The Heller House in Hyde Park is for sale and the web edition of Chicago Magazine has a blog entry with a decent photo gallery — including a number of interior views.
Asking price is $2.5 million.
Jan 312012
Jan 102012
A nice catch from PrairieMod: The Isadore Heller House in Hyde Park is for sale. Asking price: $2.5 million.
Designed in 1896, the house is a three story house with sculpture by Richard Bock and, possibly, a few windows from the Luxfer Prism Co., owned by right patron, William Winslow.
Dec 162011
The Laurent House sold yesterday at auction. The Laurent House Foundation was the sole bidder, paying $578,500.
Dec 152011
Today is the day of the Laurent House auction. The sale begins at noon.
Related to yesterday’s story of the Laurent House grant, “Preservation Nation”, the blog for the National Trust For Historic Preservation, has posted an interview of John Groh, a founder of the Laurent House Foundation, the group hoping to buy and open to the public the Laurent House.
From the interview:
Our intention is to showcase the home “as is,” and want visitors to be able to really experience the home as Mr. and Mrs. Laurent and their family have. Mr. Laurent credits the home with helping him live a long, full life. We hope that this home and its design will be an inspiration to the new generation of wounded soldiers returning home from war, and hope it will inspire architects and builders to more fully integrate accessible design moving forward.
Dec 062011
Details are scarce, but the Rockford Register Star is reporting that the Sate of Illinois is offering the group hoping to buy the Laurent House and open it to the public a $500,000 matching grant to purchase the house. To receive the funds the Laurent House Foundation must match the grant dollar for dollar. When listed for sale, the Laurent house was priced at $875,000, and the auction house estimates its auction price between $500,000 and $700,000. So, if matched, the state funds give the Laurent House Foundation a real chance to purchase the house, with possibly significant funds left over to fund the early stages of operation.
The Laurent House Foundation Board is hurriedly trying to arrange large pledges to buy the meticulously preserved home at a Chicago auction Dec. 15.
“We are pleased to support the conversion of the Laurent House into a new tourist destination in Rockford for all Illinoisans and visitors to enjoy, … and we are certain it will attract visitors from far and near,” Gov. Pat Quinn said today in a statement.
“Gov. Quinn’s commitment to this effort is substantial,” said John Groh, president and chief executive officer of the Rockford Area Convention Visitors Bureau. “It puts us in a position to be a credible bidder at auction.”
In another story, the Register Star interviews the Laurent family on living in the Wright-designed house.
Dec 022011
The UK’s Daily Mail has an article on Emmonds House, a Wright-designed Queen Anne in La Grange, Illinois that’s for sale at $1.4 million. Lots of pictures, including a handful of later works for comparison (including the Masaro House). The current owners have restored the home close to its original appearance (it formerly sported a very post-war, very unWright, partial brick exterior)
The house is similar to the Thomas Gale house in Oak Park, also built during the “Bootleg” phase of Wright’s career. Thought the article emphasizes the differences between this house and Wright’s later, signature work, these early homes are fascinating in the way that they point to his later philosophies of home design. Even at the age of 24, working surreptitiously and with modest budgets, Wright was working through theories of how Americans should live.
Curbed thinks it’s a Frank Lloyd Wright House. Even though it was completed in 1985. Even though the plan was expanded from 2,400 sq. feet to 5,000. Even though it was designed by an architect named Charles Montooth. Even though it has an underground parking garage.
It’s so not a Frank Lloyd Wright that even Realtor.com (a group of people who would cheerfully lie their way to, and through, the Gates of St. Peter) can only bring themselves to call it “based on a design by Frank Lloyd Wright”.
If you think ersatz is German for good coffee and you have $4.75 million, this may be house for you.
Nov 252011
After years on the market, the Kenneth Laurent House in Rockford, Illinois will be auctioned on December 15. A private group in Rockford hopes to raise enough money before that date to buy the house and turn it into a museum.
The Laurent House easily a candidate for one of the best residential buildings in the world. Injured in WWII, Laurent asked Wright to design a home for someone in a wheelchair with a modest budget. The Laurents have lived and beautifully maintained the house since its completion in 1952. The house still has Wright’s built-ins and furniture.
Nov 232011
The Brandes House in Washington state is again for sale (agent’s site here), asking price $1.45 million (it last sold in 2009 for $1.5 million).
Here is a YouTube video of the Brandes House from a few years ago:
In 2008 the Sammamish Reporter interviewed the step-son of the original owner, Ray Brandes.
“Part of what makes it work as a small house is that there’s glass on both sides,” Cullen said, gesturing to the expansive glass walls on either side of the great-room style living space. “If you had solid walls, it would feel very confining.”
Cantelevered overhangs protect the windows from rain, so the view of the naturally landscaped grounds is always clear.
“One of the elements I really like is that you can stand almost anywhere in the house and see outside,” Cullen said. “The sense of space it gives you is of a much bigger house.”
Ray Brandes later also constructed a Frank Lloyd Wright home in Normandy Park. Mimi Brandes passed away, and Ray married Cullen’s mother, Helen, in 1966. When Ray and Helen retired and moved to California in 1984, Jack Cullen bought the house from them. Cullen and his wife raised their two children — now grown — in the home that sits on about four acres off of 212th Avenue Southeast.
“It’s a wonderful space to raise kids in,” Cullen said.
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