A crumbling Chicago masterpiece designed by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright has landed on a watchlist of at-risk buildings in the Windy City — and preservationists are sounding the alarm.
The J.J. Walser Jr. House, a rare Prairie-style relic nestled in the Austin neighborhood, is one of just five surviving Wright designs of its kind in Chicago — and it’s teetering on the edge of collapse after years of neglect.
Every spring, the folks at Preservation Chicago drop their Chicago 7 list, spotlighting the city’s most endangered architectural treasures, which includes this very property.
“The Walser House had been on our watchlist of buildings for several years,” Ward Miller, the group’s executive director, told Artnet News.
“The vacancy of the building, along with the visual inspection of the building’s interior and noting both the water damage and vandalism, lead us to make this a priority and emergency advocacy effort.”
This architectural stunner was whipped up in 1903 for printing bigwig Joseph Jacob Walser, with Wright keeping costs low at $4,000 — about $150,000 in today’s figures.
Its design includes wide eaves, a breezy layout, custom furniture and dazzling art glass windows. But now, the place is deteriorating. The last owners, Anne and Hurley Teague, scooped it up in 1970.
Hurley, a contractor, worked diligently to keep it standing until he passed away 1997. Anne followed in 2019, and since then, the house has been left to rot, battered by Chicago’s notoriously brutal weather.
“The house has been unoccupied and unmaintained for the past six years,” the Preservation Chicago’s website says.
Even with some patchwork fixes and brush-clearing by do-gooders, the whole property is screaming for a top-to-bottom overhaul.
“Every part of this house needs attention,” The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy added on its website, asking for someone to swoop in, shore it up and bring it back to life.
Designated a Chicago Landmark in 1981 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013, the house can’t be torn down — but that doesn’t mean it’s safe from falling apart.
A reverse mortgage from 2003 and ongoing foreclosure fights are gumming up the works, according to the Austin Weekly News.
“This needs to occur quickly,” Miller told Artnet. “The home is very susceptible to environmental conditions and also to people breaking and entering onto the property.”
With advocacy crews like Preservation Chicago and the Conservancy keeping tabs, they’re pushing hard to speed up the legal mess.
A new owner could tap into federal and state tax breaks to fund the fix-up, but the clock’s ticking.
“Its longtime owners tried their very best to maintain the home, despite the costs associated with some of the various needs and requirements, as they continued to age,” Miller told Architectural Digest.
“We need the community to voice their support for this amazing house and be a partner in its restoration, repair and revival.”
He’s also pleading with City Hall to help fund the resurrection of Wright’s vision before it’s too late.