The Rose Pauson House in Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

 was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...

 in 1939 and built 1940 -1942.

In 1943 the house burned down when a fallen ember from the fireplace ignited a hand-woven curtain on a nearby window. All that remained was the ruins of the foundation and walls. The ruins became a local landmark known as "Shiprock" due to their prominent shape and location. The building was located on a hillock

Hillock

A hillock or knoll is a small hill, usually separated from a larger group of hills such as a range. Hillocks are similar in their distribution and size to small mesas or buttes. The term is largely a British one...

on the present alignment of 32nd Street.

Plans to remove the ruins, in order to extend 32nd Street through the site, created a public protest. The road was extended, but only after the protests resulted in the loss of federal funds intended for the project. The rear chimney mass (serving the master bedroom fireplace/furnace flues), all that remains of the ruins, was moved south in 1979 as a permanent monument marking the entrance to the Alta Vista subdivision of the land.

External links

• Rose Pauson House Ruins American Memory from the Library of Congress
• Collection of photos
• Extensive discussion and images of the design, floor plan and the actual home in its prime