Russell and Ruth Kraus House or the Frank Lloyd Wright House in Ebsworth Park

Ebsworth Park
120 N. Ballas Road
Kirkwood, MO

314-822-8359

Admission is $20 for adults and $10 for children.  There is a small parking lot that provides free parking.

https://ebsworthpark.org/

The museum opened in 2001.  

The Kraus House was designed in 1951 by the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright at the request of Russell and Ruth Kraus. Wright was considered to be the greatest American architect of the twentieth century yet he had a goal to provide beautiful architecture at affordable cost to middle-class Americans.  Kraus, a professional artist, was familiar with Wright's work and made the request for the house to be built on 40 acres he already owned. It was the first Wright building in Missouri.  Five of his houses exist today in Missouri. To finance the construction Kraus was forced to sell off a number of his acres of land.  The house was finally completed in 1956 and the Kraus's remained living there until 1992.  In 2001 a non-profit purchased the house with basically all its furnishings and donated it to St. Louis County for the creation of a public park and house museum.  

Wright had developed a “unit system” for houses based on geometric shapes. The houses were called Usonian houses. The Kraus House is based on an equilateral parallelogram with a complex floor plan of intersecting parallelograms. The parallelogram is seen here  in the concrete floor that is throughout the house. 

It is also seen in the Wright's architectural designs for the house. The parallelogram goes both ways crossing in the middle. 

As one approaches the house one notes that there are no 90- degree angles on the outside. 

The house sits on the top of a hill in a grove of persimmon trees. To get to it you drive up a 800-foot long windy driveway through woods until alas after several curves you see the house sitting in a meadow. Today the park is 10.5 acres. 

The house is 1900 square feet and can be seen here from the back. 

Once inside you see that the use of squares and rectangles is at a minimum.  The ceiling light fixtures are all triangles. 

The three skylights are all parallelograms. 

Even bricks for the fireplace were specially made so that they do not have 90 degree angles.  

This built-in drawer is in the shape of an odd parallelogram. 

The windows in the master bedroom meet at a 60 degree angle. 

One enters the house into the main hallway that goes the length of the back of the house. The whole house is made of glass, brick, tidewater red cypress, and cement (floors) and nothing else but some metal. 

You are greeted by the first of several of these specially made lights that go from table to ceiling.

The furniture in the house such as this living room furniture was designed by Wright and built by Kraus .  Yes, the chairs are very low and yes, no 90-degree angles, though there are some on the shelving behind. 

This living room sofa is also low and again the table is an unusual shape for a table. 

The brick fireplace (again unusual angles) was used for heat.  The cement floors are all heated, providing much of the house's warmth.  

This table is by the kitchen entrance and the two pieces can be moved and put together to make a differently shaped table. 

This final seating area in the living room includes these low stools and again moveable tables. They are placed in front of the windows leading out to the large veranda.  The stained-glass panels were designed and made by Kraus.  Wright believed in many windows allowing the residents to have a beautiful view of the landscape. 

Outside on the large veranda ones sees that there are no gutters on the house. Also one can note that the original wood (cedar) roof shakes were replaced by asphalt shingles.  

The kitchen is u-shaped with the first part including the stove

 and oven. 

The other part of the "U" kitchen has a sink and refrigerator. 

As you can see the kitchen does not have typical ceilings. 

Because the house is very open, you can stand in the kitchen entrance, look through the living room and into the master bedroom which has no door because Wright was committed to open spaces. 

But the bedroom has a very odd shaped bed - an equilateral parallelogram. Lighting comes from above, attached under a shelf attached to the wall. Even with this lighting, the room appears to be rather dark as does the rest of the house. 

This desk is the only other piece of furniture in the bedroom.  Instead of dressers there is a wall of closets; there are drawers in the closets.  The closets actually do have doors.  

The master bathroom has the same wooden walls and heated cement floor.  And odd angles. 

And a shower with the same description - cement floor, wood walls, odd angles! 

There is a guest bedroom very similar to the master bedroom with an odd-shaped bed and lights above the head of the bed. This bedroom does have a bedside table. 

The shower in the main bathroom fits all the criteria, including no door!

At the opposite end of the house - near the kitchen - is Kraus's art studio. 

This room has the only room door in the house and the only vent.  The door was added to provide privacy when clients were meeting with Kraus.  The air conditioning unit is hidden on a shelf under the ceiling in the middle of the house and cools the entire open house. (The air conditioner was not in the original house and Wright was opposed to putting one in the house but they eventually did.) A vent was added here in the studio for when the door is closed and the ac air can not flow into the studio. 

The house has no garage but has a two-car carport. 

Behind the wall to the left of the carport is a room that is currently used as a gift shop.  Originally it was the Kraus's laundry room. 

Before visiting the museum, we had breakfast at the the Pioneer Bakery Café in downtown Kirkwood. 

The café  has a wonderful mission which is one reason we were drawn to it. 

They also have wonderful food.  In addition to the many bakery items on display, the menus on the wall offer many egg dishes, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, and French toast. 

Comments:  This is the 19th historical house that our museum group has visited in St. Louis. Personally it is one of my least favorites as I generally prefer those from earlier periods of time.  In addition I found this house to be almost uninviting because the furniture all looked so uncomfortable to me. And finally despite many windows the house was not well lit making it difficult to take good photos.

That all being said, it was quite interesting to tour a more contemporary house with a totally different look from the other houses.  And after all it was designed by the most famous American architect to have ever lived, according to many people. In some ways this house is a hidden gem as many people are not aware of its existence. The fact that it is in the middle of the woods with a driveway gate that is locked 4 days a week does not help people notice it.  

The house is well restored on well-kept grounds. It has a very interesting history.  We had an very knowledgeable docent (always a plus) that in sharing the history of the house, also shared much information about Wright and the Kraus's. The tour lasted an hour.  The only aspect of the tour that was not great was the standing on the cement floors of the living room for almost 30 minutes listening to this history.  That was a lot for my old feet!

We made reservations for the tour in advance on the house's website. There were some tourists that arrived without reservations and despite an attempt to accommodate them some of them had to wait until a later tour because the current tours were full.  The tours have a limit of 8 people. The website under "Tours" includes much helpful information including that there is only a port-a-potty available for visitors - no restrooms. Also they only schedule tours on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays.   

The Pioneer Café was delightful. We went on Wednesday at 9:00 and there was plenty of room and quick service. The food was good.  Their Rosemary Breakfast Potatoes are absolutely wonderful!  It's mission to help the intellectually and developmentally disabled by hiring them is very commendable.