Frank Lloyd Wright’s last original owner talks about his home in Usonia

Robert Brum For The Journal News

On a recent March morning, Roland Reisley looked out from the terrace of his home in the Usonia Historic District and recalled the summer day in 1950 when he and his wife, Ronny, chose the rocky hillside to put down roots.

The Reisleys were lured from their tiny Manhattan apartment by a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed community of affordable, cooperatively owned homes being planned on 100 densely wooded acres near the Kensico watershed in Mount Pleasant.

The couple, who used a $2,500 wedding gift to buy into Usonia, soon learned Wright himself had agreed to design their home — one of only three among Usonia’s 48 houses he would put his personal stamp on.

Roland Reisley walks down the narrow hallway in his home in the Usonia Historic District in Mount Pleasant, N.Y. March 13, 2024, photo by John Meore for The Journal News.

“He was the supervising architect, he designed the site plan, but we didn’t dream of approaching him,” Reisley said. “I mean, come on, ordinary people did not approach Frank Lloyd Wright.”

The two-level home would rise atop the hillside’s huge boulder, built with granite blasted right out of the ground and stone from a nearby quarry.

“He felt that the houses should be made of natural materials and they should look as if they were of the land, not on the land,” Reisley said of Wright, who was then in his mid-80s. “They just grew naturally, and this one grows out of this rock.”

Reisley marveled at the impact his relationship with the celebrated architect and the home he’s lived in for 74 years continue to have on his life.

Sitting in the hexagonal living room with sun streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows, the 99-year-old said he’s still inspired by the home’s richness and the beauty of its surroundings.

Roland Reisley points to a photo of Frank Llloyd Wright, who designed Reisley’s home in the Usonia community of Mount Pleasant. March 13, 2024, photo by John Meore

“I’ll see the light off the stone or the grain of the wood,” Reisley said.“ ‘Isn’t that lovely?’ Neuroscientists tell us that awareness of beauty in one’s environment for a long time can have physiological benefits, possibly even continued longevity.”

The retired physicist is Usonia’s de facto historian, not only the private community’s last original resident, but also the last owner living in a home designed for him by Frank Lloyd Wright in the entire country.

“Essentially he became a mentor and ultimately a friend and we had a good relationship with him for a long time, which was unusual because people think of Frank Lloyd Wright as arrogant, egocentric,” said Resiley, who founded a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Wright’s work. “None of that was my experience at all.”

Homes in the community founded by Wright disciple David Henken that were intended to be built for as little as $5,000 ended up costing $20,000 or more partly due to inflation. Reisley’s eventually ballooned to $100,000, which included furnishings and an extension to accommodate the couple’s three children.

The hexagonal living room in Roland Reisley’s house, photographed March 13, 2024, by John Meore for The Journal News.

When he expressed concern over the rising cost, Reisley said Wright’s response was: “Build the house, whatever it costs, I promise you’ll thank me.” And that has been the case: The home the Reisleys moved into in 1952 conceals its age well and has required little maintenance.

Usonia’s homes were originally cooperatively owned, with residents on 99-year renewable leases. Financial realities soon crept in, and the community reluctantly agreed to give title to individual home sites to members, Reisley said.

The cooperative continues to maintain Usoina’s narrow, serpentine roads, about 40 acres of shared property, a pool and tennis courts. The roads are private and the homes are not open to the public.

“We have restrictions,” Reisley noted. “You can’t build fences or hedgerows to delineate property lines.”

Homes rarely change hands in Usonia, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Besides Reisley, five offspring of the original owners still reside there.

When properties do come up for sale, the setting and unique designs command high prices. A house sold for $1.4 million in 2021; another listing in 2023 was priced at $1.5 million.

The community’s name comes from the term Usonian, short for the United States, but also associated with Wright’s architectural vision for homes that reflect their natural surroundings.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision

The Resiley home incorporates quintessential features of Wright’s vision, including abundant windows opening to the lush backdrop, cypress wood siding, an open floor plan, flat overhanging roof and a carport.

“Wood, stone, glass,” Reisley said. “There’s no paint, no wallpaper, none of that in a Wright space.”

The architect’s triangular theme is evident throughout the house, including walls, ceilings, even the dozens of recessed light boxes illuminating the interior. The angularity “gives a rhythm and a harmony in these spaces that you feel,” Reisley said.

A narrow hallway opens into the spacious living room, with built-in seating and furnishings around the perimeter to keep the floor uncluttered.

Wright designed multiple stone fireplaces in the home, considering them “the center of family life,” at least until the advent of television — which he and Reisley planned for as well.

Jennifer Rothschild, a historic preservationist who has visited Resiley’s home, said it fit the Usionion ideal of nestling harmoniously into its natural environment. Even the carport was incorporated in the design.

“When you think of a carport, you think of a utilitarian structure that isn’t very glamorous,” said Rothschild, of South Nyack. “But this one has a very sharp incline that points like a triangle and soars into the sky.”

The home has hosted numerous tours over the years, and made a cameo in the 2016 film, “The Girl on the Train.”

The porch outside Roland Reisley’s home in the Usonia Historic District in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., photographed March 13, 2024, by John Meore for The Journal News.

Historic Usonian community

Today’s Usonians don’t share the fervor experienced by the community’s trailblazers, an idealistic bunch who trooped up from the city and joined in the task of building their own homes.

“The connectedness that we felt for a long, long time does not quite exist,” said Reisley, whose wife, a psychologist in the Bedford schools, died in 2006. “I think people still have a sense of community but not nearly the same degree of connection, and part of that is because of the whole digital world.”

He noted, however, that the generation of children who grew up together at Usonia have kept in touch with each other, and come from all over for reunions.

“It’s not unusual for suburban neighbors to sometimes become lifelong friends, but for an entire community of children who grew here to feel that sense of connection is quite unusual and remarkable to watch,” Reisley said.

Barbara Coats, a longtime Usonia resident who now lives with Reisley, called the community “a very special place. The neighbors are people you can count on. We have had wonderful experiences with them. It was just a stroke of luck that I found a place to live in this community.”

Looking ahead, Reisley is close to finalizing a preservation easement that restricts what future owners could do with the house. Although the community would not favor it being turned into a museum, “It’s an important cultural artifact and it should be preserved,” he said.

As his 100th birthday approaches in May, Reisley remains convinced his deep connection with his surroundings has contributed to his longevity.

“I’m impressed by it,” he said of the milestone. “Actually, more impressive is that people often say, ‘But you don’t look your age, you seem much younger.’ And I think that’s all attributable to the experience of appreciating the space.”

Robert Brum is a freelance journalist who writes about the Hudson Valley. Contact him and read his work at robertbrum.com.