Please update your profile page to continue
Will Carpenter, commercial project manager behind Tempe’s First Solar building, has wanted to build his own house since he was 8 years old.
A home in Chandler is being built following Wright’s Usonian principles. The term refers to a type of single-story family home designed by Wright starting in the mid-thirties with the Willey House. These homes are characterized by flat roofs, the use of natural lighting and clerestory windows, to name just a few.
Will Carpenter, his wife, Melissa, and their 3 kids.
The kitchen area is separated from the family room by the fireplace. The kitchen has two islands.
The family room, on the opposite side of the fireplace, is located to the front of the house. Tall windows above eye level soften boundaries between the interior and exterior of the house while providing privacy. The red concrete floors will be waxed and polished.
Entering the front door, there is a small foyer, followed by the living room, both on a raised deck. The deck will have a rail and double up as storage space underneath. To enter the main floor lever where kitchen, living room and dining room are, you must go down a small staircase.
The west side of the home with a four-door garage.
Facing the front of the house, the exterior of the living room with its tall windows. The front door, which is to the left, is slightly sheltered from the street.
A large corner window in the dining room frames the view of San Tan Mountain through the South facing backyard.
The same view of the dining room but with the progression of a partially complete masonry planter, installed to separate the space from the rest of the great room.
Carpenter designed a built-in kitchen nook facing out towards the kitchen as a designated space for breakfast.
The nook as seen from the exterior.
The windows are aluminum, oak clad on the inside. Dual pane and thermally broken, they have a polyurethane spacer that doesn’t allow the heat to go from inside to outside. They are Low-E glass with a solar tint to keep the home’s many windows from overwhelming the interior with excessive lighting.
A large hall connects the family spaces with the bedrooms. High clerestory windows offer light and a view of the sky.
The home also includes a master bedroom and bathroom, two bedrooms and two full bathrooms for the kids, a powder room and a spacious den. Every room has its own thermostat and is individually controlled so that the occupant of the room can set their own temperature.
Ten months into construction, the Carpenter home in Chandler is taking shape. The windows have been installed. Electrical, mechanical and plumbing are going in right now.
The large bi-fold door leading to the patio was recently installed.
View of the hallway and bi-fold door to the patio as seen from inside the house.
Once the rough electrical, mechanical and plumbing are completed, the drywall will go in and the site will start looking more like a house.
The breakfast nook seen from the exterior.
In the dining room, a built-in china cabinet features a tray for plants to grow above it. Stairs on either side of the cabinet will lead in and out of the room.
Editor's note: This is the second in a three-part series following the Carpenter family through the construction of their Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired house in Chandler. The final part will come out next year when the house is completed.
Building a home just the way you want it is a dream for many, but something very few people are lucky enough to experience.
Most of us are also unaware of the challenges that come with building a custom home. Even for an experienced commercial project manager like Will Carpenter, there have been bumps in the road.
It is 10 months into this project, and Carpenter is more than halfway done building his Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired Usonian house. He shared some of the challenges and thrills he has experienced along the way.
If you ask anyone who has ever tackled a project like this, whether big or small, it always seems to take longer and cost more than expected. Over budget and behind schedule, the Carpenter house is no exception.
Carpenter and wife Melissa had been hoping to move in by the end of October, but are now working hard to make it in before Christmas.
“We might have to occupy before we’re even done,” Carpenter said. “There’s a chance we might have to put in the tile once we’re already in."
Now, he said, everything should be done by February.
"I might have to install interior doors after we move in. The sooner we can get out of that rental house the better,” he said, referring to the 1,000-square-foot home the family of five is occupying temporarily.
PART I: Chandler house follows Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian design
The swing in timeline and budget even caused Carpenter, who’s been working on this project full time, to go back to his regular job in order to make it all work. Despite these difficulties, the homeowner is thrilled with the progress and generally very upbeat.
“I’m feeling really optimistic right now. But if you give me 30 minutes, I might be despondent again,” he joked.
Early in the building process, Carpenter realized he overestimated the amount of work he could undertake.
“I fooled myself, even though I’m in the profession and knew what goes into the process of building, about how much of it I would be able to do by myself," he said. "Not because it’s technically difficult, but because it takes so much time when you’re working alone.”
Finding reliable, qualified labor has been the main reason for the time delay.
"The hardest part has been the actual labor," he said.
Indecision is another common problem for those starting a project from scratch.
The endless options available when building a custom house can be overwhelming.
Luckily for the Carpenters, they had a clear idea of the overall design and style they were looking for before they began the process, so the easiest decisions were made during the design phase.
“Parameters like how many bedrooms and what we wanted in terms of style and feel of the house were easy,” Carpenter said. “Frank Lloyd Wright gave us great templates. You know what a Usonian house is supposed to look like. Massive fireplace, red concrete floors, clear story windows, the house being private from the street."
Wright built his first Usonian house in Wisconsin, and later built more than 100 others. He described the philosophy as "organic architecture" and built the houses with natural materials.
Another characteristic of Usonian architecture is a strong aesthetic connection between interior and exterior spaces. In this house, every window is designed to take advantage of the view of the mountains to the southeast.
Melissa Carpenter, an administrator at Mesa Community College, previously spent two months working at Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home in Scottsdale, Taliesin West. This was a great opportunity for her to understand and appreciate the architect’s work.
“Most of the houses that I had seen were in picture books,” Melissa said. “But seeing it in person gave me a much greater appreciation for his style of architecture.”
While her husband did the primary design, the couple agreed this was the style they wanted for their home.
“Had I not had that experience,” Melissa said, “I might have been drawn to some other style. Will was into Midcentury Modern. So this was the one style in common that we could both agree on."
She said she grew up in the Phoenix area, and they were also drawn to this style because it fit so well in the desert.
Adjusting expectations and being able to accept some failures are other challenges the homeowners have had to face.
“There are moments when something might go wrong, and you’ll literally be paralyzed with indecision,” Will Carpenter said. “And then as you evaluate the problem and how it might affect the final product, almost always, the way forward becomes clear. You either adjust what you’re going to do, or you adjust your expectations.”
For instance, Carpenter’s plan had been to run propane to all three fireplaces in the house. Realizing that would be too expensive, he had to change plans and accept that having propane at the main family room fireplace was good enough.
As a commercial builder, Carpenter incorporated some elements into his home that are rarely — if ever — seen in residential buildings. For instance, he installed a floor sink in the garage and a mop sink in the laundry room.
“Those are unusual things to see in a house,” he said. Also, “the variable refrigerant flow AC system is rarely used in residential applications because it costs more money. Very few builders are willing to install them. But over the long term, I will recover all the money that I spend and then some. It’ll pay for itself in about seven years.”
This project has been both the hardest and most rewarding undertaking Carpenter said he has ever had in his life.
“When I walk into a room, and it feels like exactly what I imagined it to be, there’s a great deal of satisfaction in that,” he said. “And as we get closer and closer to completion, the actual physical spaces continue to take shape, and everything falls into place."
READ MORE: