Cruising with the Rough Riders

Elise Prudhomme, photographer, on the catwalk of the USS Theodore Roosevelt during the Friends and Family Cruise on June 20, 2017.

Theodore Roosevelt Association Fundraising Dinner and Cruise on the USS Theodore Roosevelt The Theodore Roosevelt Association published this 30-page spread in their Winter-Spring-Summer 2017 Journal.  This exceptional professional opportunity was handed to me by Tweed Roosevelt, the great-grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, when he hired me to photograph the annual Theodore Roosevelt Association fundraising dinner in San Diego followed by a day-cruise in the Pacific aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt.  The TR Association visits the nuclear aircraft carrier every 8 or 9 years, so this event was clearly not to be missed. The fundraising dinner took place in Mission Valley and officers of the USS Theodore Roosevelt were invited.  Thus, before even boarding the vessel, members of the Theodore Roosevelt Association got a glimpse of the U.S. Navy in full splendor. From the Commanding Officer to the sailors, the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt was open, warm, friendly, and totally human.  Meeting with this team off-duty was a real treat for guests who were curious to learn more about their job and experience in the Navy.  Highly qualified specialists in many fields, this crew seamlessly communicated with everyone including a small group of youngsters eager to figure out if they … Read More

The Gordon House | Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian vision

The Gordon House | Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian vision The Oregon Garden welcomed one of the last of the Usonian home series designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1957 for Evelyn and Conrad Gordon, The Gordon House, which its 2001 owners wished to tear down. The building was dismantled and restored to its new environment in Silverton. Designed for the American working-class consumer, a Usonian home was a small, single-story house constructed with native materials. It had a flat roof and cantilevered overhangs for energy efficiency and clerestory windows to enhance the visual relationship between interior and exterior. A carport (word coined by Wright) served to shelter a parked vehicle. These homes, of which Wright designed about sixty, are considered to be an aesthetic precursor to ranch-style dwellings.