Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 04/05/06

SUMMARY

Built in 1966-1968, the Applegate House has a history almost as interesting as its unusual design. Unlike any other Jones design, the curvilinear nature of the construction and the projecting flat roof illustrate the influence of Jones’s mentor from his days at the University of Oklahoma, Bruce Goff. The Applegate House is being nominated as part of the multiple-property submission “The Arkansas Designs of E. Fay Jones, Architect,” and is being nominated under Criterion C and Criteria Consideration G with statewide significance as the most striking example of Goff’s influence upon the work of E. Fay Jones. As such, it is extremely important within Jones’s body of work and meets the exceptional importance requirement for Criteria Consideration G: Properties that have achieved significance within the last fifty years.

ELABORATION

In the mid-1960s, pharmacist Joe Applegate (a former classmate of Jones) and his wife, Melba, commissioned Fay Jones to design their home in Bentonville, Arkansas. Jones designed houses to suit the occupant’s lifestyle, and as such the house was built for entertaining on a large scale.In a draft for an awards book on the house, Jones described the needs of the clients as:

"A fireproof house for a couple in their early forties with no children. They requested a large garden room with a swimming pool, a recreation room and bar, and a guest suite in addition to the usual living, dining , kitchen, and master bedroom requirements. Provision for outdoor living and dining was requested. They plan to do an unusual amount of entertaining."

The clients expressed a strong desire for an unusual or “different kind” of house, using the local weathered fieldstone as extensively as possible.[1]

According to Jones, the unusual design of the house was due in part to Joe Applegate’s request for a house with curvilinear elements. In addition, Jones indicated that, “The configuration of the land had much to do with the concept of the house.”[2] The site is moderately rolling land with wooded areas, pastures, and a small lake. In describing the design solution for a house that would meet the Applegate’s needs, Jones wrote:

"Stone is easily laid in curving alignment. Retaining walls gain strength by proper curvature, and light playing on curved surfaces creates slow gradations in value from light to dark. These are some of the rationalizations that accompany the design concept.

"Most of the usual daily living takes place on the upper levels, with the lower levels being used mainly at times when there are guests, or when large-scale entertaining is going on.

"In the flat concrete slab roof, skylights are located where they will be most effective in balancing the large glass areas of side lighting, delineating materials and objects, and giving dramatic emphasis to special places."[3]

With respect to the design of the house, Applegate said, “We told Fay that we wanted something a little different and we mentioned an indoor swimming pool, but, man, we never expected anything like this.”[4]

An article in Mid-South Magazine Sunday supplement to The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal extensively described the house shortly after its construction, and also included Jones’s thoughts on the design.

"All these elements [space, light, sound, smell, and changing textures] and more are the stuff of Fay Jones houses, and nowhere have they been collected with such absorbing force as in the new hillside castle outside Bentonville.

"From the rural, winding road, the house is glimpsed as a mere suggestion of something in the woods – a flash of reflected sunlight off a window, a stone tower above the trees. The driveway leads past a long, stone wall which is actually the front of the house.

“'I wanted it to look like a garden wall,' Mr. Jones says. 'I hoped that everyone who approached would have the same sort of curiosity that comes from wondering what lies beyond the garden wall.'

"And whatever you expect, the chances are you will have guessed wrong. For inside – from the first startling sight of the cavernous pool room – there is one surprise after another. Each room is designed to heighten “the sense of arrival” as the levels change, the space shifts, the light comes from a new direction and the surfaces range from rough to smooth and back again.

“'A house should be a series of experiences as you pass through it,' Mr. Jones says. And this one is. There are rooms that feel busy (like the kitchen), rooms that feel restful (the bedrooms) and rooms that feel playful.

“'Because the whole countryside is rolling and hilly, we designed the house as a series of warped curves,' Mr. Jones says.

In truth, there is not a square corner in the place. There are also no doors. Thus, there seems to be an endless number or ways to pass through the house – the shortest directly across the huge pool which dominates the main room."[5]

The fact that Jones was able to respond so aptly and still build a house that follows his design philosophy speaks not only of his adaptability, but also of his understanding of the underlying principles that govern his work.

The use of stone on the interior and exterior of the Applegate House, as well as the angular, curvilinear elements, exhibit a design program that was influenced by Bruce Goff. Jones acknowledges that his time at the University of Oklahoma while teaching with Goff in 1951-1953 was the most creative atmosphere he had ever been involved in, and this environment must have shaped his later aesthetic to some degree. Jones has said that “I had never been at a school where there was such tremendous talent…such dedication to the work. It was the most artistic, exciting work I have seen to this day. It was an exhilarating time.”[6]

A recent multiple-property listing, Resources Designed by Bruce Goff in Oklahoma, identified twelve characteristics that can often be found in Goff’s designs, which are:

1) A clear sense of geometry that orders the plan organization.

2) Major spaces that are arranged in an open plan with visual extensions into contiguous spaces.

3) A split-level arrangement.

4) Spatial hierarchies that are further revealed by modulation of the ceiling/roof plane.

5) Major spaces that usually feature built-in seating, often with a sunken conversation area.

6) The major congregate space is frequently dominated by the presence of a fireplace.

7) Natural light is introduced into the interior via skylights, high windows or clerestories.

8) Views from the interior to the exterior, especially on the front façade, are often restricted.

9) There is a clear sense of structural expression.

10) The roof is a dominant element of the composition and usually features deep overhanging eaves.

11) Water, in the form of reflecting pools, is an element of many designs.

12) Facades are highly articulated, and there is a powerful sense of orchestration of materials that is rich in pattern, texture and color.[7]

Most of these characteristics are also found in the Applegate House, further indicating that Jones was heavily influenced by Goff for the building’s design.

Some of the most striking features of the Applegate House, such as the curvilinear design and the interior pool, are characteristics that had a long history in Goff’s architecture. Two designs done very early in Goff’s career exhibit the characteristics of a curved design and water features that would appear much more frequently in his later work. A conceptual design done in 1922 features a circular plan in the major space with a pool of water that forms the center of the entire design. Goff also used reflecting pools in his 1930 design for the Phi Beta Delta Fraternity House in Norman, Oklahoma. [8]

Later in Goff’s career, leading up to the time that Jones designed the Applegate House, characteristics that Jones used in the Applegate design became more prevalent in Goff’s work. Goff’s Gillis House (1945) was a design based upon a spiral geometry that featured rough-hewn stone construction and a lily pool that extended into the interior on the lowest level. The use of a spiral geometry, rough-hewn stone construction and pools of water would also be used in one of Goff’s best known work, the Bavinger House (1950, NR listed 12/13/01) east of Norman, Oklahoma. Even into the 1960s, specifically with the Jacquart House (1965) in Sublette, Kansas, Goff was using circular forms and an asymmetrically placed atrium with a pool of water beneath a skylight that served as a visual focal point for the surrounding spaces.[9]

Water was a central element in Goff’s work, especially beginning in the 1940s when he used it consistently.[10] Although Jones used interior water features, they were not common, and the pool in the Applegate House is one of the largest that Jones used. However, the Applegates mentioned the possibility of an indoor swimming pool when they met with Jones, and the request gave Jones the perfect opportunity to explore the design motifs of Goff, one of his mentors.

The exterior of the Applegate House further expresses the characteristics of Goff’s architecture, specifically in the fact that views from the interior to the exterior of the property are restricted on the front facade (only one window is found on the front façade). The roof also features the deep overhanging eaves often found in Goff’s work and is a pretty dominant element of the design, especially on the lake side of the house.

However, it is not just the exterior of the Applegate House that expresses the influence of Goff’s architecture. Jones carries the characteristics of Goff over into the interior design of the house as well. Most notably, the house features an open plan, and one can view some of the surrounding spaces from most of the rooms, illustrating Goff’s characteristic of having “major spaces that are arranged in an open plan with visual extensions into contiguous spaces.” Additionally, each space is usually on a different level than the surrounding, and most spaces have a raised circular modulation to the ceiling, further separating each one from the surrounding spaces. Large windows and sixteen skylights introduce natural light into the house, which was another characteristic of Goff’s work.

Some of the interior features of the Applegate House also illustrate characteristics found in Goff’s designs. The current billiard room of the house, which is one of the lowest rooms in the house features built-in seating like many of Goff’s designs, although it is not set in a separate sunken conversation area. Finally, the living room and pool area, two areas of the house where guests often congregate do feature large stone fireplaces, another illustration of Goff’s influence on the design.

In certain respects, the Applegate House was a masterpiece in Jones’s career, especially in that it brought to fruition many of the ideas that Jones had been developing throughout his life. Mid-South Magazine wrote:

"For 13 years, ever since he began by designing his own personal hide-away atop a lofty bluff in Fayetteville, Ark., Mr. Jones has been leading up to a masterwork which would incorporate most of the ideas he has been nurturing since his boyhood discovery that architecture is a form or art.

"And now, he seems to have done it – a house like no other, a Fay Jones castle, a structure in free-form verse, a work of rock and glass and metal hung on a web of such imagination that even its creator doesn’t yet fully understand its possibilities. 'I would like to live in the house for a year,' he says, 'Just to see what I would do there.…'

"Little wonder. For what Fay Jones has created is a tangible intangible, a castle full of surprises, a fortress full of wonder, a long, low, curving structure with lines that vaguely follow the rolling hillside on which it is built a mile or so outside Bentonville."[11]

The Applegates lived in the house until 1978. The house also achieved some additional notoriety while the Applegates resided there when it served as one of the filming locations for the B movie Fighting Mad starring Peter Fonda, which was released in 1976. After the Applegates moved from the house, it was sold to musician Ronnie Hawkins of The Band, who lived in the house until 1980. The Sims family was the third family to own the house, from 1980 until 1991. The current owners, Mr. and Mrs. Don Wetmore, have owned the house since that time, doing much-needed maintenance and repair work on the house.

With respect to the other designs of Jones that were completed in Arkansas, the Applegate House represents a unique creation, employing design characteristics not found in his other designs. The Applegate House was the only curvilinear design of Jones that was ever constructed, and the design that best illustrates the influence of his mentor, Bruce Goff. With its curvilinear design, reflecting pools, open plan, and deep overhanging roof eaves that make the roof a dominant element, it illustrates characteristics found in some of the most significant designs of Goff, notably the Bavinger House near Norman, Oklahoma, (NR listed 12/13/01) and the Hopewell Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma (NR listed 09/14/02).

Although little in the way of scholarly writing has been published on the Applegate House, it is still one of the masterpieces of Jones’s career, realizing some of his philosophies and ideals that he had been developing since childhood. It also masterfully illustrates the influence of Jones’s mentor, Bruce Goff, and Jones’s organic principles in which a design should blend in with its surroundings, illustrated by Jones’s comment that “The configuration of the land had much to do with the concept of the house.”[12] As a result, the Applegate House represents a significant design in Fay Jones’s career and one of the most important of his Arkansas designs.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Breaking Out of the Box,” Mid-South Magazine Sunday supplement to The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal.13 July 1969, p. 7.Found in the Fay Jones Papers at the University of Arkansas Library Special Collections.

[5] Ibid, p. 14.

[6] Robert Adams Ivey, Jr.Fay Jones.Washington, DC:American Institute of Architect Press, 1992, p. 18.

[7] Professor Arn Henderson, FAIA.“Resources Designed by Bruce Goff in Oklahoma.”National Register of Historic Places Multiple-Property Documentation Form.From the files of the Oklahoma Historical Society, 2000, p. E-40.

[8] Ibid, pp. E-8 and E-42.

[9] Ibid, pp. E-13, E-18 and E-25.

[10] Ibid, p. E-57.

[11] Ibid, pp. 6-7.

[12] Fay Jones.Draft awards book for the Mr. and Mrs. Joe Applegate House near Bentonville, Arkansas.Found in the Fay Jones Papers at the University of Arkansas Library Special Collections.

SIGNIFICANCE

Built in 1966-1968, the Applegate House has a history almost as interesting as its unusual design. Unlike any other Jones design, the curvilinear nature of the construction and the projecting flat roof illustrate the influence of Jones’s mentor from his days at the University of Oklahoma, Bruce Goff. The Applegate House is being nominated as part of the multiple-property submission “The Arkansas Designs of E. Fay Jones, Architect,” and is being nominated under Criterion C and Criteria Consideration G with statewide significance as the most striking example of Goff’s influence upon the work of E. Fay Jones. As such, it is extremely important within Jones’s body of work and meets the exceptional importance requirement for Criteria Consideration G: Properties that have achieved significance within the last fifty years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Breaking Out of the Box,” Mid-South Magazine. Sunday supplement to The [Memphis] Commercial Appeal. 13 July 1969, pp. 4-8, 10-11, 14. Found in the Fay Jones Papers at the University of Arkansas Library Special Collections.

Henderson, Professor Arn, FAIA. “Resources Designed by Bruce Goff in Oklahoma.” National Register of Historic Places Multiple-Property Documentation Form. From the files of the Oklahoma Historical Society, 2000.

Information in the files of Mr. and Mrs. Don Wetmore, current owners of the house.

Ivey, Robert Adams, Jr. Fay Jones. Washington, DC: American Institute of Architect Press, 1992.

Jones, Fay. Draft awards book for the Mr. and Mrs. Joe Applegate House near Bentonville, Arkansas. Found in the Fay Jones Papers at the University of Arkansas Library Special Collections.