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Taylor Woolley was a native Salt Lake  architect who worked in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studio and and later at Taliesin in Wisconsin. Woolley travelled with Wright in Europe and contributed to the drawing and production of the Wasmuth Portfolio, a two-volume folio of Wright’s early work,  published in Berlin in 1910.

The Yale Avenue Ray House, built in 1915 was one of Utah’s earliest examples of Prairie Style homes with its extended hipped eaves, horizontal belt course,  and ganged windows. The influence of Wright is unmistakable. The current owners, Mike & Jenny Pulsipher, gave us the challenge and opportunity to design an addition that would respect the original house while providing needed space for their family. The solution included south-facing covered balconies and a new master bedroom over a new family room space, all oriented toward a contained backyard.

The addition met the requirements for the Utah Historic Preservation Tax Credit as well as the Yalecrest Compatible Infill Overlay zone.

Salt Lake Modern recently hosted a tour and lecture at the Yale Ave house.  It was my first opportunity to personally see how the flow of the house works for parties and larger groups. I loved seeing people enjoying the upper balconies and the backyard. It was the perfect setting to hear Architectural Historian Peter Goss describe so eloquently the setting for Taylor Woolley’s return to the West from his time with Wright, and to see, nearly one hundred years later a bit of a Taliesin-like “house in the landscape” as Woolley may have envisioned from his days in that special place in the Wisconsin countryside.

Here are before & after photos of the back of the house: