TIL: Heath Co. founder Howard Anthony owned a Frank Lloyd Wright house

You learn things related to ham radio in some of the oddest places. For example, in the January/February 2021 issue Michigan History, I found the article, “Wright Here in Michigan’s Twin Cities.” Now, I’m not a big Frank Lloyd Wright fan, but my interest was certainly piqued when I read that Howard Anthony, the founder of the Heath Company, had owned a Wright-designed home in St. Joseph, MI, which borders Benton Harbor.

Stephen W. Smith, the article’s author writes:

What Frank Lloyd Wright was to architecture in 1950, Howard Anthony was to electronics: an innovator.

After noting that the company actually started selling aircraft parts, and then aircraft kits, it started selling electronic kits after World War II, taking advantage of the supply of surplus military electronic components.

[Anthony] acquired parts to construct an oscilloscope—an instrument that tests and displays voltage over time—and soon, the company offered a kit for consumers to construct their own device for a fraction of the cost of a manufactured one.

Smith writes about a newspaper article describing the house’s design:

Considering Wright’s involvement, it was a given that the house was ‘of unique design.’ Despite claiming that the ‘over-all structure will be of an odd shape, one extremely difficult to describe,’ the article did, in fact, describe the design for the house in great detail, including its extensive use of natural materials, such as Wisconsin limestone and cypress; its nonuniform angles and construction into a hillside; and its features intended to make the house seem spacious—namely ‘the slanting roof interior, the huge fireplace, and partitions between some of the rooms which do not reach entirely to the slanting ceiling.’ The article also noted that Anthony’s new house would include a laboratory.

How cool is that?

A modest grave

While researching this post, I also came across an interesting QRZ.Com post by Dave, W7UU, describing his visit to Riverside Cemetery, in Cass County, MI, where Howard Anthony is buried. As you may know, Howard Anthony died at the age of 42, in an airplane crash.

In this post, Dave describes how he cleaned up the gravesite and installed a laser-engraved photo of Anthony on the headstone, as well as his visit to the Heathkit factory. It’s quite an interesting post.