9 Stunning Frank Lloyd Wright Homes That Are Open to the Public for Tours

Fallingwater

Widely considered Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece of residential architecture, Fallingwater House in rural Mill Run, PA was designed in 1935 as a weekend family house for Pittsburgh department store owner Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr.

This quintessential example of organic architecture is built from native sandstone and other materials on the property where it sits perched atop a waterfall. In 2019, Fallingwater was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is the only Wright house that retains its original furniture and artwork.

Open to the public as a museum.

The Martin House

Frank Lloyd Wright built The Martin House in Buffalo, NY for local businessman Darwin D. Martin and his family between 1903 and 1905. It became a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

Scholars consider it to be one of Wright’s most successful Prairie Houses. It is characterized by overhanging eaves, horizontal planes, a central hearth, and a cantilevered roof. The estate features almost 400 examples of Wright-designed art glass, including his legendary “Tree of Life” window.

Open to the public.

Graycliff

The main residence on the summer estate of Graycliff was built between 1926-31 for Isabelle R. Martin, the wife of industrialist Darwin Martin, as a family summer home. Located on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie in Derby, NY, the organic style house is often referred to as "the Jewel on the Lake."

Some of the home's most striking features include an expanse of transparent glass that allows views through the house to the lake, a revolutionary design at the time. It also features cantilevered balconies, ribbon windows, and generous terraces.

The home design incorporates local limestone from the cliff and mortar made from sand from the nearby beach. Graycliff is now a New York State Historic Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1998).

Open to the public for year-round guided tours.

Taliesin

The 800-acre Taliesin estate was built and modified between 1897 and 1959 on a hill in Spring Green, WI. It is located in the Wisconsin River valley where Wright’s Welsh grandparents once homesteaded.

Taliesin became Wright’s home, studio, and what the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation calls “his laboratory of organic architecture, with designs from nearly every decade of Wright’s life.” The main Taliesin residence is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is often described as Frank Lloyd Wright’s “autobiography in wood and stone.”

Open to the public for guided tours from April through November.

Taliesin West

Located in the desert foothills of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, AZ, Taliesin West was the winter home and desert lab that Wright called “a look over the rim of the world."

Now a National Historic Landmark and UNESCO World Heritage site, the Frank Lloyd Foundation calls Taliesin West, which was built and maintained almost exclusively by the architect and his apprentices, “among the most personal of the architect’s creations,” with a deep connection to its desert location that lends it “an almost prehistoric grandeur.”

Open to the public for audio and guided tours.

Seth Peterson Cottage

The Seth Peterson Cottage is one of Frank Lloyd Wright's lesser-known homes. This modest 880-square-foot house designed in 1958 is located on a wooded site on Mirror Lake, near Wisconsin Dells. The cottage is perched on a steep hill and features local Wisconsin stone buttresses and walls, a monumental chimney and central fireplace, and ribbon windows in the bedroom.

One notable flourish is an interior frieze depicting stylized pine trees cut from plywood. Wright admirer and fellow Wisconsin native Peterson commissioned an elderly Wright to build him and his future bride the house after returning from the Army. Peterson died at age 24 and never saw his dream cottage built. The house now belongs to the Mirror Lake State Park and is run by a conservancy.

Open to the public for tours and overnight stays.    

Laurent House

Built on a rural site in Rockford, Illinois, the Laurent House was designed in 1949 for Kenneth Laurent, a paraplegic World War II veteran, and his wife Phyllis, who lived in the house for 60 years. It is the only building that Wright designed specifically for a client with a physical disability, decades before the American Disabilities Act guidelines were created.

The functional single-story home was constructed using intersecting arcs, shaped and oriented in order to maximize exposure to the sun. Wright used a color scheme of orange, green, and his signature Cherokee red, and he and his apprentices designed most of the furniture.

Wright called the Usonian home his “little gem,” and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.

Open to the public for tours.

Frederick C. Robie House

Frank Lloyd Wright built the Frederick C. Robie House between 1908-1910 in Chicago. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963, it is considered the ultimate example of Wright’s Prairie style of architecture.

The house is notable for its focus on horizontal lines, open floor plan, and integration with the surrounding landscape.

Open to the public for guided tours.

Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio

A 22-year-old Wright purchased a home located at 951 Chicago Avenue in Oak Park, IL in 1889. Over the next two decades, he raised a family and worked there while transforming it into an embodiment of his style.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio is the birthplace of Wright's Prairie Architecture and the base from which he subsequently designed 150 homes.

Open to the public for guided tours of the interior and exterior.