Frank Lloyd Wright's Heath House, Part 3

William R. Heath House (1904-1905), Buffalo, NY

I received a note from my pal Jon Ward today, who, like Bill Brockflock, has a personal connection with the Heath House. I'll let him tell it:

"I noticed the stuff you had on the Heath house on your blog.  That place still belongs to the widow of my dad's best pal, Charles Elwood.  Charles became a famous internist (kidneys especially; he was Pat Reilly's doctor when his kidneys quit) and when he started to pull down the bucks circa 1969, he bought the Heath house.  ($130K if memory serves, huge green for the day.)  Standard Sundays went like this: Late morning, Russ would put Eric and me in the car and we'd buy two copies of the NYT on the way to Charles's house.  Russ and Charles would sit in big chairs in the living room and discuss matters while reading the paper.  Eric and I would either mess with Charles's kids or amuse ourselves.  Among the bling he acquired, Charles had the damndest hi-fi system I had ever seen.  Super-good European stuff, including a reel-to-reel tape deck, which at the time was considered the best renderer of audio."  

 "The gents' mutual friend Joe Milazzo (who was also a musical mentor of mine) decided Charles should broaden his musical horizons from the classics, and so gave him things like Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy on big tape.  I probably listened to Tommy in its entirety 15 times through the headphones.  Still like that record."  

"I adopted my dad's perspective that it's not so bad being poor if your friends are wealthier and more successful than you are, particularly if they enjoy your company.  Charles used to rent a big house in Canada for the summer each year, and while we spent a lot of time over there it never cost more than a case of beer." 

"So began my fascination with Frank Lloyd Wright and good audio.  And thus ends the reminiscence."