The Only Frank Lloyd Wright House In Hawaii Is A Design Lover's Dream Retreat Near White Sand Beaches

The legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was famously prolific, designing over a thousand works in his lifetime. About half of those plans, mostly single-family homes, were realized, and 400 are still in existence today. Though a few of these notable landmarks were built abroad, like the Banff Pavilion in Ottawa, Canada, and Jiyu Gakuen School in Tokyo, Japan, most are located in the contiguous United States. Most, that is, except for his two projects in Hawaii. One is the King Kamehameha Golf Club on Maui. The other is Cornwell House in Waimea, a design lover's retreat on the Big Island and the only Frank Lloyd Wright house on the archipelago. Even better, it's available as a nightly vacation rental. 

Like the King Kamehameha Golf Club, which was based on Wright's 1957 designs for Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller's unrealized Connecticut home, Cornwell House was not originally intended for its location in Hawaii. Wright designed the home in 1954 for the Cornwell family of Pennsylvania, the same state as Fallingwater, a Wright masterpiece hidden in the Pennsylvania mountains. But the plans never came to fruition. 

Decades later, in 1995, a Honolulu-based advertising executive brought the project back to life, commissioning the house to be constructed in Hawaii in careful collaboration with the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The 3,700-square-foot home, a fine example of Wright's "organic architecture" philosophy, sits on a three-acre property with views of three volcanoes, and is just a short drive from white-sand beaches.

According to VRBO and South Kohala Management, where Cornwell House is listed as a luxury vacation rental (the average cost is $903 per night), the property has three bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, and sleeps up to six people. Design features include rounded walls made partly of coral sourced from Oahu, Cherokee-red concrete floors, and Frank Lloyd Wright-designed furnishings, including built-in seating, Barrel and Origami chairs, and Taliesin floor lamps. The house is sunshine-filled, thanks to indoor-outdoor floor plans and a series of skylights, and the open-air lava-rock hot tub is perfect for stargazing. 

The only way to access Cornwell House is as an overnight guest. And while the home's state-of-the-art kitchen is an idyllic place to prepare a meal, the nearby town of Waimea has several great dining options, too. The Fish and the Hog specializes in slow-cooked BBQ and locally sourced seafood, while nearby Merriman's Big Island serves regional dishes in an elegant setting. 

The white sandy beaches and calm waves of Hāpuna Beach State Recreation Area are less than a 15-minute drive from the house. Mauna Kea Beach, considered one of the best beaches in Hawaii, is about the same distance. You'll need a car to navigate the area, and it's easy to rent one if you're flying into the Kailua-Kona airport, which is just a ‪55-minute drive‬. If you're looking for other FLW homes to stay in, architecture fans might consider spending the night in Wright's final project, a surreal villa in Ohio.