William Ringle Papers on the Boynton House

According to the Rochester City Directory, Edward Everett Boynton and his 21-year-old daughter Beulah lived at 44 Vick Park B in 1907. Sometime during that year Boynton, a successful lantern salesman and partner in the C.T. Ham Manufacturing Company, took the advice of his colleague Warren McArthur and hired architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright to design the house and grounds where Boynton and his daughter Beulah would live.Wright helped pick the site and was paid a total sum of about $55,000 to construct the Prairie-style house at 16 East Boulevard, which has four bedrooms and three baths. Built in 1908, the design of the house was achieved in collaboration with Beulah Boynton--unusual for Wright, who didn't always get along well with his clients. Wright also designed the furniture with Beulah's input. With its low, flat roofs, overhanging eaves, long horizontal rows of windows, and sharp lines punctuated by flights of colored glass, the Boynton house looked completely different from any other dwelling in Rochester. Mr. Boynton and his daughter lived in the house until 1918, when they moved to New York City.

In 1954, Times-Union reporter William M. Ringle wrote to both Wright and Beulah Boynton for more information about the house for an article he was working on. In January 1955, Ringle went to New York City to visit Beulah and to interview her about her recollections of the Boynton House--its design, construction, and what it was like to live in a piece of "living art." This collection consists of the correspondence, notes and other materials Ringle assembled at this time.