Frank Lloyd Wright Doghouse

In 2016, former Marin resident Jim Berger donated a real doghouse designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright is one the best-known architects in American history. 

The doghouse is on permanent display at the Marin County Civic Center cafeteria. 

Jim Berger’s doghouse for Eddie 

Berger grew up in San Anselmo in a Wright-designed home. Today the house is known as the Berger House. His parents, Robert and Gloria Berger, commissioned Wright to design the Usonian-style house in 1950 to 1951.  

In 1956, a 12-year-old Jim Berger wrote to Wright and asked for plans for a compatible doghouse for his Labrador Retriever Eddie. The next year, Wright provided plans for a four-square-foot doghouse. They were written on the back of an envelope at no charge.  

The triangular structure was designed in keeping with the main house. It included a signature Wright detail — the low-pitched roof with exaggerated overhang. Wright even suggested that Jim use scrap pieces of Philippine mahogany and cedar left over from the home’s original construction. 

When Jim Berger joined the army in 1963, his father and brother Eric finally built the doghouse. They affectionately called it “Eddie’s House.” Eddie refused to use it however, preferring to sleep in the warmth of the main house. In 1970, Gloria Berger sent the unused doghouse to the dump. 

The doghouse rebuilt 

In 2010, Jim and Eric Berger rebuilt the doghouse from the original plans for a documentary film about Wright. It had one flaw common to many of Wright’s buildings — the roof leaked! 

The doghouse remains the smallest structure Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed. 

The curved plexiglass used to protect the doghouse is fabricated from one of the original Marin County Civic Center skylights.  

Download Design Your Own Animal House for a family activity inspired by the Frank Lloyd Wright doghouse. 

In 1952, after 69 years in architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright designed one of the most charming buildings of his entire career...a doghouse for Eddie.