Welcome to the Archives of The Paul Rudolph Institute for Modern Architecture. The purpose of this online collection is to function as a tool for scholars, students, architects, preservationists, journalists and other interested parties. The archive consists of photographs, slides, articles and publications from Rudolph’s lifetime; physical drawings and models; personal photos and memorabilia; and contemporary photographs and articles.

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In his will, Paul Rudolph gave his Architectural Archives (including drawings, plans, renderings, blueprints, models and other materials prepared in connection with his professional practice of architecture) to the Library of Congress Trust Fund following his death in 1997. A Stipulation of Settlement, signed on June 6, 2001 between the Paul Rudolph Estate and the Library of Congress Trust Fund, resulted in the transfer of those items to the Library of Congress among the Architectural Archives, that the Library of Congress determined suitable for its collections. The intellectual property rights of items transferred to the Library of Congress are in the public domain. The usage of the Paul M. Rudolph Archive at the Library of Congress and any intellectual property rights are governed by the Library of Congress Rights and Permissions.

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LOCATION
Address: 4033 Higel Avenue
City: Sarasota
State: Florida
Zip Code: 34242
Nation: United States

STATUS
Type: Residential
Status: Demolished

TECHNICAL DATA
Date(s): 1951
Site Area:
Floor Area: Large cottage 792 ft² (73.58 m²); Small cottage 594 ft² (55.18 m²)
Height:
Floors (Above Ground):
Building Cost: $21,622 at $15,60/s.f. (1951)

PROFESSIONAL TEAM
Client: Kate F. Wheelan (1889-1978)
Architect: Ralph S. Twitchell
Associate Architect: Paul M. Rudolph
Landscape:
Structural:
MEP:
QS/PM:

SUPPLIERS
Contractor:
Subcontractor(s):

Wheelan Cottages

The project scope is to design a pair of cottages for Katherine (Kate) Farwell Wheelan (1889-1978) to be used as temporary rental units.
The project is located next to Mrs. Wheelan’s main home and art studio at 4033 Higel Avenue in Siesta Key. Known as ‘Jungle Ways’ because of the natural landscaping, the three-acre site has five buildings including the main home, a studio where Ms. Wheelan paints and sculpts, several guest cottages and servant quarters.
Katherine (Kate) Farwell Carpenter married Edgar Stow Wheelan (1888-1966) on June 20, 1947. Ms. Wheelan has a daughter, Joan Marcotte Carpenter, from a previous marriage to Mr. Horace Walton Carpenter whom she had divorced in 1943. Mr. Wheelan is a cartoonist and a Cornell University graduate. Mr. Wheelan’s comics are syndicated throughout the United States.
Mrs. Wheelan is a native of Chicago, Illinois who is active in local cultural organizations including the Field Club, the University Club, and the West Coast Symphony Orchestra. She is also on the board of the Asolo Opera Guild and the Sarasota Art Association. She spends her summers in Sarasota having begun to do so in 1942. She is interested in art, having studied sculpture in New York City under Ossip Zadkine and locally with artist Posie. Mrs. Wheelan also maintains a home in New York City where she is a member of the National Council of the Metropolitan Opera.
The larger cottage is 792 ft² (73.58 m²) and the smaller cottage is 594 ft² (55.18 m²).
The tent-like tension roofs are made-up of catenary curves formed by flat 1/8” x 1-1/2” mild steel bars, spaced 1’-4” on center, to which are clipped large sheets of 1/2” insulating building board, covered with a 1” layer of glass-fiber insulation with a finished surface of 1/16” thick sprayed-on vinyl plastic.
Tension and compression members along the North and South walls of the structures are designed to compensate for the inward thrust of the roof.
The soffits of the portion of the roof that extended beyond the building line are surfaced with plywood.
In April 1962, the New College Development Fund Campaign Executive Committee Co-Chairman Benton W. Powell announces that Mrs. Wheelan has donated over $250,000 to the school. The donation includes the three-acre Siesta Key estate which includes the two cottages designed by Rudolph as well as a house designed by Ralph Twitchell. Ms. Wheelan makes the donation in honor of her father, John Villiers Farwell Jr. (1858-1944) of Chicago, who was a graduate in 1879 and later trustee of Yale College.
Edgar Wheelan passes away in August, 1966.
Kate Wheelan passes away on Thursday August 17, 1978 at her summer home, a dairy farm in the Berkshire foothills of Connecticut.
The project is demolished for a multi-family development.

““In comparison to the Coward Residence, the Kate Wheelan Cottage conveys a more pronounced sense of abstraction in the disposition of form and material. Planar block walls of uniform height anchor the two cottages to the ground and to each other. Through the use of open side walls and glazed gable ends, the thin swooping roof reads as an independent form, seeming to float in air. The broad, sheltering quality of the roof is further emphasized in the interior. Freestanding partitions, except at the bathroom enclosure, continue at the same height as the block walls, independent of the hovering canopy above.

These cottages, designed as short-term rental units, achieve a sense of both lightness and protection. Neither elevated on pilotis nor terraces, they are constructed directly on the ground and continue the idea developed ten years earlier in the Twitchell Residence: a way of living in a minimal pavilion immersed in the benign, though seemingly wild, subtropics.””

— Domin, Christopher, and Joseph King. Paul Rudolph:The Florida Houses. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002. p. 119.