Sarasota Architectural Foundation President Janet Minker accepts a $75,000 check from Dr. Michael Kalman during a reception at Kalman's penthouse apartment at 988 Boulevard of the Arts in Sarasota on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014. The check will be used to fund construction of a duplicate of the Walker Guest House on the grounds of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. Staff photo / Harold Bubil; 2-13-2014.
The Sarasota Architectural Foundation has received a $75,000 gift from Dr. Michael Kalman to reconstruct the Walker Guest House on the grounds of the Ringling Museum of Art.
The gift was presented to SAF president Janet Minker during a reception at Kalman's bayfront penthouse Thursday evening.
Kalman also donated $15,000 to the SAF's scholarship fund.
The SAF is holding a fundraising drive to add $75,000 to the Walker Guest House fund. The house could be built in such a way that it could be disassembled at displayed at other locations around the country, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., said SAF board member Dan Snyder.
The house, built in 1952-53, is an example of midcentury modern architecture on Sanibel Island.
"Recreating Paul Rudolph's iconic Walker Guest House on The Ringling Museum grounds will allow guests the rare opportunity to experience, firsthand, one of the most important buildings of the Sarasota School of Architecture," Minker said.
The exact location of the temporary exhibit has not been determined. One option is a space north of the Searing Wing, said The Ringling's Stephen High. A second is near the Rose Garden. "This is an area of interest for us," said High.
Rudolph designed the square little house in 1952 on an island near Fort Myers that was then little known and sparsely populated. The 600-square-foot house has the simple geometry for which Rudolph's early work was known.
The most noteworthy feature is the external window shades — plywood flaps that are raised and lowered by spherical iron counterweights on pulleys.
"The prosaic material of the lumberyard is utilized to produce a refined expression of American ingenuity," Christopher Domin and Joseph King wrote in their 2002 book "Paul Rudolph: The Florida Houses."
"Constructed of typical lumber profiles in combination with locally constructed operable panels, the Walker Guest House became an experiment in off-the-shelf technology."
Outboard posts and beams, which supply anchor points for the pulleys and ropes, create a wrap-around porch, nearly doubling the living space in good weather.
"A portion of the surrounding landscape is gathered into the realm of the house," according to King and Domin.
The SAF, working with drawings and blueprints by consulting architect Joyce Owens of Fort Myers, may construct the house so it can be disassembled and displayed elsewhere.
"Our long-term goal is to exhibit the Walker Guest House at other museums, dramatically representing Sarasota around the country," Minker said.
The SAF grants a $5,000 Paul Rudolph Scholarship each year for local architecture students. Information: SAR-SRQ.org.
COVER PHOTO: Legendary architectural photographer Ezra Stoller photographed the Walker Guest House in the 1950s.
