The tower is believed to date back to 1790.  The first record of its existence is in a 1791 lease, which says it was erected by Earl Bathurst, being part of a large estate that included Cirencester House, the Bathurst family’s ancestral seat. Then classified as a wind grist mill, the building was leased for a yearly sum of 38 pounds, 6 shillings, and 6 pence.

Because it was located quite close to the Thames & Severn Canal, whose five round houses were built during the same time period, some have posited a link between the windmill’s construction and the canal buildings: either that it was built by the same team of contractors, or that it was a copy, or that the canal’s round houses were copies.

According to the UK’s 1871 and 1881 census, a shepherd named Nevil Witts inhabited the structure, which was still deemed a windmill even though it no longer functioned as one.

Jumping forward to 1958, the building’s inhabitants moved out (perhaps because it lacked a bathroom), leaving it empty for a half century. Becoming increasingly derelict, the tower landed on the Buildings at Risk register of the local council authority; it might easily have ended up a ruin. Yet in 2004, developer James Perkins bought it, hiring architects De Matos Ryan to update it with a discrete underground addition. The end result, neatly combining old and new, has won several architectural awards, including the Roses Design Award for Best Re-use of a Listed Building.

Built by Longo himself over a five-year period, beginning in the early 1970s, the house was meant to be the prototype for a utopian project of apartment blocks made of up dozens of spherical structures.  The apartment blocks were never built, but Longo has now lived more than 30 years in his “ball house,” or Casa Bola.

Made of smooth molded concrete, the house is 25 feet in diameter, and has four levels, three bedrooms, several bathrooms, a dining room, a living room, a kitchen, and a hammock. Its decor is strictly minimalist and very white. Much more colorful on the outside, it sports a bright yellow slide that exits from below and a spherical yellow decoration on top.

Longo’s son Lucas, who grew up in the Casa Bola, now has a spherical house of his own. Both structures have been featured on the TV series The World’s Most Extreme Homes. The son’s house, whose levels are linked by curving ramps rather than stairs, is somewhat reminiscent of Eduardo Longo’s 1980 design for a utopian pavilion.

The house was almost lost. A development company, 8081 Meridien, bought the property for $1.8 million in June 2012, planning to subdivide the land, demolish the house, and replace it with two luxury homes. Interviewed by the New York Times a few months later, one of the firm’s two principals admitted that he had no idea of the structure’s significance, or even of the difference “between Frank Lloyd Wright and the Wright brothers.”

Wright designed not only the house itself but all of its interior details.  As the New York Times described, “The house dances. The glass of its windows is mounted on frames that curve, following the flow of its spiraling walls. The furniture inside, all of it designed by Wright, is a study in symmetry. The kitchen table’s round edges match the round edges of the fireplace, which match the round edges of the ramp that leads from ground to second level like an inverted U.”

While the buyer’s name is not known, he is said to be a Frank Lloyd Wright enthusiast who plans to spend millions of dollars to restore the property.  The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, which lauded the sale, will be working with the new owner to “develop a vision for the house and the site, a comprehensive restoration plan and a more detailed use and operating plan.”   And a landmark of American architecture is saved.

The house is part of a residential community called Rush Creek Village, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s principles of organic architecture. Made up of 49 single-family houses linked by a system of curvilinear streets, the neighborhood and each of its homes were designed by van Fossen, who had worked for Wright on construction projects in the late 1930s in Indiana.

The National Park Service listed the neighborhood on its National Register of Historic Places in 2003.  The nomination form describes the community’s Wrightian features, including its effort to enable “Nature-centered” living:

The conventional primacy of the street grid in dictating house sites is completely ignored and has no relevance to the architecture of Rush Creek Village. Instead of clearly designated facades which face the street, the front doors are deliberately obscured and are often completely hidden. There are no main facades or primary elevations as those terms are commonly understood. Instead, the houses present an off-set or anonymous face to the street. Rather than externally observed primary elevations, the houses are designed with primary views onto nature, as observed from within the dwelling.

Now selling for $549,000, the Orcutt House was put on the market last year at a substantially higher price.

“Right angles don’t attract me. Nor straight, hard and inflexible lines created by man,” explained Niemeyer in The Curves of Time, his 1998 memoir. “What attracts me are free and sensual curves. The curves we find in mountains, in the waves of the sea, in the body of the woman we love.”

Niemeyer’s many round buildings include the Museum of Contemporary Art, in Niterói outside of Rio, and the Parlamento Latinoamericano, in São Paulo. His career spanned seven decades, but he is probably best known for the iconic government buildings he designed in the 1950s for Brazil’s capital city Brasília.

Built in 1901, the house was put on the market in 2010 when its long-term owner died.  Its condition at that time was said to be poor; it was also tiny by 21st century standards. After changing hands a couple of times, the house was bought by developer Martin Ditto of Ditto Residential, who undertook the recent renovations.  Last January, the house was said to be under consideration for protection as a historic landmark, but the D.C. Preservation League, which was submitting the landmark application, negotiated with the developer regarding the scope of the planned renovations, agreeing not submit an application until renovations were complete. The League apparently pressed the developer to limit the size of the addition so that it would not dwarf the existing structure.

The house’s original architect was Edward Woltz; the 2012 renovations were designed by architect Chuong Cao of DEP Designs. Here’s a pre-renovation photo -

The developer, 8081 Meridian, contends that the city issued a valid demolition permit that would allow the house to be torn down.  Having bought the house in June 2012 for $1.8 million, he has reportedly turned down a cash offer of more than $2 million from a prospective buyer looking to save the historic structure.

“It is probably the most important residential design of the last decade of his career,” said Janet Halstead, the  executive director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. “Many architecture experts consider it among the 20 most important Frank Lloyd Wright designs ever built.”

The search for a buyer who can satisfy the developer’s financial demands continues.

8081 Meridian, a development company that builds “Highly Livable Luxury Homes,” bought the property in early 2012 for $1.8 million. The company has filed plans with the city to divide the 2-acre property, a possible first step toward demolition.  In an interview with the Arizona Republic, managing partner John Hoffman reportedly said that “it’s not a given that the house can be preserved.”

After negotiations with the city and the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, Hoffman said in mid-July that his company has put its plans on hold for 60 days while seeking a compromise solution to save the house. The waiting period ends on August 21.

The house is a historic gem.  It reflects ideas about structure that Wright worked out in the Guggenheim museum, built a few years later.

“I was astounded” by the house, said Wright scholar Neil Levine, a Harvard art historian, who visited once. “Unlike 80 percent of the houses Wright designed after World War II, this one is thought through. It’s really innovative and original.”

Levine ranks the Arizona structure among Wright’s 20 best houses.