As Martha and Richard Wakefield left the Arizona studio of Frank Lloyd Wright in 1946, the
world-famous architect offered the Columbus couple some advice.

“The last thing he said was, ‘Go home, build a house for yourself, buy a Jeep and then build a
house for your next-door neighbors,’ ” Martha Wakefield would recall years later.

“Strangely enough, that’s just about what we did — a lot of next-door neighbors.”

Wright’s passing suggestion resulted, years later, in Rush Creek Village in Worthington, the
nation’s largest collection of homes based on Wright’s principles of “organic” architecture.

Now, for the first time, a crucial piece of Rush Creek is for sale — the home built by the
Wakefields that helped launch the community.

“This is an important building for central Ohio and for Worthington’s history,” said Darren
Kelly, a Worthington native and architect in San Francisco who is writing a book on Rush Creek.

“It is a landmark.”

The 1,993-square-foot, four-bedroom home, listed for $418,000, bears all the trademarks of Rush
Creek homes: built of exposed wood, cinder block, brick and glass in an irregular shape; set at an
angle well off the street; bearing a low profile with strong horizontal details; loaded with
built-in furniture; containing a garage in place of a carport; and of a generally modest size.

The seed of the home was planted when Martha Wakefield devoured Wright’s autobiography when she
was in her early 20s.

“In reading the book, I had never found anybody in the world who felt about everything the way I
felt about things,” she recalled in a 2000 documentary about Rush Creek.

After visiting Wright in Arizona and stopping on the West Coast, the Wakefields returned to
Ohio, where they eventually found land in Worthington for their enterprise. They contacted Theodore
van Fossen, a young designer who had worked as a contractor on some of Wright’s buildings.

With Richard “Dick” Wakefield serving as general contractor, the trio launched Rush Creek, which
grew to 51 homes and landed a spot on the National Register of Historic Places.

“They needed each other — Dick to build, Martha to dream and van Fossen to design,” said Marcia
Rees Conrad, a Worthington architect who has studied the community.

Martha Wakefield, who served as Rush Creek’s guru and evangelist, lived in her Rush Creek home
until her death, at age 85, in 2007, nine years after her husband had passed away.

“I can still see her sitting here, smoking, telling everyone about Rush Creek,” Conrad said. “
She must have shown this house 1,000 times to anyone who was interested.”

Wakefield was famously adamant in her views but was a tireless spreader of the Rush Creek
gospel.

“It was her reason for getting out of bed,” recalled Wakefield’s son-in-law, Cris Anderson of
Louisville, Ky., who oversees the family trust that owns the house.

The Wakefields started their home in 1954 but didn’t complete it until 1957 — after two other
homes had been finished.

“They were living in the house before it was complete, and there were birds flying through the
structure,” Kelly said. “That underscores her commitment and her drive.”

Even by Rush Creek’s singular standards, the Wakefield house is eccentric.

The home is a jumble of angles, with walls, ceilings and built-in furniture jagging here and
there. All walls are either concrete block or wood, unpainted — which darkens the home even though
extensive windows and glass doors open the house to the outside.

One of the home’s two furnaces is tucked into a cabinet above the bathroom; the other is in a
closet outside the home. Two of the four bedrooms are tiny and can be opened to one another with an
accordion wall.

Unlike many other Rush Creek houses, Martha Wakefield’s house is rich with decorative touches,
reflecting her fondness for Wright. Ornamental window screens, ornate hanging lights and a heavy
fabric separating the entrance from the living room all carry an orange-and-green geometric
pattern.

“Knowing what we know about Martha, that house was exactly the way she wanted it,” Kelly said. “
The ornamentation reflects her interpretation of organic design.”

In addition to the built-in desks, beds, cabinets, shelves and tables common in Rush Creek
homes, the Wakefield house comes with three table-and-chair sets and a lounging chair built
specifically for the house.

The home is also unusual because it is not technically part of Rush Creek, even though it was
built by Rush Creek’s founders.

The Wakefield house and one other lie just outside the boundaries of Rush Creek Village,
although Anderson said that, as a condition of the sale, new owners might be required to bring the
home into the village, where any changes will be subject to approval by an architectural review
board.

The most likely change a buyer would make is upgrading insulation in the home.

Conrad is using the house as a laboratory for a class she is teaching at Columbus State
Community College on how to improve the energy efficiency of Rush Creek homes.

The home is listed by Cynthia MacKenzie, a Keller Williams Capital Partners agent who has been
involved in the sale of 18 of the past 25 Rush Creek homes to come on the market.

She is confident that the home will find a buyer.

With their small kitchens and bathrooms, unconventional layouts and tile and concrete floors,
Rush Creek homes aren’t for everyone but do attract a devoted following among academics, designers
and artists.

Said MacKenzie: “Martha told me when I first started selling in the neighborhood that ‘The house
picks the buyer; the buyer does not pick the house.’ ”

jweiker@dispatch.com