The one-story, frame Ritcher House was the first of several modernist residences in Raleigh designed by the faculty of the newly established School of Design at present NCSU. Here Matsumoto employed elements devised by Frank Lloyd Wright for his “Usonian” houses, incorporating post and beam framing, passive climate control, a six-foot module, modest scale, natural materials, and abundant use of glass. (Matsumoto’s later works often blended Wrightian and Miesian motifs.)The house was published in various journals including House and Home and Progressive Architecture. Matsumoto’s first residential commission in North Carolina, the house was built at a modest scale and for a modest budget and employs modular construction and post and beam structural elements. The finish is crafted as finely as cabinetwork. Source: David R. Black, Ritcher House National Register of Historic Places Nomination, 1994.