Tucked away in the heart of Detroit, the Dorothy G. Turkel House is a stunning example of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Automatic design, built in 1955. Today, it’s owned by florists Norm and Dale who have lovingly restored the home, turning it into a personal sanctuary and a celebration of American architectural history.
“Usonian Automatic” refers to Wright’s vision of affordable, modern homes built from modular concrete blocks. “Usonian” speaks to open, flexible layouts meant for everyday living, while “Automatic” reflects the idea of simplified construction using pre-cast blocks. While the design was innovative, by the time Norm and Dale found the Turkel House, it had suffered years of neglect. The plumbing, electrical, and roofing were in serious disrepair. But the bones of the house—Wright’s vision—remained strong.
Even arriving at the house feels intentional. A long driveway lined with a ribbon of red concrete creates a sense of quiet anticipation. The entrance isn’t grand or obvious; it’s subtle almost as if it’s encouraging you to partake in an explorative game. Once you find the front door, you step into a small, low-ceilinged space that immediately stirs curiosity and you’re given choices about which way to turn. A staircase to the left leads to the private spaces. Straight ahead, glass doors open to the rear garden, and to the right is the music room where Wright’s mastery becomes clear. A narrow hallway suddenly opens up into a soaring space filled with light. Each window is a perfect 24-inch square, framing the outside world like a series of living paintings.
Along the walls, built-in shelves originally designed by Wright now hold personal items and treasures collected by Norm and Dale over the years. These little touches turn the home into a reflection of their personalities. The red concrete floors (one of Wright's signature features) anchor the house to the earth, while a silk-and-wool rug adds warmth, its shimmer changing with the light. Furniture includes faithful reproductions of original Wright designs, including a pair of angular kitchen chairs now used in the dining room. (And while they look beautiful, they’re famously uncomfortable, often sparking fun conversations with guests about Wright’s love of form over function.)
Stepping out of the music room, guests pass under a low balcony before emerging into a bright, open outdoor space. Originally meant to be a terrace (though it was never completed by Wright), this area has been transformed by Norm and Dale into a peaceful sculpture garden, complete with a tranquil water feature. (FYI: It’s one of the best vantage points for seeing the full length and scale of the home.) Back inside, the kitchen has been updated with modern cabinetry and sleek stainless steel countertops which serve as a respectful nod to Wright’s preferred materials. Oversized windows keep the garden in view at all times. As Dale puts it, living in the Turkel House feels like “living in a garden structure.”
Heading up Wright’s signature stairs, known for their shallow and gentle incline, you find yourself in a quiet gallery. One direction leads to the bedrooms, the other to a balcony that looks back over the music room. A detail worth noticing: the balcony railing continues past the glass and straight through to the outside, seamlessly connecting interior and exterior. The bedrooms themselves are compact and minimalist (about 12 by 10 feet) with built-in furniture and high ribbon windows. Wright believed bedrooms should be for rest and privacy, not lounging. The design subtly encourages people to spend more time in the home’s shared spaces, engaging with each other and the surrounding environment.
Overall, for Norm and Dale, restoring and living in this remarkable home has been a labor of love. They’ve preserved Wright’s vision while adding their own layer of meaning to it, thus proving that even the most iconic spaces can still evolve and inspire.
Enjoy the full episode of Open House here: • Frank Lloyd Wright, Breakfast at Tiffany's...
Hi, I'm Norm.
And I'm Dale.
We're in the flower business, and we also own the Dorothy G. Terkel House in Detroit.
Frank Lloyd Wright's 1955 design, Usonian Automatic.
Usonian is a style of architecture where the floor plan is more open, the rooms have multi-use,
and the automatic simply refers to the concrete construction.
Owning a Wright house has its challenges.
So the Terkel House had years and years of neglect, and so plumbing, the electrical,
the roof, all the major systems didn't work.
But the design was fabulous.
The design of the Terkel House were designed to be discreet.
When you come up to the front of the house, there's a long driveway, and there's a red
ribbon of concrete.
It's more of a mystery, a search to find the front door.
So when you do find the front door, it's a low, confined, tight space.
It's almost a childlike innocence, wondering where to go.
When you step inside, there's a stairway to the left, leading you to the private spaces.
Ahead of you is our glass doors, and then if you turn to the right, you move into the
music room.
When you enter the music room, you come through a low, compressed space, and then when you
step a couple more steps into the room, the room just explodes.
And that's Wright's compression and expansion technique that he used in many, many houses.
The windows are 24-inch squares, so you get individual visions of the outside, so the
landscape becomes part of the room.
Wright designed all of these shelves, so we've collected things that we love.
It's a great way to...
It shows our personalities.
Yeah, to express yourself.
The floors are red concrete.
Wright liked the color of earth.
He felt it anchored the house to the ground outside.
So we decided to bring a rug into the room to create another texture and to soften the
bold color of the red floor.
I like it because it's a combination of wool and silk.
The silk captures the light and shimmers, while the wool is always there but constantly
receding.
We did reproduce two chairs that were originally in the kitchen as dining room chairs.
They're impractical, and that was a constant comment that people would make about these
chairs was that they'd always end up on the floor by setting on them wrong.
When you look at the doors and you're ready to step outside, there's a balcony overhead.
You take a few steps and all of a sudden, poof, you're in this open, airy exterior.
Containment and then explosion into this big space.
The original terrace was never built.
It was just grass.
So when we saw that, we realized that he wanted to have an outdoor space.
We just made it a little bit larger and added the water feature.
And we didn't want to create an entire garden in this yard.
So we said, let's do a sculpture garden.
You get the perspective of the length and the size of the house.
So that view is really the best view of the entire house.
Stepping back inside, we enter the kitchen.
The kitchen is Wright's original design, but has been updated with new cabinets, stainless
countertops, which were a material that he used at the time.
I always say living in this house is like living in a garden structure.
You're always looking out in the garden.
And the kitchen kind of is a work area that accesses the garden.
Frank Lloyd Wright's stairs, I'm a big fan of because they have very shallow rises.
So it's a very easy transition to go from one floor to the next.
When you reach the top of the stairs, again, you have options.
You can go down a gallery that leads to the bedrooms, or you can go the opposite way to
the balcony that overlooks the music room.
And the balcony railing pierces the window and wraps around outside.
Those I think are amazing features.
So Frank Lloyd Wright thought the bedrooms were basically just for sleeping.
Not a place with a lot of extra furniture.
So it's designed with built-in dressers, built-in desk, and then they have narrow ribbons of
windows that are high in the rooms, and the position of the window makes it private.
Unlike today's bedrooms, this one's about 12 foot by 10 foot.
It is not an escape.
It is a room that you go in and sleep in, and then you exit and come down and socialize
and you interact because we all know what happens in bedrooms, and people don't need
to know about it.
So that completes the tour of our house, the Dorothy G. Turkel House here in Detroit.
It's one of the most significant modern pieces of architecture in the country, and it's great
fun to live in.
It certainly is.
Well that was so much fun, but the fun doesn't have to end here.
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