The tiny community of Northport has had several brushes with fame over the years, most recently as the summer residence of celebrity chef Mario Batali. But did you know the most famous American architect has his touch on Northport?

A Frank Lloyd Wright designed and built home sits on a hill with views of Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay, near the very tip of the peninsula in Leelanau Township. The private residence is very private – located more than a mile off the main road at 10551 E. Peterson Park – shrouded behind several gates and fences.

The Amy Alpaugh Studio Residence, so named in “The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, A Complete Catalog” by William Allin Storrer, was built in 1947. The name given to each project in Storrer’s catalog is taken directly from the plan drawn by Wright and his draftpersons.

Recognized worldwide for designing structures harmonious with the surrounding environment, Wright’s original design was a compact structure, a 5-foot-square unit module with studio. The house also had a feature found in many of the homes in the latter third of Wright’s career – a wing with glass walls on three sides and a single-plane roof (called a “shed” or “butterfly” roof) that slants downward toward the house’s central axis.

Leelanau Township tax records show the property is owned by Olana Farms, LLC, converted to a limited liability corporation in 2007 by owner Peter Jorgenson of Grosse Pointe. Those records also show the property is being farmed as it has an agricultural tax exemption.

Storrer, who splits his time between Traverse City and Frankfort, published the first Frank Lloyd Wright catalog in 1974 and it was most recently updated in 2007. He also is the author of the Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, which contains the descriptions, photographs and plans of everything built by Wright.

According to the companion description: “Though the plans called for construction of four chairs, six hassocks, two desks and two beds, it did not call for goats. Yet they are what Miss Alpaugh was best-known for in the region, the goats that would climb her living room roof and look down at visitors.”

The combination living-dining-kitchen-studio was built with Chicago common brick and seasoned ash and oak.

The house has been altered since its original construction, with an extension for a playroom where Wright had provided an enclosure for goats. The original porch was converted to a dining room and the greenhouse into a bedroom.

A native of Cincinnati, Alpaugh intended to have a second "east house” to be used as her weaving studio. According to Storrer’s research, “Extensive plantings of cherry trees never provided the hoped-for income needed to support the artistic activities for which the studio residence was designed.”

Did you know? Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth name was actually Frank Lincoln Wright and, according to his biography, his mother stated while pregnant with him that he would “grow up to build beautiful buildings.”