The Orcutt House, on sale in Worthington, Ohio, consists of two intersecting circles, one forming the body of the house and the other forming a smaller kitchen area. Designed by architect Theodore van Fossen in 1958, it is a single story structure on a 0.7 acre lot.
The house is part of a residential community called Rush Creek Village, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of organic architecture. Made up of 49 single-family houses linked by a system of curvilinear streets, the neighborhood and each of its homes were designed by van Fossen, who had worked for Wright on construction projects in the late 1930s in Indiana.
The National Park Service listed the neighborhood on its National Register of Historic Places in 2003. The nomination form describes the community’s Wrightian features, including its effort to enable “Nature-centered” living:
The conventional primacy of the street grid in dictating house sites is completely ignored and has no relevance to the architecture of Rush Creek Village. Instead of clearly designated facades which face the street, the front doors are deliberately obscured and are often completely hidden. There are no main facades or primary elevations as those terms are commonly understood. Instead, the houses present an off-set or anonymous face to the street. Rather than externally observed primary elevations, the houses are designed with primary views onto nature, as observed from within the dwelling.
Now selling for $549,000, the Orcutt House was put on the market last year at a substantially higher price.
