The story of Pope-Leighey House begins with one carefully worded letter. Loren Pope, a 28-year-old copy editor at Washington, D.C.’s Evening Star newspaper, had just purchased a 1.3-acre lot in Falls Church, Virginia, with his wife, Charlotte, and he couldn’t imagine any architect but Frank Lloyd Wright designing their house. On August 18, 1939, he wrote the architect a letter. Aware of both Wright’s popularity as an architect and his colossal ego, Pope laid it on thick:

“Dear Mr. Wright,” he began. “There are certain things a man wants during life, and, of life. Material things and things of the spirit. The writer has one fervent wish that includes both. It is for a house created by you.”

He continued: “I feel that you are the great creative force of our time. And if you had never built a building I’d still feel that you are one of the great Americans as a man.”

Pope attached details explaining the lot, including its size and topography, and the position of the trees and the small stream running through it. He described the climate and prevailing winds. He included a list of his and Charlotte’s desires, including a terrace, space for their books and their radio phonograph, and a study. Most importantly, he included his budget: $5,500, or the equivalent of about $86,000 today.

Fifteen days later, Wright responded: “Of course I am ready to give you a house.”

A series of designs followed. Wright made adjustments after his original design went well over the Popes’ budget, and construction finally began on July 18, 1940. The couple moved into their new home in March of 1941.

That Frank Lloyd Wright—the architect behind Fallingwater, a grand house built over a waterfall in southwestern Pennsylvania, as well as the soaring Guggenheim Museum in New York—would design a house on such a modest budget might surprise some. Most stories about Wright do not hint at an altruistic streak.

“Oh no, he wasn’t an easy man,” Phillips says during my visit to the house. “He was very complicated.”

Ashley R. Wilson, who as the National Trust’s Graham Gund Architect serves as the architect for the Trust’s 27 Historic Sites, puts it a little more bluntly when I ask her about it a few days later: “As arrogant as he was, he truly believed that anybody and everybody should be able to afford good architecture,” she says. “And he worked to give that to people. He really did care.”

That belief falls at the very heart of Pope-Leighey House and the other Usonian houses Wright designed. He achieved their lower cost by using locally sourced materials when possible, and by reducing the footprint without sacrificing comfort. To make the houses feel bigger, he used high ceilings, open floorplans, compressed corridors, and efficient storage space. Instead of garages, he opted for less-expensive carports. And he designed custom furniture at a slightly smaller scale so that rooms appear larger. Even the radiant heating system frees up a small amount of extra space by removing the bulk of a radiator.

“The real genius of Wright comes from understanding his mastery of creating interesting, functional, comfortable spaces,” Christensen says.