Close-up of glass ornaments on a Christmas tree.
A three-car Lionel model electric train with a red caboose chugs along on a 28-inch-diameter track beneath a 6-foot-tall Christmas tree decorated with sparkling vintage glass ornaments. Bing Crosby sings “Silver Bells” from a 33 RPM LP record spinning on a turquoise 1950s replica record player.
For the first time, the Pope-Leahy House in Woodlawn, designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright, is being decorated for Christmas in the mid-20th century, just as the historic home's former owners had done.
In keeping with the style of the home, the Christmas decorations are clean and simple by many modern and Victorian standards: no plastic Santas or sparkly snowflakes; no puffy mistletoe balls with dangling shiny ribbons. The tree in the living room stands where it was placed by the previous residents, Mr. and Mrs. Leahy, and is decorated with about 30 glass ornaments, most of them round and the size of tennis balls. The children's room is brightened by colorful, handmade construction-paper chains strung just below the ceiling. Outside, period lights line the carport and overhang.
In the office, even more glass ornaments hang from a sparkly silver tinsel tree with red ribbons that dates from the 1950s and 1960s.
“It's a space-age tree,” explains Woodlawn Executive Director Sean Halifax. Some celebrants on the day placed color wheels under the tree to reflect the glass ornaments.
The minimal décor fits in with Wright's design for a practical, minimalist home: Wright thought “Americans were too cluttered,” says Amanda Roper, senior manager of public programs and interpretation. The home had little storage space, so the owners couldn't store a lot of stuff.
Roper explained that there were few records or photos of previous residents' decorations, so her staff looked into trends from the 1950s and 1960s. She got some facts from the residents' descendants. The second generation owners were Robert and Marjorie Leahy. Marjorie's great-niece's grandson remembered the Lionel train that was under the tree. Another descendant identified the tree's location.
The home's original owners, Lauren and Charlotte Pope, decorated it with pine, holly boughs and other plants from the home's original site on 1.3 acres of wooded land in Falls Church. They lived in the home from 1942 to 1949 and bought their son a train.
“It feels like home,” Roper says. “A lot of people can relate to it. It's an exploration of that time period and its aesthetic.” Compared to other historical sites and traditional home museums, which are often heavily decorated for the holidays, “some people will find it nostalgic,” Roper says. “It's something different.”
History of the house
The Pope-Leahy House is one of those Usonian homes designed by famous architects as affordable housing for the middle class. Loren Pope couldn't afford a typical Wright home, which would have cost about $650,000 today. Pope, a journalist, commissioned Wright to design the house for $5,500 ($86,000 today). It ended up costing $7,000, including furniture and Wright's fee.
The 1,200-square-foot home has two bedrooms and one bathroom on the first floor. It's made of brick, wood, concrete, and glass, with no drywall, paint, or plaster. “The home is a study in horizontality throughout, with a flat cantilevered roof, horizontal plank walls, and built-in bookshelves with no vertical supports,” wrote Lauren Walther in a 2017 article for Preservation Magazine.
Much of the interior is made from natural honey-colored cypress planks. Wright didn't want the interior to be a series of boxy rectangles. The central living-dining area has an open floor plan and combines a study and living room with a table for dining and games. Clestory windows make the rooms feel larger. The kitchen is designed for single occupancy.
Wright integrated the furniture into the home's design, making it blend in rather than dominate the space: the beds were low and without box springs, and the door handles were unusually high, a practical touch for child safety.
Wright said he wanted to “build with nature, not against it,” which is why he included floor-to-ceiling windows that open onto outdoor patios that connect the interior with nature. Wright's designs had no gutters, basements, garages or attics to make the homes more economical.
Robert and Marjorie Leahy lived in the home from 1947 to 1983. Because the living room was directly above the proposed widening of Interstate 66, Mrs. Leahy donated the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation for its preservation. The Trust transferred the property to Woodlawn in 1964 and gave Mrs. Leahy a lifetime lease. She lived there until her death in 1983. Because Woodlawn's soil was clay and unstable, Woodlawn conservators moved the property 30 feet upward in 1995-1996.
“Every home should be as unique as the people who live in it,” Wright argued.