[piano music]
- I always fantasized about working
on a Frank Lloyd Wright product or building.
And I never imagined in my entire life
that this would happen, but it has happened.
My name is Nicole Atkinson
and I've been building the furniture
for the Frank Lloyd Wright Burnham Block in Milwaukee.
Frank Lloyd Wright is the most famous American architect,
but he likes to say, "Why stop there?"
He says, "I'm the most famous architect, hands down." [laughs]
The Burnham Block is a series of six houses
on one block and they were built in 1915.
The idea behind it was that this would be like a spec block,
a show block for building houses for middle-class people.
[piano music]
You could pick out your floor plan.
The lumber would be pre-cut and shipped to your site.
You know, a carpenter
with lesser skills could put it together.
So you could literally flip through your catalog,
pick your design, so we're really lucky
in having all of those images that show the furnishings.
Because his plan was to sell furniture
to all these houses as well.
[saw whirring]
I went to school for mechanical design
and my first job was at a furniture company in Oshkosh.
[saw whirrs]
There were a bunch of grouchy, old German craftsmen
at that factory, and they'd teach me things.
One of the gentlemen would say,
"I don't lend my tools to anybody, but..."
And then, he'd lend me tools to take home
and I started building furniture in my apartment.
Just kept building and building over the years.
They sent out a post looking for tour guides
for the Burnham Block.
I signed up.
They saw my background and then invited me
to be on the interiors board.
Figuring out what furnishings would go in the house.
They were working with another woodworker
and I saw that the work that he was doing,
and I thought, you know, "You guys,
you need to hire me, we can do this more affordably."
And I've been working for them ever since.
The group that's restoring this
own five of the six houses right now.
Smallest house, called the B1,
has been fully restored inside and out.
So, we're basically
following Frank Lloyd Wright's plans to the tee.
We even have some of his drawings from a hundred years ago,
so we've got the drawings for the table and benches,
the icebox, some of the--
the table and chairs that were in there.
I don't have free reign, as far as the museum house.
So, the second one that we're doing is one of the duplexes.
So, that's been restored on the exterior.
They're currently working on the interior.
And then, that's the one
that we're gonna be furnishing for an Airbnb
to help support the restoration of the rest of the block.
The beds are gonna be queen size and twin size
as opposed to what would have been the size in 1915.
We're gonna hide a mini-fridge
inside Frank Lloyd Wright's original drawing of an icebox.
So we're kind of having one foot in 1915
and one foot in 2019.
They used American Sweet Gumwood,
which at the time was a very inexpensive wood.
It was easy to get.
And what they did is they stained it to look like cherry.
[saw whirring]
So, I convinced the interiors board
to just go with cherry because that's what his intent was,
so the pieces I'm making now are almost all cherry.
[orchestral music]
There's a duplex right next door
that I've been taking things over as I get them done,
storing them there.
So, there's 26 pieces that I'm working on.
[orchestral music]
I think everything I make now
has some kind of Frank Lloyd Wright twist to it.
This has been a labor of love.
The work that I've put into this has been a dream come true.
[orchestral music]