The Hanna–Honeycomb House (also known as the Paul R. Hanna House; shortened to Hanna House) is a residence at 737 Frenchmans Road on the Stanford University campus in Stanford, California, United States. Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Usonian style, it was his first work in the San Francisco Bay Area. The house is built atop a hill and consists of two interconnected wings, which include a main building, guest wing, hobby shop, storage building, double carport, breezeway, and garden house. Its floor plan, built around a hexagonal grid, was the first non-rectangular floor grid Wright ever designed. The house has received mixed commentary over the years and is designated as a National Historic Landmark.
The house was built for Stanford professor Paul Robert Hanna and his wife Jean Shuman Hanna. Wright formally received the commission in 1935, after Paul joined Stanford's faculty, though the Hannas had been thinking of hiring him for several years. After the Hannas acquired a site in 1936, the house was built the next year, and the Hannas moved in during November 1937. The house underwent multiple expansions and modifications through the early 1960s. The Hannas gave the property to Stanford University in 1975, and the house was used for events. The home was severely damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and reopened as a conference center in 1999.
The Hanna House shares materials and general arrangement with Wright's Usonian residences, although it is significantly larger than other Usonian houses. The house rises one story and is surrounded by terraces. The facade is made of boards and battens, along with brick, concrete, and glass; the center of the roof is raised to create a clerestory. The main house covers , and the workshop covers another . The interiors have an open plan configuration, allowing for easy reconfiguration, and have furnishings designed by Wright to fit the hexagonal grid. In general, the house is arranged around a central kitchen, with a playroom and bedroom wing extending southwest, and the guest wing extending northeast.
Site The Hanna-Honeycomb House is located at 737 Frenchmans Road in Stanford, California, United States. It is part of an site, on the east side of Frenchmans Road and is bounded by other houses on three sides. It sits on the slope of a hill; the house's architect Frank Lloyd Wright had expressed the opinion that "No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it." The grounds include an interconnected main building, guest wing, hobby shop, storage building, double carport, breezeway, and garden house. These structures are arranged roughly in the shape of a perfect hexagon, a motif used throughout the house. The Hanna-Honeycomb House is one of several historic houses on the campus of Stanford University, along with the Lou Henry Hoover House at 623 Mirada Road and the MacFarland House at 775 Santa Ynez Street, both of which are also on the National Register of Historic Places.
The grounds are landscaped in the manner of a Japanese garden. When the house was built, steep slopes were created via cutting and filling, held back by reinforcing walls. During the house's initial construction, the original owners (the Hanna family) had planned to eventually demolish part of the original garden, replacing one of the original brick paths with an extension of the house's terrace. The grounds have 50 fruit trees, around which the house was built. All but one of the eight preexisting trees were retained, including the site's only cypress tree, which was incorporated into the roof of the house. Sandstone underlies most of the lot, although the western section is made of clay. A minor branch of the San Andreas Fault runs directly under the site. The geologist Bailey Willis, a onetime neighbor of the Hanna family, said that although the fault under the house was not itself capable of creating tremors, it could amplify tremors from the main fault.
Hardscape features include concrete terraces adjoining each room, which protrude beyond the house's walls on all sides. The terraces are split across two levels, which are variously recessed or protruded from the hillside. All the terraces are connected, except for one gap near the living room at the western corner. Movable metal chairs and plywood-topped tables could be laid out whenever the Hannas hosted large parties. There were also chess tables with tiled surfaces, which could be screwed onto removable poles that could themselves be screwed into holes on the terraces. The grounds also have a staircase-like fountain, which connects two pools at separate levels. This fountain was an allusion to Wright's Fallingwater house, which the Hanna family had admired. There is also a two-toned urn salvaged from the second Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, which had been designed by Wright and was later demolished. The parking space next to the carport could fit 10 cars, while the slopes could accommodate another 25 cars for parties.
History
Development
Background The Hanna-Honeycomb House was the first building that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in the San Francisco Bay Area. Wright mostly designed houses for wealthy clients until the 1930s, when he began to design lower-cost Usonian houses for middle-class families. In general, his Usonian houses tended to have open plans, geometric floor grids, in-floor heating, and a carport, without a garage or basement. He began experimenting with the Usonian style in the late 1920s, tweaking the style even as the Herbert and Katherine Jacobs First House in Madison, Wisconsin—sometimes cited as Wright's first-ever Usonian house—was being constructed.
The house's first occupants were Stanford University professor Paul Robert Hanna (1902–1988), and his wife, Jean Shuman Hanna (1902–1987). Paul and Jean were educators long associated with Stanford, and both were children of itinerant ministers. Neither of their families had been able to remodel their respective clergy houses, as both families frequently moved from town to town. After meeting each other as college students, Paul and Jean began to yearn for their own house, keeping notes of architectural ideas. The Hannas wished to avoid the then-prevalent International Style, which was too austere for their tastes, but also wanted a high-quality design. They first learned about Wright after learning about one of his architectural lectures in 1930. After he responded to a piece of fan mail inviting the Hannas to his Wisconsin studio, they went to visit him in 1931. The Hannas unsuccessfully attempted to convince Paul's employer, Columbia University, to let them and several colleagues develop a modern-styled residential enclave in the Bronx, New York. The Hannas' plans for a new house were delayed by several years, during which the couple had three children.
Wright commission and site selection After Paul joined Stanford's faculty in 1935, the couple again reached out to Wright, writing to him with a wish list of features. For example, they wanted a building nestled on a hilltop, with a myriad of terraces, glass walls, and a flexible layout, which would accommodate both the Hannas and their children. The house also had to be able to fit 30 dinner guests or 100 partygoers. Wright sent the Hannas a sketch of a two-story house in late 1935, but the Hannas insisted that the architect design a one-story structure. At the time, Jean had recently fallen down a staircase and was still recuperating. The Hannas later said that they were perplexed why Wright sent them a two-story drawing, as they had never indicated that they wanted a multi-story house.
The Hannas tried to obtain a site from Stanford. This process was delayed because the university was deciding whether to develop a water-supply reservoir, which affected where on the campus the house would be built. The family identified three possible sites on the slopes of hills, and in March 1936, Wright visited Palo Alto, California, to look at the sites. Although both Wright and the Hannas preferred a hilly lot, Wright drew up plans for a flat site, in case a hillside site was not available. That April, Wright drew up plans for a house with hexagonal modules intersecting at 120-degree angles, writing to the Hannas that the rooms would "be more quiet than rectangular ones" and that the plans would allow a high amount of flexibility. The plans called for a building with a small cellar, a redwood-and-glass facade, and a simple interior. The hexagonal modules came as a surprise to the Hannas, who had heard Wright discuss the hexagonal plans on previous trips but had not taken him seriously. The Hannas eventually acquired a site close to the Stanford campus, and they wrote to Wright in July 1936, telling him that Stanford had permitted them to select a hillside site.
The Hannas had budgeted $15,000 for the house (including the architect's fee), but before the site had been finalized, the cost increased to $19,800: a base fee of $18,000, plus Wright's 10% commission. When the Hannas wrote to Wright asking why, the architect said that "I appreciate your dilemma. Everything gets down to a money matter so quickly [...] It will come out right in the end." To resolve the cost concerns, the Hannas proposed a flexible layout, initially with smaller bedrooms for each child; after the children moved out, these rooms would be combined to create larger spaces. The plans went through several iterations and were severely delayed. This bothered the Hannas, who had expected to move into the new house in April 1937. The family received a two-month extension on their existing lease, which could not be extended further because the landlord had other tenants. The Hanna family also learned from a neighbor, the geologist Bailey Willis, that a branch of the San Andreas Fault ran underneath. Willis wrote to the Hannas that September, advising them about the fault and the geological conditions, and recommending that the Hannas build a lightweight home with a concrete foundation. Despite Willis's earthquake concerns, Wright—whose Imperial Hotel had survived the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake—proceeded with the original plans; he left the soil uncompacted because he thought his design would resist tremors.
Construction The Hannas attempted to solicit bids from multiple contractors, who were reluctant to be involved with such an unconventional hexagonal design. Harold Turner ultimately was selected as the construction contractor, having been recommended to the Hannas by Stanford professor Daniel Mendelowitz. After Turner visited Wright's staff at Taliesin, Wright allowed the Hannas to hire him as the contractor. The family agreed to pay Turner a maximum of $1,500, on the assumption that he would work for five months. Work began in January 1937, upon which the Hannas leased the land from Stanford comptroller Almon Roth. Although the house was budgeted at $25,000 by then, Turner told the Hannas that the house would be worth twice that, to their confusion. When construction began, the Hannas objected that Wright's plans still envisaged narrow doorways, beds, and tubs; Wright responded that the seemingly small dimensions were based on decades of architectural experience. After several weeks, the Hannas acceded to Wright's specifications.