Sparking a FLWright Rescue

Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's Bazett House of Hillsborough is a home with many intriguing stories to tell.

Builder Joe Eichler rented the Bazett in the early 1940s, and was so awestruck by the experience that, as the legend goes, it quite literally launched his homebuilding career, altering the course of architectural history.

That architectural history was rudely interrupted in 2022, when a sudden fire brought the Bazett's tenacious owner to the rescue.

Today, Laurence Frank, 75, is safe at home at the Bazett House, the hexagonal haven that he has called 'home' since birth.

Four generations of the Frank family have lived in the historic house since Laurence's parents, Louis and Betty Frank, acquired the home in 1945. Nearly new, the house had been commissioned in 1939 by Sidney Bazett-Jones and his wife, Louise.

In the summer of 2022, when Laurence Frank hired a high-end roofing company to re-roof the home, the crew's accidental spark ignited the roof, serving as another reminder that torch-applied modified-bitumen roofing inherently has considerable fire potential. In addition to fire damage, the Bazett also was impacted by water from a broken pipe.

After receiving a number of roofing estimates, Frank hired a roofing company within the Wright world. On their very first day, "12 to 15 guys showed up for work," recalled Frank.

"The first roofers broke a pipe on the roof, and by the time we noticed what had happened, two bedrooms were soaked. We did our best to dry out the carpets, but two weeks later it was mold stench."

Near the end of the roofing project, with only a few hours of roofing work to complete, Frank received an urgent call.

"I get a phone call [away from home] that the house was on fire!" Frank says. "Rushing down here [to Hillsborough], the fire department was just finishing up. They [the roofers] used a hot mop for application of a tar-like substance, and it must have left a spark. One end of one big room was pretty badly damaged.

"Fortunately, neighbors up the hill had seen it, and called the fire department, which put it out with chain saws instead of fire hoses. The entire house has an overhang six feet deep. That was the end of the roof that was burned, and that was pretty upsetting."

After Frank reported the incident to his insurance company, an adjuster showed up, stared at the house, and estimated the damages as if it was any other house.