The Affordable Frank Lloyd Wright

Architizer News

The Affordable Frank Lloyd Wright

July 12, 2011

The Waller Apartments, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, in their present condition. Photos

What can you get in today’s market for $60,000? It could secure you a table at Per Se every night for four months with a full-course dinner for two. It could buy you 27.5% of a 57′ Fairline 55 Squadron yacht. It could buy an advertiser a split-second of on-screen product placement — showing off James Bond’s premium cufflinks, perhaps. If you’re an architect, you could have nabbed this Louis Kahn travel sketch, while covering one year at an most graduate design school. And if you’re an architect who can’t sleep, you can buy a bed guaranteed to stave off insomnia.

Or you could move into one unit of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Waller Apartments in Chicago.

Guess what we think the best deal is…

Alright, maybe graduate school is the wisest choice in the long run, but owning a house by Frank Lloyd Wright is a close second. Designed in 1895, Wright was just coming out from under the tutelage of his former employer Louis Sullivan, designing an eclectic set of homes which culminated with Wright’s own home and studio. He was still five years away from initiating his game-changing Prairie-style period. Placing the Waller Apartments within the context of Wright’s architectural evolution is a bit tricky, though they could be seen as predecessors to the architect’s later experiments with lower-income housing, as with the Usonian houses.

The Waller Apartments were designed as a set of five party-wall buildings, each of which was subdivided into four apartments. Apart from Sullivan-esque flourishes, Wright’s ornamental impulses are restrained here – clean, recessed lines reflect the apartments’ utilitarian simplicity. Though the facades now appear dark and covered with grime, segments have recently been power-washed, exposing the brickwork’s original egg-yolk like color.

Over the past century, the apartments have undergone long periods of neglect and abandonment. In 1968, the fourth unit burnt down, and its remains removed. In that time, two of the buildings were converted into town homes, including the two-story townhouse now for sale. After going into foreclosure last year, the three-bedroom, 1,200 square feet unit was put on the market, originally listed at $169,000, but since lowered to an unthinkable $60,000. Extensive interior restoration is required.

[via Curbed]