Not many people can say they live inside a work of art. That’s how Dan Chrzanowski describes the single-story, Frank Lloyd Wright home he shares with his wife, Dianne.

Dianne says living in her home is like being on vacation every day.

“Mr. Wright designed houses that are magical places to live,” she said. “I’m never bored and I discover new things to love every day.”

“There’s not another one like this,” agreed Dan, whose restoration efforts resulted in the house’s being added to the National Register of Historic Places in January.

Designed by Wright in 1953 and built in 1954 for Dr. John and Syd Dobkins, it is part of the architect’s Usonian period, when he created affordable homes for the middle class.

Dan’s enthusiasm for Wright’s design theories and his appreciation of the home’s historical significance is contagious.

“I consider myself the caretaker,” Dan said. “(A Wright home) is bigger than any owner that lives there.”

Surrounded by five acres of beautiful nature on Plain Center Avenue within the city limits of Canton, the tour must start on the outside, Dan said, because the lay of the land was the first thing Wright considered when planning a home.

The 2,000-square-foot house sits into the landscape, much like a park pavilion, as Dan describes it.

The driveway leads to the north, or “private,” side of the house, the location of the only entryway. From here, the home looks very small. Cars are parked beneath a carport to the left of the home because Wright thought garages were unnecessary, along with basements and attics.

“Wright was a minimalist before there was such a thing as a minimalist,” Dan explains.

The home seems even smaller when one views it from the east, where you look down on the bedroom suite from a hillside and it seems as though you are towering over it.

From here, three different roof styles — the flat roof, the Bermuda-style copper or shed roof, and a gable — are seen.

On the garden side, or public view, of the home, one looks up at a 1 1/2 -story wall of windows, which makes the house appear to be much larger than the earlier views.

Based on a triangular model, only 60- and 120-degree angles are found in this home. The same specially cast Belden brick, mahogany and concrete are used inside and out.

Dan said Wright did not like paint and used natural materials and light to achieve color.

Dan, an artist who worked as an illustrator at American Greetings for 37 years and who now creates in his own studios on the property, understands how Wright was able to make a space feel larger through his use of light and changes in ceiling heights, or through “compression and release.”

Upon entering the front door, said Dan, you are in a small space with a low ceiling (compression.) Then as you enter the main living area, the ceiling jumps higher and “the first thing you see is outside the house (which is the release).”

Floor-to-ceiling windows with mitered corners in the main living area draw the eye to the front of the house and its triangular concrete terrace.

“You feel secure and sheltered inside, but with all the windows it is as if you are thrown out into nature,” Dianne said. “You become one with nature.”

Placed on the built-in shelves throughout the home are their various collections of ethnographic materials.

Dan describes the items — baskets, pottery, thimbles, fertility dolls and old textiles by native tribes — as items “made for themselves, indigenous to their own use.”

He said they find those kinds of pieces — those made with a purpose, not just for display — more interesting and gutsy.

Dan said Wright liked to “client-proof” his homes, and this one is no exception. Built-in cabinetry, desks and even couches make it difficult to add furniture (and clutter) to the rooms.

The centrally located fireplace is unusual for a home built at that time. The home’s utility room is at the back of the fireplace, with its entryway in the kitchen.

The kitchen, or work space, as Wright called it, is directly to the right of the front door and also is accessible through the main living area. It features original appliances, with the addition of a dishwasher and granite counters.

It is small but, Dan says, “many give Wright’s kitchens a bad rap, but we love its size. How big does a kitchen need to be?”

Hallways, too, were just ways to get from one place to another, and Wright did not waste space on them. The hallway leading to the two bedrooms and bathrooms is quite narrow and has a lower ceiling.

Dan has placed small shelves in the floor-to-ceiling slit windows to display his small wooden bowls and thimbles.

“Wright wouldn’t like this,” he said with a chuckle.

The guest bathroom off this hallway has a mahogany shower that gives it the feel of a yacht’s cabin.

Again, the space changes dramatically as one enters the master bedroom to find a jump in the ceiling height and a wall of glass — six French doors — leading to another terrace.

Dan said it took three or four years to wrap his mind around the fact he lived in a Wright home.

“I keep waiting for a docent to say, ‘You have to leave now,’ ” he said.