Samuel G. Wiener House

• Designed by: Samuel G. Wiener Sr.
• Design year: 1937

Samuel G. Wiener Sr. selected the most conspicuous location in the Pine Park Subdivision for his family’s residence in 1937 at 615 Longleaf Road, as if he knew his house would ultimately be something special.  Similar to the Wile house four years earlier, Wiener combined brick masonry, white stucco (cement plaster), and steel casement industrial sashes under a flat roof.  Sam’s house was the first residential project either brother designed that included terrazzo as a flooring material. Sam Wiener used terrazzo flooring at the Big Chain Store—Fairfield nine years earlier.

The house is defined by 3-dimensional volumes shearing past one another and punctuated by two diagonally opposed, colossally scaled elements: 1) a 2-story covered entrance with an exposed industrial steel pipe column and an interior stairwell in the northwest corner, and 2) a double height screened porch (sleeping porch over a sitting porch) in the southeast corner.  The double height screen porches provide intake air as do the large number of steel casement windows on the north and south façades. The intake air is pulled through the house with the assistance of an attic fan positioned vertically in a roof-mounted fan house. Additionally, Wiener responded to the harsh Louisiana climate with a 4-foot-thick interstitial attic below the flat roof and a 7.5-foot overhang to the south and smaller overhangs facing north.  Sam’s asymmetrical overhangs would inform not only the Wiener brothers’ residential work after the war, but also a number of school projects as well.

The second-floor bathroom shared by sons Earl L. and Samuel G. Wiener Jr. was renovated in the early 1950’s when forced air air-conditioning was added to the house.  The cobalt-blue bathroom tiles were removed in favor of 1”x1” ceramic mosaic tile flooring.  On close inspection, the floor tile design reveals an abstraction of the Longleaf Road elevation of the house.  The mosaic was probably designed by Samuel G. Wiener Jr. (known as Sam IV within the Wiener family) who is an artist living in New York City.  Sam IV also used mosaic tiles for an abstract mural designed on the east face of the southern classroom building at Woodlawn High School.