Elvis may be the king, but he’s no Frank Lloyd Wright as far as the U.S. Postal Service is concerned.
As part of its national Celebrate the Century campaign, the Postal Service has unveiled its third stamp honoring the architect, this time featuring the Frederick C. Robie House, one of Wright’s most celebrated Prairie-style homes at 5757 S. Woodlawn Ave. on the University of Chicago campus. The stamp, which had its debut Monday, will not be available for purchase until Feb. 3.
“We’re excited about it,” said Janet Van Delft, operations manager at the Robie House. “They were able to identify us with the first decade of the century. Robie House was built in 1909, though it certainly doesn’t look like it was built in 1909.”
The living room, designed to look like a ship’s prow, harbored about 50 guests who attended the ceremony, each exchanging their stories about the Robie House.
Under the ceiling’s geometrical wooden ornaments, Noel Brusman, a volunteer for The Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation, recounted how Robie met the architect.
“Robie, a young industrialist who made bicycles, wanted to build a house with open spaces and lots of light.” Brusman said. “A friend of his told him he needed `one of those damn Wright houses.’ “
Both men shared a passion for cars and the Robie House is thought to be the first three-car garage home ever made, she said.
The new stamp shows a painting depicting the front of the Robie House where a couple stand dressed in 1900 fashion.
The couple don’t represent the Robies, said Karen Sweeney, a preservation architect for the Wright Foundation.
“The couple wasn’t on the stamp’s first draft,” Sweeney said. “They were added to illustrate the time period, because the house looks so modern, many people don’t think it’s from the 1900s.”
Before becoming a historic landmark, the Robie House sheltered University of Chicago students who used it as a dormitory. It became an office building for the school. Twice demolition crews nearly razed the structure but neighborhood residents fought for its preservation, said Marian Despres of the Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks.
In 1966 the U.S. Postal Service introduced a 2-cent stamp with Wright’s likeness. In 1982 a 20-cent stamp arrived with an image of the architect’s Pennsylvania house called Falling Water.
The campaign, in which 30 stamps will be introduced over 30 days in different cities and states, represents the Postal Service’s drive to reach out to America and make stamps interesting and relevant to collectors again, said Valoree Vargl, manager of stamp and product marketing.
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“In the 1950s, one in four kids collected stamps,” Vargl said. “When we started this campaign (last year) we were down to about 150,000 collectors, which is pretty pathetic. We needed a way to really re-invigorate collecting.”
Then, in 1993 Elvis Presley came along in stamp form after a winning decision to let the public vote for which image of the King they wanted to see on their mail.
The Postal Service sold $38 million worth of Elvis stamps, many to collectors who never used them. It became the best-selling stamp ever, Vargl said.
Elvis had shown the Postal Service an income source it decided to nourish. Since then, it has released other celebrity commemorative stamps featuring Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and more recently, the Wolfman, the Mummy, Frankenstein and Dracula.
“The way we make money in stamp marketing is when people buy stamps and don’t use them,” Vargl said. “We made $200 million last year, 32 cents at a time. The more ways we can find to make money, the less often we have to raise rates.”
Last year, members of a committee began recommending places, people and events in U.S. history from 1900 to 1919 to commemorate. They chose Ellis Island, the Model T, the first flight, Theodore Roosevelt, the Grand Canyon, Jack Dempsey and the Teddy Bear, among others.
They also chose the Robie House, because it is one of Wright’s best-known structures and Wright is recognized as America’s most-celebrated architect, Vargl said.
Coincidentally, the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation has just begun a 10-year, $4 million restoration effort for the Robie House.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said A.L. `Al’ Jones-Hartsaugh, a University of Chicago student who has visited Robie House a few times but who did not know who Frank Lloyd Wright was until she moved to Chicago from California three years ago. “Anything we can do to increase people’s awareness of things we have in the U.S. is great,” she said.