Architect Kaneji Domoto (1912-2002) grew up working in his Japanese émigré family’s landscaping business, then studied architecture at UC Berkeley and at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West. In 1942-43, he and all other West Coast Japanese Americans were dispossessed and interned. By 1948, after working in New York City for Morris Lapidus, Raymond Loewy and William Lescaze, he was among the Taliesin fellows tapped by Wright to collaborate on Usonia, a suburb in Westchester, NY. Between 1948 and 55, Domoto designed and completed five houses on the community’s 97 acres. These houses reflect Domoto’s development from a Japanese-flavored Wrightian idiom to his own Japanese ‘imaginary’. For Domoto, the Usonian projects became a testing ground for experimentation with ‘Japanese’ motifs couched in low-cost construction, landscape design and environmental responsiveness. The Lurie House (1949) is one of the three earliest Domoto designed.