Berger House, 1950

In the late 1940s, Marin College mechanical engineering teacher Robert Berger and his wife Gloria planned to build a new home. They became entranced by the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright and Berger asked the famous architect to design a home he could build by himself, with a modular plan that allowed expansion from one bedroom to three.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation lists 1950 as the design year, but other sources say Wright delivered plans in 1951. The core living area was finished in 1957 and two more bedrooms in 1959, with Berger not only doing the construction but also building the furniture himself. When Berger fell ill in 1969, his wife hired a professional carpenter to complete the remaining finish work. You can read the story of its construction here.

The Berger House was built using a "desert masonry" technique with 14-inch-this walls, similar to Taliesin West in Phoenix and the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Redding. The basic geometry is a diamond shape, with corners of 120 or 60 degrees. You can see a few interior views of it here and see the layout here.

259 Redwood Road
San Anselmo, CA
Private residence, no public tours