- This is my first major restoration project that I've overseen, and it's pretty darn exciting.

(Nathaniel chuckles) - [Narrator] Nathaniel Allaire loves this house, but he doesn't actually own it.

He doesn't even live here.

It's his workplace.

And it's a Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece located in West Lafayette, Indiana.

- Welcome to Samara.

My name's Nathan and I'm the site director and curator.

We're approaching the front gate, main entrance of the house right now from Woodland Avenue.

We're located in a middle of a residential neighborhood and right across the street from the Purdue football stadium, but who would've guessed a Frank Lloyd Wright house right square in the middle of all of it.

- [Narrator] Samara, like all homes, masterpiece or not, needs maintenance.

It's April and Nathaniel's overseen restoration of the roof and hundreds of copper pieces that surround the house.

- So it's been quite a process.

We've taken 'em off one at a time.

We have a ID numbering system so we know exactly what part goes where.

On the back of it, it's a hanger, just like a photo frame on a wall.

And this is section 13, piece 11.

- [Narrator] Each piece of copper is unique and carries a motif you'll see repeated throughout the home.

- Samara is a botanical term that means wing seed or wing fruit.

Frank Lloyd Wright usually identifies some type of a natural feature of a property and just runs with it.

So here, that was Samara.

Before anything was built here, imagine there was about 35 different mature trees on the property.

They were elm trees, ash trees, maple trees, conifers trees like these pines here.

All of them grow a type of Samara, a wing seed.

- [Narrator] In the early 1950s, a young chemistry professor from Purdue University, Dr.

John Christian and his wife Catherine, bought a wooded triangular lot in West Lafayette.

They shared a dream to build an extraordinary home.

So they approached Frank Lloyd Wright, by this time, a world famous architect in his eighties, and asked him to build a house for their middle class family.

- Frank Lloyd Wright, having lived through the Great Depression, he realizes that not all of his clients have all the money in the world and society in America specifically is shifting.

There needs to be a model for affordable housing.

And so really Usonian is more than just a style.

It's also kind of a way of living and kind of a model of a sort of utopian society.

- [Narrator] Usonian homes use natural materials and include characteristics like a flat roof, large windows, zones, not rooms, no basements, no attics, and a central philosophy of connecting with nature.

- Now, Mrs.

Christian, she wanted a lot of things from Frank Lloyd Wright in their new home.

In fact, she had specified a hundred plus special features they wanted in their new home in a document called "What We Need For How We Live."

It's a 30 page document, it goes room by room and list every single feature that Mrs.

Christian wanted, which is also very unusual for one of Wright's clients to do.

I think he had total admiration and appreciation for Mrs.

Christian, and he saw someone who was well put together, well organized, smart.

I mean, she is determined and she knows what she wants.

So I think that's a part of the reasons why Frank Lloyd Wright accepted this commission.

- [Narrator] Major construction of the home took 18 months and finished in 1956, but this was a lifelong endeavor.

After Frank Lloyd Wright died in 1959, the Christian family continued to finish details throughout their lives as money allowed.

In fact, the copper pieces were not added to the roof line until 1991 at a cost of $30,000.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed this masterpiece, but the Christian family truly crafted this home into what you see today.

- Pretty much everything here is the Christian's original belongings.

We have all their books, some of their clothes, their art pieces, handwritten notes, recipes, play settings on the table.

This is a home that's been lived in by the entire life of the Christians and not only lived in but loved for so long, and that's very special that someone really loved something so much.

They spent their entire life here.

- [Narrator] When Catherine passed away in 1986, Dr.

Christian decided to make a plan for the home's future.

- He really started formally planning what's gonna be the next chapter, and so in the bylaws that he wrote into the trust, one of the missions is to present the house as a learning laboratory.

A learning laboratory, because you get to see every piece in action and you get to try out some of the pieces.

And that's something that started with Dr.

Christian and his methods of teaching at Purdue University.

- [Narrator] Dr.

Christian made Samara his home for 60 years.

Now it is operated by Indiana Landmarks and is the only Frank Lloyd Wright home in Indiana that's open to the public.

It's August.

The roof is mostly finished.

The copper pieces are back in place, and the home is once again open for tours.

- During our tours, we let our guests use all the furniture pieces that we see around us here, and the tour can go in many different directions based on people's interest.

The rugs and lighting accessories, the landscaping was designed by Wright.

Frank Lloyd Wright being an architect that considered the furniture, the accessories, the landscaping.

He designs everything to work together.

And so having the ability for people to kind of discover that for themselves through maybe what's not said on the tours is really a powerful way of educating the public.

- [Narrator] Nathaniel Allaire hopes you come to Samara, make yourself at home, and find a little bit of inspiration right here in Indiana.

- It's a national historic landmark for many important reasons, for the architecture and design of Frank Lloyd Wright, but also for the landscape design, and being a home for a middle class American family.

And being able to celebrate that is, well, just fun.

(chuckles) So really a landmark of how big dreams can be, and I think it's really a source of inspiration for many people.

It really feels more like home rather than a job.

(chuckles) Appliances, utensils, silverware for almost every occasion.

All the movements are wood on wood.

- [Announcer] For more Across Indiana stories go to wfyi.org/acrossindiana.

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