This prototype was built at the time that the remains of the original dictionary stand were disassembled for repair.  Fred A. Strauel, longtime chief drafter of the firm and associate with both Purcell and Elmslie in later decades, purchased the dictionary stand when the Cutts family sold off the furnishings designed for the home.  Perhaps it says something about Strauel that he removed the slanted top and replaced it with a flat board to use the stand for plants.  Over the years this board suffered terrific water damage, and the rest of the structure was subjected to the seasonal contraction and expansion of dry Minnesota winters and humid summers.  In 1980, it was literally falling apart.  Arnold "Butch" LaBelle, Jr., a cabinetmaker of the true Progressive school, restored the piece for the Landmark Center exhibition.  Ralph B. Pelton, who Purcell lauds for his jeweler-like approach to woodworking, obviously did not make the original dictionary stand.  LaBelle found paper shims and badly sawed members, a situation that no doubt contributed to the degeneration of the piece over the years.

The stand shown above was made from direct measurements of the original pieces, and the top as reconstructed was inferred from the available archival photographs.  None of those images is particularly good, however.  When the time came to build one for placement in the restored house during the late 1980s, Butch LaBelle interpreted the upper part of the stand very differently.  He believed that the oak of the lower portion was topped off by mahogany, something with which I respectfully disagreed.  In any event, the final reproduction did have the wonderful finials for holding the dictionary to prevent shifting of the book, something that the prototype lacks. 

The surviving original, which has a flat top just like Strauel gave it, remains in the Purcell collection.  The leaded glass panel in the lower frame of the original is from the Lyman E. Wakefield residence; apparently a duplicate that was unneeded or perhaps declined by the parsimonious client (a banker).  In any event, the stand above has the chimney louvre pattern from Lake Place sandblasted into a white crystal panel, perhaps a little more poetically connected than the original solution.

research courtesy mark hammons