Displaying items by tag: house

Frank Gehry’s 1987 Winton Guest House will go up for sale at auction on May 19, according to the seller, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. The building currently stands on a 180-acre site in Owatonna, Minnesota, that the university sold to a health clinic last summer; the seller has until August 2016 to move the house from the new owner’s land. Chicago auction house Wright is organizing the sale, and is noted for previous sales of historic architecture — in particular for the successful 2006 auction of Pierre Koenig’s 1959 Case Study House #21 in Los Angeles.

Mike and Penny Winton commissioned Gehry to design a guest house on their lakeside property near the Twin Cities in 1982, in close proximity to a 1952 Philip Johnson brick-and-glass house that stood nearby on the same plot of land. Completed in 1987, Gehry’s structure is noted for geometric rooms arranged like individual homes; they project from a central 35-foot-tall pyramidal living room, and the entire house covers 2,300 square feet.

When architect Jon Traficonte arrived at the Frick Art & Historical Center for the first time, he wasn't quite sure where to go.

Like a lot of first time visitors, he couldn't see the entrance to the art museum and didn't know where to check in for a tour of Clayton or how to locate the Henry Clay Frick family's former home.

Many guests toured the house or museum without being aware of the Car and Carriage Museum, the Frick Cafe or the greenhouse on the property.

A house built in 1952 by Frank Lloyd Wright for his son, David, has spent months on the brink of demolition. Fortunately, an anonymous buyer has purchased the Phoenix, Arizona home, ensuring its preservation.

The buyer paid $2.387 million for the house, which overlooks the picturesque Camelback Mountains. The former owners, Steve Sells and John Hoffman of the Arizona-based development company, 8081 Meridian, continued to raise the price of the house after purchasing the property for $1.8 million this past June.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, an organization devoted to preserving the seminal architect’s legacy, facilitated the recent sale. After hearing that the former owners planned to level the house and split the lot to build new homes, the conservancy petitioned the city with the help of other organizations, asking that the house be granted landmark status. While three local government bodies approved the proposal, the City Council, which would be the deciding vote, repeatedly postponed their decision.

One of Wright’s most significant later works, the house in Phoenix features a coiled design similar to the one Wright employed for the Guggenheim Museum in New York. For years ago, Wright’s granddaughters decided to sell the house to a buyer they thought would preserve it. However, the house was sold again in June to 8081 Meridian putting it in danger of demolition.

While the house is in need of approximately $300,000 worth of restoration, the conservancy is helping to establish a nonprofit organization that will maintain and operate the house as well as oversee the renovation. The new owner plans to acquire landmark status for the house so that it can be made available for educational purposes on a limited basis.