“A house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Austin neighborhood is deteriorating while mired in a foreclosure mess and needs a rescuer, but the path to that is murky.
“Built in 1903, the J.J. Walser Jr. House on Central Avenue is in poor condition, as seen in the photos provided by the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy. Holes in the roof let in rain and snow, wooden window frames are rotting and there are many holes in the exterior plaster, including around the foundation.
“‘It’s in really bad condition,’ said Barbara Gordon, the conservancy’s executive director. ‘It’s shocking to see the condition’ of a city landmark that’s less than three miles from Wright’s own home and studio in Oak Park and the many buildings he designed there. Gordon gave a rough estimate that restoration could cost half a million dollars.
‘Less than a month ago, a savior bought a Wright rowhouse in East Garfield Park that had been decaying for two decades. The Walser house, though evidently not as far gone, comes with an additional layer of complexity: the opacity of the present ownership.
“Johnny Teague, whose parents, Anne and Hurley Teague, bought the house in 1969, told Crain’s a reverse mortgage his mother took out in 1997 ‘has gone wrong so many times’ since his mother died in 2019, 22 years after her husband died.
“A reverse mortgage is a loan that homeowners over age 62 can use to pull cash out of the home equity they have built up, but without paying it back in monthly installments. Instead, the loan accrues interest until the borrower dies or moves out.
“If the home’s value has been flat or declining in the intervening years, the amount due on the loan may be considerably higher than the home’s market value. The online documents related to this house do not show how much is owed.
“While the building hangs in foreclosure limbo and decays, Gordon’s group and others have been exploring future routes to saving it, but amid the legal tangle, nothing concrete can be done.
“‘The crisis for that building right now is that it’s vulnerable to more damage and it’s open for (dangerous) things to happen inside,’ said Darnell Shields, executive director of Austin Coming Together, a community revitalization group. ‘Our interest is in getting it secured now so others in the community can look into the possibility of saving it later.’
“Across the street at a former CPS school that was one of 50 Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed in 2013, Austin Coming Together is a partner in developing the Aspire Center, a place for workforce training and economic development. Shields said he’d like to see the Walser House join the former Robert Emmett Elementary School and the Kehrein Center for the Arts nearby on Washington Boulevard as cornerstones of a reinvigorated Central Avenue corridor.
“At the moment, though, no fixes can be made to the Wright home without the owners’ consent — and the ownership is in flux.” (Rodkin, Crain’s Chicago Business, 7/1/24)
Preservation Chicago has been working very closely with stakeholders to try to bring about a successful outcome for the Walser House including preservation partners, the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, Landmarks Illinois and other community organizations.
We have monitoring the deteriorating condition of this important house and it has been a candidate for the Chicago 7 for many years. Our extensive experience working in neighborhoods of disinvestment has proven to be a very important component in working through the many challenges to stabilizing and restoring the Walser House by Frank Lloyd Wright. Hard work remains ahead, but we feel optimistic by the progress that is being made.