“I grew up in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, where I hated every­body and everything. I couldn’t wait to leave. But Oak Park always struck me as my own ‘princedom by the sea.’ The reason: its architecture. I’d pass as many as twenty Frank Lloyd Wright homes on my way to school—scores of Prairie School buildings, breathtaking moments of America’s architectural coming-of-age. I once knew someone who lived in one of those homes. A certain Linda. Imagining this house now, I turn into Humbert Humbert catching glimpses of Lolita’s ‘lovely indrawn abdomen.’ I see the house’s natural woods, stone surfaces, and graceful symmetries. I’m back there, on that long, beautiful built-in ledge in her dimly lit, low-ceilinged, hazel-painted living room, sitting on golden-yellow Japanese cushions, with cinnamon-color pillows, finally being allowed to kiss wispy Linda, thinking, This is the best place that I have ever been.”

– Jerry Saltz, art critic, in New York magazine