I. Ed Wile House

• Designed by: Samuel G. Wiener Sr. of Jones, Roessle, Olschner, and Wiener
• Design year: 1933

Late in 1933, grocer I. Ed Wile hired his first cousin Samuel G. Wiener Sr. to design his house in a portion of Glenwood Park subdivision owned and developed by Colonel Alfred Wilder and his sister. The cousins worked together previously in 1928 when Wiener designed the Big Chain Store—Fairfield. Emily “Mimi” Wile Hussey, Ed Wile’s youngest daughter, recalled that Colonel Wilder told her father that, had he known what kind of house Wile was going to build, he wouldn’t have sold him the lot which illustrates Wilder’s disdain for the modern appearance. The Wile house was the first Modern house in Shreveport, and among the first three modern buildings built in Louisiana.

The 2-story house was designed as a series of cement plaster (stucco) clad three-dimensional masses that shear past one another and punctuated with red brick masonry elements grounding the house. Steel casement industrial sashes were used to fenestrate the facade. Sam Wiener used steel beams to provide the necessary structure above the windows that wrap around the corners. The entry to the house is recessed underneath the volume of the owner’s bedroom. Adjacent to the recessed entry is a conditioned sunroom instead of a screened sitting porch as seen at the Cross Lake House. Two 7” diameter steel columns support the owner’s bedroom with one being featured prominently at the entrance overhang that is a modern interpretation of the traditional porte-cochere. Notably, the house makes few external references to what were then common ideas about what a house should look like: even the front door was tucked into a corner, rather than made the focus of the house.

William B. Wiener Sr. redesigned the kitchen in 1955 and the breakfast room in 1957. The house has been substantially modified within the last five years, which included the addition of horizontal wood siding over the brick wall at the living room, replacement of the steel casement windows, and a 100% remodel of the kitchen and breakfast rooms.