Melvyn Maxwell and Sara Stein Smith House

The Melvyn Maxwell Smith and Sara Stein Smith House also known as My Haven is a Frank Lloyd Wright designed Usonian home that was constructed in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan in 1949 and 1950. The owners were two public school teachers living on a tight budget. The 1957 landscape design is by Thomas Dolliver Church. The home is now on the National Register of Historic Places.OwnersMelvyn Maxwell Smith was the son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants whose original surname was Smiefsky. He became a grade school teacher, and later a high school English teacher. While attending an art history class at Wayne State University as a graduate student in 1939, he was inspired by a presentation on Wright's famous Fallingwater house, and, on the spot, announced his intention to build a house designed by Wright himself.Sara Stein, born in 1907 in South Fork, Pennsylvania was the daughter of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants. She later became a Christian Scientist. She was also a school teacher.Sara Stein embraced Smith's vision of a Wright designed home, and the couple married on March 21, 1940. They spent their careers as teachers in the Detroit Public Schools. Melvyn Smith died in 1984, and Sara Smith died in 2005.The home is now owned by the Towbes Foundation. Tours are available May through October through the Cranbook Art Museum.