At 42 N. Central Ave. in Austin, the Joseph Jacob Walser House is the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home on Chicago’s West Side, and one of five of the architect’s Prairie Style structures in the city.
But in the years since its most recent owners died, the house has fallen into disrepair, this year making Preservation Chicago’s annual list of most endangered historic buildings and Landmarks Illinois 10 most at-risk structures in the state.
At a foreclosure sale Dec. 1, the house went to the lender, instead of one of the organizations aiming to save it. With the lender, PHH Mortgage, making no public statements about plans to rehab the property, the house may continue along a path of dilapidation.
The Florida-based mortgage holder of the house made the only bid, of $240,000, at the auction. Andy Schcolnik, owner of Ansco Construction which is rehabbing other endangered properties in Chicago, and Austin Coming Together were also present to bid on the house. But they said the price paid by PHH Mortgage was more than they could afford.
“That’s too high a number because the property is in severe dilapidated condition,” Darnell Shields, executive director of Austin Coming Together, told Austin Weekly News. Shields is also on the board of Growing Community Media, the nonprofit parent company of Austin Weekly News.
According to Crain’s Chicago Business, though the average sale price of Austin homes sold in the past year is $280,000, at least three-quarters of them were in move-in condition. Those that needed rehab were mostly sold for less than $100,000. The Walser house is appraised at $65,000.
Now, it’s up to the lender to decide what they want to do with the property. Shields said the lender hasn’t revealed whether it has any plans for rehabilitation.
“As the owner, there is still the obligation that they have to address anything that will cause the property to be unsafe or a detriment to the community because it’s a vacant building,” Shields said.
He added that Austin Coming Together is waiting to see whether the lender will sell the property or entertain an arrangement that’s more financially amenable to a group like ACT.
“There’s a reasonable amount that we’re interested in purchasing the property,” Shields said, though he didn’t reveal what it was and said the ideal situation would be if the property was donated. And, because of the state of the housing market, if it became a public site instead of a residence.
“The most socially responsible thing would be to turn it over to whoever is going to ensure that the property is invested in,” Shields said. And a public site could mutually benefit the owner, the Austin community and Frank Lloyd Wright’s legacy. “If another opportunity arises with the now-owner to have this property be acquired by our community with ACT acting as the steward — we’re still interested in doing that. We’ll continue to stay ready if that opportunity presents itself.”
Shields compared the Walser House’s potential to what was accomplished with the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation across the street — which was transformed from Emmet Elementary School after it sat vacant for years before the Westside Health Authority bought it and engaged the community to find a new use.
“There was a conceptualization of using that site in some ways that continue to improve quality of life in the community and allow the property to be a value and not a detriment to the area,” Shields said of the Aspire Center. The same would allow the Walser house to “transcend what the property will be valued at because it has social impact, it has other types of impact that transcend financial value.”
The house has not been maintained since 2019, when Anne Teague died. Her husband, Hurly, and she bought the home in 1970, and as a contractor, Hurley worked to stabilize it.
Today, the house has holes in the roof and foundation, the exterior stucco and trim are crumbling, and other parts of the interior and outside must be restored. Shields estimates that it needs over $2 million in repairs.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy has been working for years to save the Walser house, a Chicago Landmark since 1984 and on the National Register of Historic Places since 2013. The former is a designation that requires approval for exterior changes.