Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith dreamed of living in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Here’s how they made it happen on a modest teacher’s salary. By Susan Peck Photography by Brett Mountain If you keep on believing, the dream you wish will come true. If that sounds like a line from a fairy tale, it is. It was also the philosophy that helped Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith build their historic Frank Lloyd Wright house in Bloomfield Hills in 1949. The dream began for Melvyn Maxwell (known as Smithy) in 1939, while teaching at a Detroit public school. Mesmerized by a slide presentation of Wright’s Fallingwater house in Pennsylvania, he made a grandiose vow to his fiance, Sara — also a teacher with a modest salary — “One day we will own a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.” According to an excerpt from “Frank Lloyd Wright Remembered,” after a chance meeting with Wright at his home, Taliesin, the Smiths spent hours in the architect’s studio sharing their vision of building one of his homes in Michigan. They wanted it to become a mecca for artists and musicians — hosting small concerts and art exhibitions yearlong. Wright was […]
