How a Mother and Daughter Built Frank Lloyd Wright’s Last Home in Ohio

The architect’s signature design elements fill the home: built-in shelving, banquette seating, tall windows supported by earth-hued mullions and tight hallways that lead into bright and open rooms. Cherokee Red concrete floors warmed by radiant heat stretch throughout the space, and the structure’s soaring, turquoise cantilevered roof seems to defy gravity. 

Yet the most interesting detail about this home by legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is that it only existed on paper until mother-and-daughter duo Debbie and Sarah Dykstra decided to build it in 2023. It is Wright’s final residential design, and the plans were on his drafting table at the time of his death in 1959. Adding to the intrigue is the fact the plans spent 64 years in a mailing tube.

Louis Penfield, a Mayfield High School art teacher, hired Wright to design what is today The Louis Penfield House in Willoughby Hills. After it was completed in 1955, Penfield asked the architect to envision another home to be built less than 400 feet from the first one. They were what Wright called Usonian homes — a style that brought his signature design elements into smaller, more affordable houses for middle-class families. 

Wright was in his mid-80s when Penfield contacted him about the second home in 1956. Still, the architect took the job because of Penfield’s status as a recent client. Upon learning of Wright’s death three years later, Penfield thought his dream of a second home for the property had been dashed. Then, he received the blueprints for the residence known as RiverRock the week of the architect’s funeral, but the home was never built in the decades that followed. 

When the Penfields’ son, Paul, put his parents’ former home up for sale in 2017, the plans for RiverRock were part of the deal. Sarah Dykstra’s first sight of the real estate listing for the Penfield House was its narrow floating staircase, and she was immediately intrigued by the online photos as well as the home’s Wright pedigree. She and her mother, who both grew up in the nearby city of Mentor, were living in Florida at the time. Sarah’s brother, Dustin, was living in New York, and Sarah was looking for a place in Ohio so that her mom could travel back and forth. Little did she know, but they were on the precipice of an adventure that would ultimately be documented and shared with audiences across the United States.

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RiverRock’s plans called for a cantilevered roof, a signature element of Frank Lloyd Wright designs. (photo by Erik Drost)

Mother and daughter stand hip to hip, Sarah with one arm around her mother’s shoulders, Debbie clasping her daughter’s hand in hers. They’re gazing upward at the easternmost point of their partially constructed home, and today is the day they take the supports off  its largest cantilever. Debbie, not one to get emotional, lets out the smallest sniffle. Before Sarah can turn toward her mother and utter a response, Debbie perks up and turns to coordinating architect Rob Shearer, a recurring character in “The Last Wright: Building the Final Home Design of America’s Greatest Architect,” exclaiming, “Now that’s a house!”

The moment wasn’t captured by the film crew documenting the construction of RiverRock, but rather in a photo by Shearer. The documentary series produced by Chip and Joanna Gaines premiered on the Magnolia Network on Sept. 3, 2025, with each of the four weekly episodes airing on HBO Max the following day. 

“The Last Wright” follows the progression of the RiverRock project, from the first construction stakes to the final unveiling. The series is compelling, showcasing how Sarah and Debbie work to overcome challenges that arise during construction — leaning on five decades of knowing each other’s strengths to tackle each hurdle and bring the project to completion. 

For one, roofs of  Wright-designed homes are notorious for sagging (due to the cantilevers) and leaking, so much so that their present-day owners often joke about the number of buckets needed to catch rain. Another challenge came in sourcing the specific building materials. Upon learning that Philippine mahogany wood was no longer available, Debbie and Sarah set out to find a comparable replacement.

Sarah and Debbie Dykstra met with site surveyor Dave Novak to gain insight into where the home should be plotted. (photo © 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. or its subsidiaries and affiliates. All rights reserved.)

The Dykstra women know each other’s idiosyncrasies well. Debbie knew that Sarah, an IT professional, would be giddy after finding out about the home’s passive solar design, while Sarah had no doubt Debbie would be up for a road trip to Kansas to pick up the exact type of sink Wright called for in his plans.

“She likes the warm and cozy and snuggly,” Sarah says of her mother’s interior design preferences, “and I like minimal, clean lines, math- and science-class kind of things.”

Across the four “The Last Wright” episodes, Debbie and Sarah are continuously met with the same question: What would Frank Lloyd Wright do? From the location of a tulip tree that seems perilously close to one of the home’s walls to whether it would be acceptable to shift the orientation of RiverRock on the site, each scenario brings with it introspection, soul searching and consultation. 

“It was a lot to take on, … more for [Sarah] because she wanted to follow [the plans] exactly.” Debbie says. “He put his official stamp on it, right? But every architect puts their official stamp on a set of plans … and they are never built exactly the same.” 

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The show followed the creation of Wright-designed furniture and other touches to the home. (photo by Erik Drost)

So, how exactly do a mother and daughter end up as general contractors for the final Frank Lloyd Wright home? For one, it helps if construction is the family business. Debbie’s grandfather, father and brother, Billy, worked in the industry. She herself dabbled in construction during the early 2000s, which is how she got her feet wet with it.

Debbie’s former experience as a project manager, as well as her and Sarah’s experience renovating their own homes, gave them the confidence to execute Wright’s plan for RiverRock. They broke ground on the project in October 2023, aiming to finish construction within a year. They almost made it, with the home finished in February 2025 — 16 months after the first shovel of dirt was scooped. 

Seven months after that, Debbie and Sarah received the first episode of  “The Last Wright” and hosted a screening party in RiverRock’s main gathering space for those who worked on the project. The women especially appreciated how the show captured the beauty of the home’s wooded Willoughby Hills location and how historic clips of Wright’s voice from various interviews were included; this way, audiences could hear his approach and design philosophy in his own words. The only complaint they get about the four-episode series is people wish it was longer. 

Those who want to linger can book a stay at RiverRock. Following in the footsteps of the previous Penfield House owner, the Dykstras continue to welcome overnight visitors and are doing the same with the second residence. 

Sarah and Debbie Dykstra used their best knowledge of Wright’s interior design preferences to choose decor fitting to the home. (photo by Erik Drost)

Like a stay at the Penfield House, RiverRock requires a two-night minimum reservation, which allows guests to unplug, take in the approximately 2,000-square-foot home’s lush details and experience all the beautiful ways Wright’s design merges with the 30-acre landscape surrounding it. 

The architect designed his homes with the goal of bringing the outside in, like how the ceiling of  RiverRock’s glass-walled living room rises with the roofline, making it so that the trees surrounding the home are not only visible but serve as natural works of art. Many of the stones used on the home’s exterior were harvested in the 1960s by Louis Penfield himself.

Wright embraced the energy and rhythms of nature, and RiverRock is no exception. In the summer, when the sun sits high in the sky, the cantilevered roof works as a visor that blocks sunlight out. During winter months, the low position of the sun makes it so rays of light cascade into the home, providing additional illumination and warmth during the coldest days of the year. 

This kind of forethought usually wows people unfamiliar with Wright’s design concepts. For those who serve as caretakers of his designs and get to experience them on a regular basis — people like Debbie and Sarah Dykstra — that appreciation is palpable. 

“This is the one thing I truly admire about [Wright] more than anything: He was so far ahead of his time with his thought process on what people should live in or what people should work in,” Debbie says. “They were just so out of the realm of reality for that time period.” 

For more information about RiverRock or to book a stay, visit riverrockhouse.com.

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