“DO NONE OF YOU GO INTO ARCHITECTURE TO GET A LIVING UNLESS YOU LOVE ARCHITECTURE AS A PRINCIPLE AT WORK.”
-FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
PHOTO BY CHIRS BERNEKING
HOUSE HISTORY
The Peters-Margedant House was built in 1934 during Peters’ time in Evansville on a break from wright’s Taliesin fellowship. The house was built on land Wes Peters’ father had purchased in 1920 - 1506 E. Indiana Street. He configured his 552 square foot house into a unique layout that maximized space. The house displays many of the Usonian features utilized by Frank Lloyd Wright while also highlighting Peters’ talent for innovative and unique architecture. The home was rented to Wes Peters’ uncle, James Margedant, and the six member Margedant family lived in the home from 1938-1943. The house occupied by a series of owners until 2012 after which it was unoccupied and threatened with neglect. On August 25, 2016, the house was moved to the nearby University of Evansville Campus, Wes Peters’ alma mater. the house has been a member of the American alliance of museums since 2018.
THE MOVE
On August 25, 2016, the proto-Usonian home was moved from its original location to University of Evansville's campus, behind the Koch Center for Engineering and Computer Science. The move took approximately four hours with the Peters-Margedant house loaded onto wheeled dollies, passing through closed roads and under the Lloyd Expressway overpass. The house was saved from demolition through a grant from evansville department of metropolitan development and support from Indiana Landmarks.
EVANSVILLE MUSeuM EXHIBITION
William Wesley Peters: Evansville’s Connection to the World of Frank Lloyd Wright ran from August 11, 2019 through January 19, 2020 at the Evansville Museum of Arts, History & Science. The exhibit explored Peters’ role in engineering Wright’s designs, including the Johnson Wax Building and Fallingwater. It incorporated drawings, models, photographs, and a studio vignette that included a drafting table and one of Peters’ famous dapper sport coats.
Photos courtesy of the Evansville Museum of Arts, History and Science
COLLABORATIONS
During the spring semester of 2020, Dr. Heidi Strobel, Professor of Art History at University of Evansville, developed a ChangeLab course to allow UE students a first-hand experience at involvement with the Peters-Margedant House. The primary goal of this ChangeLab course was to improve the overall functioning of the Peters-Margedant house as a house museum, by providing innovative ways to boost attendance. Students were tasked with various roles from social media management to landscape design, to not only provide house upkeep, but also increase awareness on its historic elements.
In addition, students from the New Tech Institute, a project-based learning high school in Evansville, collaborated with the Peters-Margedant House in 2016 to bring to life a dollhouse designed by Wes Peters himself. Peters began creating dollhouse designs with his first wife Svetlana Wright as a way to generate income post Great Depression. Instructor Eric Havener oversaw the construction of the dollhouse, where students first made a 3-D model that was then used as a reference to recreate Peters’ original design.
