Publisher
Mount Ida Press
Year Published
2001
Copies
1
Call Number
NA7238.H94 P74 2001
ISBN Number
0-9625368-3-0
Description
The President as Architect: Franklin D. Roosevelts Top Cottage analyzes the planning and original construction of Top Cottage. The book contains valuable information on mid-20th century building materials and techniques, a period just now gaining the attention of architects and preservationists.
Once historical research began and the fabric of the building was investigated, its significance quickly became apparent as one of the few houses designed by an architecturally literate president while in office. It is also one of the first buildings designed to be fully accessible to people who are disabled, said John G. Waite, whose firm was involved in the six-year project from the beginning. The Roosevelt family knew that there was a lot of history made there, and they are the ones that pushed for its preservation. No one else really knew that it survived. It turned out to be a real treasure.
A direct reflection of his physical condition, originally built without steps or other barriers, Top Cottage came to symbolize Roosevelts determination and independence.
More than half a century after FDRs death most people still dont fully grasp the fact that he was unable to stand, let alone walk, unaided, entirely dependent on his valet for his most basic needs. Determined to be more independent in the privacy of his own cottage, he carefully designed it all on one floor with no threshold barriers in the doorways so that he would need no help moving in his wheelchair, writes Geoffrey C. Ward, a Roosevelt biographer, in the foreword of the book. So far as I know, there is no other historic structure anywhere in the United States that specifically commemorates the achievements of a disabled person. As someone who had polio myself, I can imagine few things more inspiring for young disabled people than to be able to see for themselves this eloquent symbol of the heights to which a paraplegic was able to rise in America.
Once historical research began and the fabric of the building was investigated, its significance quickly became apparent as one of the few houses designed by an architecturally literate president while in office. It is also one of the first buildings designed to be fully accessible to people who are disabled, said John G. Waite, whose firm was involved in the six-year project from the beginning. The Roosevelt family knew that there was a lot of history made there, and they are the ones that pushed for its preservation. No one else really knew that it survived. It turned out to be a real treasure.
A direct reflection of his physical condition, originally built without steps or other barriers, Top Cottage came to symbolize Roosevelts determination and independence.
More than half a century after FDRs death most people still dont fully grasp the fact that he was unable to stand, let alone walk, unaided, entirely dependent on his valet for his most basic needs. Determined to be more independent in the privacy of his own cottage, he carefully designed it all on one floor with no threshold barriers in the doorways so that he would need no help moving in his wheelchair, writes Geoffrey C. Ward, a Roosevelt biographer, in the foreword of the book. So far as I know, there is no other historic structure anywhere in the United States that specifically commemorates the achievements of a disabled person. As someone who had polio myself, I can imagine few things more inspiring for young disabled people than to be able to see for themselves this eloquent symbol of the heights to which a paraplegic was able to rise in America.
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