C. Llewelyn Sumner sat at his drafting table, lost in thought.
The site was simple enough, just another sloping city lot, yet this lot was on the water and came with a sweeping view that took in both Shilshole Marina and the northern reaches of the Olympic Range across the Sound. The commission would be a visible one, too, not to mention lucrative, and the finished house would be seen by boaters transiting the Ballard locks and passengers coming into the city on The Empire Builder, so the design would have to be striking, not merely eye catching.
The work would, in other words, represent one last feather in his cap, and so it şişli escort would be an important commission.
Yet the man asking him to design this new house presented whole new sets of complications, an inner landscape he’d never had to deal with before. Patrick Grey was a writer, but he had also been, apparently, a spy of some sort. Now this strange man was, allegedly, writing novels based on his many exploits and, strangely enough, these recollections had been interesting enough to sell quite well in airports and with suburban booksellers. And Grey wasn’t an American, either, and tuzla escort despite growing up in Cheltenham, his tastes seemed more in keeping with a Japanese way of life. The Grey House would have to reflect all these varied influences, even though they seemed mutually, and often — almost — contradictory.
Whenever C. Llewelyn Sumner contemplated taking on a new commission he first tried to examine the client’s life, looking for clues beyond the obvious that might guide his hand when he shaped the littlest details of the new house, at least as it took shape in his mind. And quite pendik escort often he looked at other architects’ life and works, not looking for mere inspiration but for something deeper. Maybe a connection to something beyond words. And, like so many of his generation, Sumner turned to Frank Lloyd Wright for both gentle solace and soaring guidance.
So after walking over the sloping site with Patrick, and talking about the preconceived design ideas the spy had in mind, C. Llewelyn Sumner sketched out a preliminary set of plans. He’d at one point thought of Wright’s Walker House in Carmel, California, but soon discarded the idea when he realized this new site was simply incompatible. Next, his mind ranged over the fin de siècle exuberance of the Gamble House, Greene he was comfortable and would remain so unless something dire befell the markets. Then he was approached about drawing a new civic center and that piqued his interest, pulled him out of his slump.