Pay a visit to the leafy Chicago suburb of Oak Park, Illinois and you’ll encounter some of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most celebrated works – his famous home and studio and his restored Unity Temple among them – and the throngs of tourists that follow. But just a few miles away, two stops east on the Green Line in Chicago’s Austin neighbourhood, Wright’s only Prairie Style home on the city’s West Side is in danger.
The Joseph Jacob Walser House, built by Wright more than a century ago, sits vacant. It has a hole in its roof; Its yard is choked with weeds and litter; its interior has been ransacked. The house is in such poor condition that it made a list of Chicago’s seven-most endangered buildings earlier this month, as compiled annually by the nonprofit, Preservation Chicago. 'This is one of those buildings that should be the pride of the Austin community,' says Ward Miller, the organisation’s executive director.
At one point, the house was just that. Wright designed the home for local businessman and real estate developer JJ Walser in 1903. Though not as grand as some of its Chicago area cousins, such as the Laura Gale House or the Robie House, it exhibited the hallmarks of Wright’s organic, Prairie School style: deep eaves; horizontal lines; bands of art glass windows; and an open floor plan. It even earned a spread in House Beautiful magazine in 1905.
The Walsers lived in the house for seven years before parting with it in 1910. The decades saw multiple homeowners – and just as many interior renovations – before it came into the hands of Anne and Hurley Teague in 1970. Austin also changed as the result of redlining and disinvestment and fell upon tough times. But the Teagues remained good stewards of the house for a half-century, during which it became a Chicago Landmark (1983) and was put on the National Register of Historic Places (2013).
For the Teagues, the Walser House was more than an architectural point of interest. ‘I wasn’t too much concerned about whether it was historical or what kind of story it was,’ Anne, who grew up in Atlanta, told the Austin Weekly News in 2009. ‘This is my dream house from a child.’
That all changed when Anne, by then in her nineties, passed away in 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic and the financial burden of maintaining the residence by her heirs caused the home to go into foreclosure. Miller, who says he’d been in touch with the Teagues over the years through Preservation Chicago, 'had no idea that she passed and that the house was vacant'.
Anne Teague outside of her home. She passed away in 2019.
The house’s future, because of its complicated status, remains uncertain. One thing’s for sure: it will continue to deteriorate until the legal issues are resolved (it cannot be demolished because of its landmark status). But organisations like Preservation Chicago and Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, another Chicago advocacy group, hope awareness of the Walser House, a gem that’s ‘hidden in plain sight’, will allow it to have a vibrant next chapter.
‘Austin is a community where there’s been a lot of challenges,’ Miller says. In an ideal scenario, the building would land in the hands of an educational organisation and be open to the neighborhood to enjoy. ‘It would be a great point of pride in the community to see this building celebrated and restored.’
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