Munroe House Timeline

Twenty-five-year-old Joe Munroe sends the first requested photographs of Wright's houses. About his work he says: "The feeling of the house, different rooms etc. – all of those are more important to me than merely recording the house as an object."

Munroe first asks Wright to design his next home.

Wright responds: "Dear Joe: Why not?"

In the following months, Munroe mentions re-reading these words often with his wife, Virginia, and constantly talking about their hopes for the house.

Munroe proposes to add a darkroom and photography studio to the house plans. His reasoning:

 "Photography is so much a part of my life it seems ridiculous to run somewhere else to work.”

Still living in Detroit, Joe and Virginia have received preliminary sketches for the house and have decided to build it in Knox County, Ohio, although they haven't bought land yet.

They send some modifications to the house plans, which include changes to the photography studio and kitchen (which Wright refers to as a "work space").

Munroe informs Wright that he and Virginia have bought twelve acres of a hillside in Ohio. By the end of the year the family moves to an interim house in Mount Vernon in hopes to save more efficiently for the Wright home. 

In order to offset some of the initial cost, Munroe photographs Wright's model of the Guggenheim Museum building in exchange for money taken off of his house plans. He continues to photograph for Wright under this agreement in the coming years.

Munroe shifts his career to focus on freelance photography (as mentioned in a note of having an upcoming spread in the August 25th publication of Life Magazine), stopping projects with Wright. His primary work for most of the year remains photographing for the Farm Quarterly magazine.

Munroe, along with his new associate David Strout, open a photography "office-and-lab workshop" in Mount Vernon at 205 S. Main St. (now MVNU's Buchwald Center). He begins this work as he still struggles to save enough money for house construction.

Munroe continues to try to make enough money to pay off the initial cost of the house plans, preventing any progress in construction. He reminds Wright that it is still his family's priority: 

"At any rate, we do want you to know we have the house very much in mind all the time.”

Joe and Virginia have another child, nineteen years after their oldest. He shares that they have moved to California, although he only states in his letter to Wright that it is "for reasons too lengthy for here."

Munroe's next correspondence to Wright, two years later, informs him that although he and his family are now living in the San Francisco Bay Area, they still have the land in Ohio. "What now?" he asks.

Despite remaining in California for the remainder of their lives, Joe and Virginia never give up entirely on their dream.

March 1957

The last written correspondence from Frank Lloyd Wright to Joe and Virignia simply states, about their still unbuilt house:

"Whenever you are ready - we are, as always."