By John Patten Managing Editor
HILLSBOROUGH — When Abe and Gloria Wilson prepared to build a home for their young family in the early 1950s, they knew they wanted something different for their $20,000.
So the young chemist and his wife composed a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright in August 1953 professing their admiration for his work and outlining their requirements: two bedrooms, an office/library, living room and kitchen — and a design utilizing Wright’s concepts that combine structures with the natural environs around them.
”My dear Wilsons: I suppose I am still here to try to do houses for such as you,” the 85-year-old architect wrote back in September.
Thus began the two-year construction project that placed an 1,800-sq. foot home of concrete block and Philippine mahogany among the 18th and 19th-century homes in Millstone Borough.
The house utilizes Wright’s “usonian house” concepts: intended to be a design for moderately priced houses, the house uses most of its floor space for the living room and dining, while minimizing the space used for bedrooms and the kitchen. It also uses large windows for inviting views of the surrounding woods, radiant heat in the concrete floor, and built-in lighting.
As current owner Lawrence Tarantino noted, the presence of the house means the tiny borough has historically important houses from each of the last three centuries.
Mr. Tarantino, an architect, has been working to protect and maintain the integrity of the Bachman-Wilson House since purchasing the property in 1988, work that has been recognized by the New Jersey Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of Wright’s creations.
”More and more, they’re realizing (Wright designs are) a gift to the country,” Mr. Tarantino said.
Maintaining the home has had additional benefits in addition to professional recognition and the joy of living in brilliantly designed spaces — Mr. Tarantino and his wife Sharon have become known for their expertise in Wright properties.
Their studio, Tarantino Studio, keeps busy with a wide range of non-Wright renovation projects — including renovations at Princeton University’s McCosh Health Center, the Woodrow Wilson School and last year, administrative offices at New South.
But it’s their work on the famous houses designed by Wright that is becoming their hallmark. The couple is currently at work on renovations to the 1940 Christie House in Bedminster, and also helped restore the 1936 Hanna House, owned by Stanford University in California.
With Mr. Tarantino’s architectural background, and Ms. Tarantino’s skill in design (she graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design), the studio offers one-stop shopping for restoring Wright properties.
”I feel his objects are more valuable than his buildings,” Mr. Tarantino confessed, noting the buildings stay put, but furniture, stained glass and the other decorative items Wright designed for his projects on’t.
For example, when the couple purchased the Bachman-Wilson House in 1988, the property was being used as a rental for college students. Furnishings built for the house — which Mr. Taratino noted were designed to be built using scraps of lumber — had disappeared.
But the couple worked and searched to find authentic and even original pieces. When they learned two Taliesin chairs produced by the Italian furniture company Cassina were going to auctioned in Long Island, they quickly arranged to buy them (one of the chairs proved to be a prototype, bearing serial number 0001, Mr. Tarantino proudly pointed out).
And when Ms. Tarantino spotted a bolt of original 1950s fabric matching Wright’s designs in a Soho warehouse, she bought it and used the fabric to recover the 20-foot long built-in sofa in the house’s living room.
Now, their home is complete — the living room has chairs and lighting as intended by Wright. As an added feature, Mr. Tarantino built two coffee tables matching the built-in dining table —which can be converted to dining table height to extend the original table, allowing as many as nine to dine together.
“I’m Italian, so you know how important it can be,” Mr. Tarantino said.
To accomplish all of this, the Tarantinos have relentlesssly researched the history of the house, reviewing original sketches and blueprints at Wright’s famous Taliesin West school in Scottsdale, Ariz.; obtaining copies of all correspondence on the project now archived at the Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities in Los Angeles.
Mr. Tarantino even interviewed Abe Wilson to learn more about the house’s early years before Mr. Wilson died in October.
”It’s important to understand the people involved — that’s why we went to Taliesin to research it,” Mr. Taratino said.
While maintaining and restoring the house and its furnishings has been a passion of the couple, it’s not the only reason their work was honored by the AIA-NJ.
Recently, they completed a project moving an 18th-century barn from Vermont to the front of the property, making it a studio for all of their projects.
”The way Wright addressed the location of the house in this historic village was to place it in the back of the property and turn it sideways,” Mr. Tarantino said.
So when Mr. Tarantino began to contemplate how to create a studio on the property, he knew he could utilize the front of the property but had to figure a way to do it that wouldn’t compromise the Colonial sensibilities of his River Road neighbors — or the sensibilities of the Bachman-Wilson House.
Another of Mr. Tarantino’s interests is recycling barns, so he sought out a barn to relocate, settling on the smaller English hay barn-style building moved to the site. The exterior appears rustic enough, but inside the rough-hewn timbers of the barn were complemented with steel and glass framing. Geothermal heating is drawn from the Revolutionary-era well at the front of the property.
The Bachman-Wilson House was selected over 15 entries by a jury of three architects for the AIA-NJ’s first-ever award for a preservation project.
”The jury was very impressed that this was a project that has gone on for a very long time,” Stephen Carlidge of Shore Point Architecture in Ocean Grove, who encouraged the AIA-NJ to launch the preservation award. “I particularly liked the idea that this project is has been a living exercise — they live in the house while working there.”
“The state needs to realize there are a lot of historic properties on rivers,” Mr. Tarantino said. “I would like people to realize how important (preservation) is.”
For more information on the designs and projects undertaken by Tarantino Studios, visit www.tarantinostudio.com

