Hyde Park was
also the site of two more Roosevelt-related buildings, personal projects
for the President. In 1939 FDR teamed up with Henry Toombs to create a
completely accessible retreat home for the wheelchair-bound president. FDR
drew the sketch for "Top Cottage," and for fun, Henry Toombs told
Life Magazine to include at the bottom of the plans "F.D. Roosevelt,
Architect and Henry J. Toombs, Associate." In essence, "Top
Cottage" was as much Franklin Roosevelt's design as it was Henry
Toombs, but at least one architect took offense to the blurred boundaries.
Frank Lloyd Wright's son John Lloyd Wright wrote to Life Magazine:
"after seeing the title Architect after FD Roosevelt in your magazine,
I give up. Put me in a concentration camp. The moral breakdown of the
integrity and dignity of the architectural profession seems now
complete." Toombs wanted to respond by stating it was a joke and it
was his idea, not President Roosevelt's, but FDR suggested a Post Script
instead: "By the way, did Thomas Jefferson have a license when he drew
the sketches for Monticello, the University of Virginia and a number of
other rather satisfactory architectural productions?"
