Living The Frank Lloyd Wright Life Upstate

“When I first visited, I was surprised that I had never heard of Usonia and it was only one hour from Manhattan. It is a quiet and special enclave that I love and hope it remains so,” says Lena Stringari, deputy director and chief conservator of the Guggenheim museum. Usonia is a unique community where she and her partner, Pedro Felix Perez, have been restoring a 1949 house and cottage designed by Frank Lloyd Wright protégé David Henken for the last decade. The founders of Usonia, committed to living in nature before the green movement became the norm, enlisted Wright to design three of the houses in the woodlands. Stringari’s efforts to restore a historic property and her work as a conservator and curator share a theme of patience: As she explains, she’s been working on the Guggenheim’s recently opened show, “Eva Hesse: Expanded Expansion,” for decades. “This is part of what my life is like,” she says. “It’s kind of a slow understanding of things and trying to do the right thing.”

Best,
Wendy Goodman

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