HOME & DESIGN
WRIGHT AND NOT SO WRIGHT BY PHIL HALL
Throughout his career, Frank Lloyd Wright challenged the limits of design and engineering. Many of his works were initially greeted with intense controversy due to his unorthodox approach to architectural aesthetics. But within Wright’s legendary canon is a property that generated controversy before construction began. In 1949, Wright received a commission to design a house for Ahmed K. Chahroudi, an engineer who purchased Petra Island (also known as Petre Island), an 11-acre wooded oasis in the middle of Putnam County’s Lake Mahopac. Wright conceived a one-story, four-bedroom, 5,000-square-foot home based on a triangular grid that included a 25-foot cantilevered balcony that soared out over the lake. The latter design element
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recalled the famed terrace at Fallingwater, the rural Pennsylvania home that many consider to be Wright’s residential masterpiece. Chahroudi would later claim Wright envisioned this work to surpass his earlier achievement. Wright created six drawings to illustrate his ideas initially, but Chahroudi balked when presented with a proposed $50,000 construction budget. Plans for the house were jettisoned and Wright circled back to design a 1,200-squarefoot cottage for the island’s center. This modest structure became the Chahroudi family vacation home for many years. In 1995, Joe Massaro, a sheet metal contractor, bought Petra Island and its cottage for $700,000. As part of the transaction, he received the drawings for the never-built Wright home. In 2000,
