Housing Bulletin
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Heller House Hits the Market Today
After being on sale informally for a couple of weeks, a treasured Frank Lloyd Wright design in Hyde Park, the Isidore H. Heller House, officially hits the market today. Completed in 1897, the residence signaled Wright’s turn away from the richly ornamented style of his boss, Louis Sullivan. That change is immediately visible on the home’s façade: the top floor is wrapped with Italianate pillars and panels that depict gowned maidens; the second floor has brick striping and more abstracted pillars; and the rectilinear mass of the ground floor anticipates Wright’s later Prairie-style homes.
“[The house] is a fine work of art that we’ve been lucky to live in,” says Emily Novick. She and her husband, Steven Goldstein, have owned the home since 2004. The physician-in-chief at Comer Children’s Hospital at the University of Chicago, Goldstein became provost of Brandeis University last June.
The listing agent, Diane Silverman of Urban Search, officially lists the house for sale today at $2.5 million. Click through the photos below for a tour.
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Anyone hear of staging a 2.5M home? Clutter is a surprise?
Clutter?
Say what?? And if I hear the term 'staging' used again for the prosaic business of selling a house...!
The house is beautifully decorated, and some might say under-decorated. I've noticed over the years that while quite a few can buy million dollar homes, very few know how to really decorate a home--million dollar, or not.
Its a interesting and historically significant home - but the furniture - it really distracts from the photos - surprising how people who live in true masterpieces can have so little taste when it comes to furniture.
The comments are amusing. People just can't pass up a chance to pat themselves on the back.
I apologize about my comment "so little taste" - but the home is historically significant and sometimes seeing homes like this "cluttered" with furniture that distracts from the genius of Wright brings out emotional outbursts.
What a treasure. It deserves professional photography to show it's beautiful features.
Annette Tecce Architectural Photography
609-742-2638
and staging!
Being a huge FLW fan, I was thrilled to learn that a guy I worked with owned the Heller house. It was the mid 1970s and I was a college student working a summer job in Chicago. The 1950s and 1960s were not kind to big, old, urban houses and Heller was in tough condition. Walter, the owner, loved that house and spent every spare minute (and every spare dollar) working to save it.
If you look at photos of the exterior you might notice a sort of frieze under the eves. Most of my weekends that summer were spent cutting plywood--freehand with a jigsaw--to replace that frieze (at no pay, I might add). I loved it. One funny thing you might not know if you haven't lived in the house is that the 'innovative' configuration of the staircase to the second floor makes for a very low ceiling clearance. Because of this, moving any large pieces of furniture requires removing a second-floor window and the help of a crane!
F.L.W. et al furnished their homes with lovely built-ins and size- and style-appropriate pieces thru out. Has anyone thought to research the original furnishings in order to properly edit/stage this home? One would assume the listing agent would have the most to gain from this.