It’s a Thursday in mid-April, and a resident of New York’s Westchester County is giving a tour of his home—one he has occupied for the past 73 years. “When you enter a Frank Lloyd Wright building, without exception, it is through a compressed entryway, with a low ceiling,” explains Roland Reisley ’46, BA ’45, walking from the hallway toward the living room at the house’s center.
“And when you emerge from the corridor, that compression is released and the expansion occurs in each of the rooms, giving you a greater sense of each of those spaces.”
The Arts & Sciences alum is now in his spacious living room—a stunning, hexagonal, wood-and-stone-lined space whose design ethos extends through the ample windows to the patio, yard, and wooded surroundings.
It’s an exquisite view, but one Reisley is used to—and he has given a version of this tour countless times before.
At the age of nearly 101 (his birthday is in May), Reisley is the last original client of Frank Lloyd Wright who’s still living in the home that the legendary architect designed.
Cornell Rare and Manuscript Collections
Top: Johnson chats with Earle in the A.D. White Reading Room, as University Librarian Elaine Westbrooks looks on.
Jason Koski/Cornell University
Adam Heisler (left), project manager for Cornell’s Facilities and Campus Services office, leads Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences, during a tour of McGraw Hall.
