Presents
A little over a year ago my dear friend Victoria Young guided me to the Winton Guest House, a Frank Gehry design in Owatonna, Minnesota. Owatonna is of course the site of one of the great early 20th century Louis Sullivan Midwestern Bank designs.
Owatonna is also home to a 1987 Frank Gehry design, the Winton Guest House, which was originally designed in 1987 in Orono, Minnesota. In 2009 it was moved to the Gainey Conference Center of the University of St. Thomas. Continue Reading
Age Value and the 50-year rule
Field memorial, Daniel Chester French, Graceland Cemetery, Chicago
The latest issue of Forum Journal (from the National Trust for Historic Preservation – you can join here.) has an article questioning the 50-year rule. The National Register of Historic Places was created in 1966 and shortly thereafter the Park Service promulgated policies for listing properties on the National Register. Eight categories of properties have to jump some more hurdles to become landmarks: birthplaces, gravesites, cemeteries, memorials, relocated buildings, reconstructed buildings, houses of worship, and buildings less than 50 years old.
Now, first it should be noted that I can name properties in each of those categories that ARE on the National Register of Historic Places, but they had to prove extra significance. Continue Reading
Bradley House, Inland Steel, Wrigley Field
The big news this week was an effort to preserve Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bradley House in Kankakee, one of the epochal early Wright Prairie Houses. Blair Kamin did a bangup job of covering the issue in the Tribune here. A local Wright in Kankakee group is trying to raise money to buy the house and make it a house museum and education center. The bottom line is the $1.9 million price and the more immediate concern of an additional $100,000 for the down payment beyond the $70,000 already raised. I can recall when the house was law offices and Kamin’s article notes that the owners for the last 5 years, the Halls, have been ideal, keeping it together and restoring it. With 100 art-glass windows, the house could be worth almost as much in pieces as it is put together. The real challenge is not simply the purchase price, but the ongoing operations, since house museums rarely generate more than a quarter of operating costs from admissions. The Bradley House either needs an angel to subsidize the purchase and an endowment, or it needs more angels like the Halls who will care for it as the treasure it is. Continue Reading