheres,” originally located in the Flying Dutchman Bar in Spring Green, the subject of another issue of the Journal. The mural was donated to OA+D by the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation in 2022 so it could be restored (the bar burned in 2004).

It is an understatement to characterize Bob as inquisitive and meticulous. Quickly turning around work, well, maybe not so much. He is a perfectionist, and is too precise to push something half-baked out the door. Almost every phone conversation I’ve had with Bob the last few years has included his lament, “You know, I’ve still got to get those photographs to Eric (O’Malley, President of OA+D).” Bob, I’m glad you finally did. You have enriched us with your talents.

Bob was honored by Preservation Racine October 23, 2005. His wife, Jill, is next to him.

Bob in the front hallway of Wright’s Hardy House, September 7, 2024.

Please scroll down for previous posts on this website.

Follow the link below to buy the Hartmann, Masselink, and other copies of the Journal:

https://oadarchives.bigcartel.com/category/journal-oa-d

Hardy at Sunrise / Photo Workshop

Posted on October 31, 2025 by Mark Hertzberg

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Why in the blazes would I set the alarm for 6 a.m. on a Saturday a week ago? Really, why? We are in the midst of moving (after 47 years!) and sleeping in would have been swell. So, yeah, well, why? To help Andrew Pielage who was conducting one of his photo workshops in Racine.

Hardy Pielage 10.25.25 016.JPEG Andrew had 18 photo guests arriving shortly after 7 a.m. to photograph Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy house inside and out, top to bottom. Andrew had asked me a year ago to tell the photographers about Hardy and about the house. Tom Szymczak, the steward of the house, had two kringle and a pot of hot coffee waiting. I got there at 6:48 a.m. Before I could get the goodies out and turn on the lights, I had to take my own photos of the house at sunrise. So, first my photos, and then my photos of the photographers.

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People sometimes ask my about what brand of camera is best. My answer is that the photographer’s eye is more important than the nameplate. I use Nikons because I am looked into their lens system. I have long carried a new go-to camera in my pocket…my smartphone. I recently upgraded to the iPhone 17 Pro. My friend Harvey Riekoff asked me what I thought of the camera…all the photos in this post were taken with the phone. It makes me think of cartoonist Aaron Johnson’ What the Duck t-shirt that I was given a few years ago: “Your camera takes great pictures!” To which the duck answered, “Your mouth makes nice compliments!” And, now photos of Andrew’s guests:

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(My wife has a collection of photos of me on my back taking photos in Wright homes and other historic sites…I had to take this photo!)

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For more information about Andrew Pielage’s Photo Workshops;

https://www.apizm.com/events-calendar

Please scroll down to read previous posts on this website.

Wright Book Beat, Fall 2025

Posted on September 24, 2025 by Mark Hertzberg

We are previewing four new books about Frank Lloyd Wright and his architecture. Two were recently published. The other two might be on your wish list for next year. (Disclaimer: I have photographs in the Hansen and Rovang books, and am consulting on the Hardy House section of the Lubell / Pielage book)

In alphabetical order, by author:

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Dahlin, a Racine native, is the award-winning architect who is the founder of Genesis Architecture in Racine. The book is part of the “Routledge Research in Architecture” series. As previewed by Routledge: “This book connects Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic theory with his pursuit of beauty, presenting a path for the recovery of beauty in architecture…”

Dahlin recently spoke at Wright in Wisconsin’s event at Taliesin and signed books at the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy’s conference in Pittsburgh. His work is the cover feature of the current issue of the Journal of Architecture + Design (see link below).

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Kristine Hansen: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Illinois

This book will be a sequel to Hansen’s successful 2023 book Frank Lloyd Wright’s Wisconsin: How America’s Most Famous Architect Found Inspiration in His Home State which went into three printings.

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The Illinois book, whose subtitle has not been determined yet, is expected to be published next July or August. Wisconsin is a slim paperback that through photographs and narratives explores Wright’s work in his native state. It is described as “is part travel guide, part fireside chat with stewards of his designs.” Globe Pequot is the publisher of both books.

LR Hansen.jpg Hansen at her book talk at Boswell Books in Milwaukee, June 9, 2023.

Sam Lubell and Andrew Pielage: 50 Houses

Rizzoli will be publishing this book by architectural writer Sam Lubell and Wright and architectural photographer Andrew Pielage. A press release previews the book as a project that “will delve into the stories of 50 of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most iconic designs…(it) will uncover the rich and distinctive narratives that make each house as remarkable as its design.” The book is more than just another architectural and historic survey of these properties as it “celebrates Wright’s enduring legacy and the human experiences” of the houses. One of the 50 houses is the Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine, which I have long been familiar with. Lubell and I had a long conversation about the house in the living room a month ago. Pielage was given the privilege of staying there overnight so he could photograph it at different times of the day, evening, and night:

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Sarah Rovang: Through the Long Desert – Georgia O’Keeffe and Frank Lloyd Wright:

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Rovang’s book had its genesis eight years ago in a “why not?” moment when she attended a panel discussion in Santa Fe with Stuart Graff, then President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, and Cody Hartley, Director of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, about similarities between the two artists. Someone in the audience suggested that there should be a book about them, because they knew each other. After a week of pondering the idea, she emailed Graff and Hartley that she would want to be the author. Rovang will be at the October 23 “Sunsets & Sips” at Taliesin West:

https://franklloydwright.org/sunsets-sips/

I can relate to the “why not?” moment. I am often asked how I started on the path to being commissioned to write and photograph first one book, and ultimately four, about Wright and his work in Southeast Wisconsin. It’s a convoluted tale, that started with a “why not?” moment. Bravo, Sarah, for following through on that moment!

Links:

Dahlin’s book website, with discount coupon (the book lists for $152):

https://www.routledge.com/Frank-Lloyd-Wright-and-the-Path-to-Beauty/Dahlin/p/book/9781032620053?srsltid=AfmBOopoF7ZSGIZC6IbNLkzliB53hBd1nLevv3ShpW0sQQzL4M8G6apy

Genesis Architecture:

https://www.genesisarchitecture.com

OA + D Journal:

https://oadarchives.bigcartel.com/product/journal-oad-v13n2

Routledge Research in Architecture Series:

https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Research-in-Architecture/book-series/RRARCH

Hansen’s book:

https://www.globepequot.com/9781493069149/frank-lloyd-wrights-wisconsin/

Sam Lubell’s website:

https://www.samlubell.com

Andrew Pielage’s website:

https://www.apizm.com

I urge you to purchase books directly from the publisher or from a local bookseller rather than reflexively ordering from “The Big A.” Even if Amazon will save you money, we need to support our local bookshops.

Please scroll down for earlier articles on this website.

Hardy Reflections and Shadow Play 8.5.25

Posted on August 6, 2025 by Mark Hertzberg

Photos © Mark Hertzberg (2025)

Hardy Shadow Play 8.5.25 001.JPEG One of the entry way hallway windows is reflected in the two story living room windows that overlook Lake Michigan.

One of the aspects of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House that continually fascinates me is the shadow play from the seven windows in the entry hallway. I had the opportunity to have fun with the reflections and shadow play again when I met at the house with Sam Lubell yesterday. Lubell and photographer Andrew Pielage are working on a book about 50 Wright homes for Rizzoli (more about that in a future post).

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As Robert McCarter has pointed out, the floor plan of the house is delineated in white in the windows: the square in the middle represents the public areas, the two story living room and the dining room one floor below. When I lead tours of the house I remind the guests that the only computer Wright had when he came up with such designs was the one between his ears.

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The rectangle that bisects the square represents the bedrooms at either end of the two main floors. We now add to the drama of the seven Wright-designed windows the leaded glass inserts in the two sliding entry doors (one north, one south). They replicate the design of Wright’s living room windows, which were taken out by the second stewards of the house (1938 – 1947) because they leaked. They were replaced by clear windows.

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These quick happy snaps were taken with my phone camera…elapsed time, except for the top photo, seven minutes. Every time I turned I saw another photo. Thank you Gene and Tom and Joan Szymczak, for rehabilitating the house for us to enjoy!

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Hardy House Views: 1904 – 2025

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Mark Hertzberg

Today I had the rare (and arguably unfortunate) opportunity to photograph Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine, Wisconsin from the lake, without getting wet. Climate change is playing havoc with Lake Michigan (as it is with the world). In 2020, the water level was so high that the stewards of the house, and neighbors, had massive hunks of stone brought in to protect their property:

Today, well, I was able to walk out onto what had been part of the lake:

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The photograph below, taken through the two story living room windows, shows how much the water has receded:

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Taking my photographs today gave me the idea to show this view of the house through the years, in historic drawings and photos. First, we have Marion Mahony’s drawing, reproduced in House Beautiful magazine’s 1906 story about the house:

Then we have the earliest known photograph of the house, taken in 1906, as it neared completion:

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A 1908 photograph from the OA + D archives, shows significant growth of trees on the hill:

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The dining room terrace, which ended in a stucco wall, was demolished after World War II at the behest of the Sporers, second stewards of the house. There was a public beach, the 14th Street Beach, just south of the house (to the left of it in these drawings and photographs, until the 1970s. The Sporers asked Wright to give them a recreation room under the dining room terrace. Edgar Tafel sketched plans on Mahony’s drawing before leaving the Taliesin Fellowship in 1941. The work was not done until after the war. Full-length windows, including a door, opened to the outside:

Terrace sketch PPT.jpg © 2025 Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, AZ. The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art | Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York), from Jim and Margaret Yoghourtjian’s collection

Next, is from David Archer’s collection. He grew up in the house between 1947 – 1957:

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Schuyler and Peterkin Seward were stewards of the house from 1957 – 1963:

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Jim and Margaret Yoghourtjian were the final stewards (1968 – 2012) before the late Gene Szymczak who bought, and rehabilitated the house in 2012. Margaret took these photos:

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The beach was lost in the 1970s when the City of Racine closed off a breakwater across from the house. Jim Yoghourtjian told me that they lost about 125 feet of property when the lake filled in below the house. While the Yoghourtjians used to share the house with interested parties, as they sensed people were taking them for granted and not respecting that they lived in a private home, rather than a public site, they let the landscape grow wild, to shield them from boaters on the lake and people walking the lakeshore:

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A week after buying the house, Szymczak had the hill cleared:

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And that, brings us to today:

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There is no telling what the lake will do next.

The Coda to Hardy House Rehabilitation

Posted on August 28, 2024 by Mark Hertzberg

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When the late Eugene (Gene) Szymczak considered buying Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House in Racine, Wisconsin in 2012 he told me, “I don’t have children. This is something [save the house] I could do for Racine.” Indeed he did. He undertook a heroic rehabilitation and stabilization of the house.* Gene, left of center in the photo below, was awarded the prestigious Wright Spirit Award by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy for his work on the house in 2015. He died unexpectedly a year later after an illness.

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The house stayed in the family after Gene’s death. Tom Szymczak is one of Gene’s brothers. Tom recently completed a project which, he told me, was the last thing Gene wanted to accomplish at the house. The house was built with two pocket doors. They were replaced by conventional, hinged plain wood doors by the third stewards of the house, David and Mary Archer, between 1947 and 1957:

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Gene decided to put pocket doors back in the house in 2013. He chose sliding glass patio-style doors so he could look into the two courtyards from the entry hall. The heavy metal arms that opened and closed the pocket doors were left in place, and were found in 2013:

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The house was built with leaded glass windows throughout, including in the dramatic two-story living room overlooking Lake Michigan. Anne Ruetz, whose parents were second stewards of the house (1938 – 1947) told me her parents replaced the windows with plain glass ones because the original ones leaked. When Gene put in energy efficient windows he jokingly told me that the next owners of the house could bear the expense of replicating Wright’s window design. Little did he know, of course, that he would be shifting the burden to his brother. 1908 photographs, which are used courtesy of the OA + D Archives, show the original leaded glass living room windows:

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Instead of replicating the design in the living room, Gene intended to have the design fashioned for the pocket doors. The work was completed earlier this month, with window inserts made by Oakbrook Esser of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. The installation photos show Tom Szymczak, left, and master craftsman Chad Nichols:

Thank you, Gene, for your gift to our community and to the World of Wright!

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The first people outside of family and friends to see the new windows will be 17 members of a Road Scholar Wright tour next Wednesday. They will be followed by several hundred people attending Wright in Wisconsin’s “Wright and Like” tour Saturday September 7.

*The term “rehabilitation” is appropriate, rather than “restoration,” because there were some changes to the house. “Restoration” would infer house museum status, accurate to either the day Hardy moved into the house (1906) or left it (in 1938) after losing it at sheriff’s auction because of monies owed on the house.

Links:

Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy:

www.savewright.org

Wright and Like Tour:

https://wrightinwisconsin.org/wright-and-2024

Road Scholar Architectural Masterworks of Frank Lloyd Wright Tour (run 4 or 5 a year)

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/22976/Architectural-Masterworks-of-Frank-Lloyd-Wright

Please scroll down to read previous posts

Windows on Main Street

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Mark Hertzberg

I have written before that I always challenge myself to see something new even on my umpteenth visit to a given Frank Lloyd Wright – designed building. I was blasé today as I took my friend Robert Hartmann on a tour of the Thomas P. Hardy House on Main Street in Racine, Wisconsin, as he prepared for Wright in Wisconsin’s forthcoming “Wright and Like” tour scheduled for September 7. Hartmann expects between 300 – 500 guests and wanted to figure out the best way for guests to wind through the compact house, and how many docents he would need.

The light was less than spectacular and there was nothing new to see. I had biked to the house so my only camera was my smartphone. I think phone cameras sometimes oversaturate colors, but that camera was all I had when I unexpectedly saw this in the second floor windows above the south stairs:

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So much for being blasé!

Here is a link for more information about the tour:

https://wrightinwisconsin.org/wright-and-2024

I served on Wright in Wisconsin’s board for 14 years. They are the only statewide Wright group, originally founded in cooperation with the state Department of Tourism to promote Wright tourism in Wisconsin.

Please scroll down for previous articles or blog posts.

Wright’s Birthday: Wright in the Abstract

Posted on June 8, 2024 by Mark Hertzberg

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It is June 8, Frank Lloyd Wright’s 157th birthday. Social media sites devoted to Wright are abuzz every year with birthday tributes. Sometimes I have something to post on “the day,” but not always. (June 8, 1968 or 6.8.68, my high school graduation day, is more significant to me personally, but that’s another story). I had nothing in mind to post this year until I took my customary morning bike ride and passed his Thomas P. Hardy House and the SC Johnson Administration Building and Research Tower which are on my bike route in Racine. I thought back to the fall of 2022 when my alma mater, Lake Forest (Illinois) College, honored me with a 50th anniversary Homecoming dual photo exhibit. One gallery was devoted to my career as a photojournalist, the other to my Wright-related photography. As I pedaled down Main Street this morning I decided to share the latter with you. The thesis of the exhibit was to present “Wright in the Abstract,” rather than only in record shots or head-on photos of his work. My challenge was to cull a few dozen photos of several thousand. The photos are in chronological order, based on the year of the commission, not the year of completion.

Romeo and Juliet Windmill, Spring Green (originally 1896, rebuilt 1938 and 1992):

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Thomas P. Hardy House, Racine (1904-1905):

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Meyer May House, Grand Rapids (1908):

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Hollyhock House, Los Angeles (1917):

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Taliesin III, Spring Green (1925):

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Tour guests in Wright’s bedroom at Taliesin III:

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Hillside Drafting Room, Spring Green (1932):

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SC Johnson Administration Building (1936) and Research Tower (1943-1944):

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Herbert F. Johnson Jr. Home (Wingspread), Wind Point (1937):

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Florida Southern College, Lakeland (Beginning in 1938):

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SC Johnson Research Tower, Racine (1943-44):

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Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1943):

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Price Tower, Bartlesville (1952):

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Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, Wauwatosa (1956):

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Lindholm Service Station, Cloquet, Minnesota (1957):

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Marin County, California, Civic Center (1957):

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I will close with a photo I took just a few weeks ago when I was given the opportunity to preview the newly-restored Hillside Theater (1952), which is being inaugurated this evening, literally just as I am putting this piece together:

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People have often asked me what attracts me to Wright’s work. As a photographer, I have a visual attraction to his work. That grew in part out of my newspaper photo assignments at the SC Johnson Administration Building. But beyond that, as I began to study his work, I was struck by the evolution of his designs from the 1890s until his death in 1959. Happy birthday, Frank Lloyd Wright, and thank you for your contributions to helping us reimagine the spaces in which we live, work, and worship.

Please scroll down in http://www.wrightinracine.com for previous posts

Hardy: Light, Shapes, Shadows

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Mark Hertzberg

One of my favorite things in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Thomas P. Hardy House (1904/05) in Racine, Wisconsin, is the bank of seven windows in the front hall. I am taken both by the design – Robert McCarter has written that the floor plan of the house is articulated in white* – but particularly how the shadow of the pattern is projected into, and around, the front hall by the afternoon sun.

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The first photo, below, is a file photo of one of the original windows (the windows have since been replicated and replaced). It was protected from vandals, who had previously thrown stones at it, by a layer of plastic. Next, are photos of the patterns I was delighted to find yesterday afternoon when I stopped to drop something off at the house.

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*The square in the middle represents the public spaces (the two story living room and the dining room below it) and the thin rectangle that bisects it shows us the private family rooms at both ends of the house.

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