National Register #06001118
Maynard and Katherine Buehler House
6 Great Oaks Circle
Orinda
Built 1948-1949

Between 1936 and 1959, Frank Lloyd Wright designed over one hundred residences which he called Usonian Houses. The Buehler House is one of a handful of Usonian Houses on the west coast.

Usonian Houses are widely considered to be among the major achievements of Wright's long career. Each Usonian House is an individual expression of an Wright's philosophy of how the American family should live and be housed. The Buehler House illustrates Wright's conviction that small, economical houses could be realized through beautiful natural materials, careful spacial organization, and simplicity of design.

The Buehler House is a modest house with strongly horizontal lines. The house is integrated with its environment and is organized to facilitate an informal, family oriented life-style. The house exhibits many of Wright's techniques to reduce construction and maintenance: radiant heating, panel wall construction, steel structural materials, and the organization of the building as a geometric grid. (Despite Wright's efforts, many Usonian Houses exceeded cost estimates, and Wright's buildings are notoriously expensive to maintain.)

In the evolution of American residential styles, Usonian Houses were derived in part from Wright's Prairie Style and were an important influence on the Ranch Style popular after World War II.

We drove past the Buehler House on 8 September 2012. The property is fenced and gated and the house cannot be appreciated from the road.