In Love Letters to a Frank Lloyd Wright House, author, painter, and lecturer Maya Moran Manny brings several threads together in telling of her 27-year experience of living in, loving, and restoring a Frank Lloyd Wright house. The 1904 F. F. Tomek house in Riverside, Illinois stands as a prime example of Wright's Prairie Style, and was the first private home of Wright's to acquire National Historic Landmark status.

With 70 pages and 120 images, this book and this house, the precursor to the more famous Robie House, provide the backdrop for Manny's mini-biography. She also muses on how one can love a house the way one loves a person, sometimes with ups and downs. And charting the four seasons in the house, and in different phases of one's life, she shows how a house might love one back.

The demands of properly shepherding a landmark property are balanced with the rewards of taking in and living in such well-conceived spaces. Along the way with her personal hardships and triumphs, she shows how such a strong sense of place can bring about and demonstrate the redemptive power of good architecture.

Love Letters to A Frank Lloyd Wright House, published in January 2025, is available in hardcover on lulu.com.

Mentioned in the Marin Independent Journal, March 29, 2025.