American Proceeding: Building the Grant House with Frank Lloyd Wright

In June 1950, Frank Lloyd Wright paid a surprise visit to the Grant house, under construction near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This was Wright's first visit to the site, and he was worried about the house because, unlike most of Wright's clients, Doug Grant was building it himself, serving as his own general contractor and doing his own electrical work and carpentry. He and his wife, Jackie, quarried all of the stone for the house from their own quarry on the property, and both took an active part in the construction. Upon his return to Taliesin, Wright told the assembled group of architects and apprentices that he was extremely pleased by what he had seen. He delivered a long tribute to Grant, calling the act of building one's own house "an American Proceeding."Providing a unique look into the world of a house under construction, Donna Grant Reilly's memoir of building and living in a Wright house will inspire and delight all fans of Frank Lloyd Wright and those who have ever thought of "doing it yourself."Donna Grant Reilly is the eldest of the Grant children, and she writes this narrative from a firsthand view of the experience. She lives with her husband, Chuck Reilly, in Hanover, New Hampshire.