FLW in Canada

Banff National Park Pavilion, Alberta, Canada, circa 1913.³

Banff National Park Pavilion, Alberta, Canada, circa 1920.³

E. H. Pitkin Cottage, Sapper Island, Ontario, Canada, 2010.1

I recently took a trip to Canada to attend the Winnipeg Fringe Festival and stayed with a friend who graciously gave me a place to stay. Knowing my love of architecture in general and Frank Lloyd Wright in particular, he asked whether or not Wright had ever built anything in Canada.

While I had the magic "532" number in my head (that would be the current known number of structures built by FLW), I couldn't recall when or if Wright had ever been to Canada. I remembered there was a single structure that Wright built and that it was a cottage. I couldn't recall where it was, what it looked like, or even when it was built. For the first time in a long time, someone had asked me a Wright question I didn't have a ready answer for.

In the interests of my own FLW knowledge and a desire to give my Canadian friend his very own Wright structure to brag about, I decided to produce my very own History Detectives episode and find out what I could.

The initial search for the lone structure north of the border told me that it was known as the E. H. Pitkin Cottage and was located on Sapper Island in the province of Ontario.

I also found a well-written article from The Sault Star in Sault Ste Marie that gives an excellent overview of the home. Long story short, E. H. Pitkin was a businessman from Chicago who visited the then remote islands in 1899 and was so taken with them that he asked his Oak Park neighbor, Frank Lloyd Wright, to design him a home there. Wright was still an apprentice at the time and not yet well known.²

This is one of Wright's lesser known works and indeed, it seems that most of the locals either do not know about the connection to Wright or if they do, aren't willing to help you get there. It is still a private home (only on its third owner) and the current owners value their privacy. Happily, the home is still reported to be in excellent condition.

In the interests of completism, it should also be noted that Wright did build a second structure in Canada. The Banff National Park Pavilion in Alberta was built in 1914 but lasted only a few years as it was demolished in 1939 because of structural damage. ³

^1,2 Last of a master’s Canadian designs stands in Algoma, Frank Dobrovnik, The Sault Star.

³ Wikipedia, Banff National Park Pavilion, Alberta, Canada.