The Frank Lloyd Wright Real Estate Market Is Changing in Ways That Buck Historical Trends

Photo: VHT Studios, courtesy of Elizabeth August

A newly renovated Frank Lloyd Wright home that owners Susan and Arthur Vogt call “a labor of love” sold on November 4 for $2.2 million, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. Located in River Forest, Illinois, near Chicago, the residence, known as the Winslow House, was offered at $1.985 million on September 4, and was placed under contingent contract only four days later. Elizabeth August of @Properties Christie’s International Real Estate held the listing.

The sale is proof of a new reality: The Frank Lloyd Wright real estate market has changed. Now its increasingly common for Wright homes to sell almost as soon as they hit the market, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. In addition to the Winslow House, the Oscar Balch house, also in Oak Park, was placed under contingent contract in three days. It sold in October 2024 for $1.5 million, 3.7% over the asking price. In Wilmette, Illinois, one of Wright’s American System-Built Homes, had a contingent sale within four days of listing in March 2024, and officially closed about two months later.

This is a stark contrast to a decade ago, when Wright homes were significantly more difficult to sell, sometimes taking as long as 12 years to close. However, the shift in the Frank Lloyd Wright real estate market often has less to do with increased appreciation of the American architect, but rather the level of renovation work done by the sellers before listing.

The Vogts’ painstaking six years of renovations were critical in helping it sell for more than the asking price, the buyers said. Ryan Worl, the cofounder of a tech company that he sold in September, and his wife Gabrieli, offered 11% over the asking price, one of three offers the Vogts received.

“Wright’s facade brought us in the door, but the investments (the Vogts) made in the property sealed the deal,” Ryan told Crain’s Chicago Business. The Worls were impressed by the Vogts’ attention to the structure of the house, in addition to cosmetic details.

The other quick-selling Wright homes had also undergone significant renovations before listing, making them move-in ready for buyers who could appreciate the historic structures and their modern conveniences. The Balch House, for example, was one of the first homes where Wright employed his signature flat roof, and seller Samantha Lotti updated it to be more sustainable, using today’s green technology without altering the integrity of the designer’s work.

After making the home more sustainable, Lotti listed the home at an intentional loss, seeing her contributions to the home’s future as something of a venture for personal fulfillment. The Vogts shared a similar story when they listed the Winslow house.

The couple first fell in love with their future residence in an architectural history class in college, never dreaming that more than 40 years later they would end up owning it. The house had been vacant for several years when Arthur Vogt, an architect himself, pitched it to his wife, Susan, as a retirement project. They worried it would deteriorate or be torn down if it didn’t find buyers who could lovingly restore it into a practical home. In 2016, they purchased the home for $1.3 million, and in 2018, they moved from Boston to Chicago to live in the house while renovating it.

After putting about $1 million into the renovation, the Vogts listed the home at an intentional loss. Even after selling for above the asking price, the Vogts are taking a hit of $400,000 on their investment into Winslow House. “I think of it as our personal philanthropy project,” Arthur says.

Designed for William Winslow, a manufacturer of decorative ironworks, the home was built in 1893 and was Wright’s very first commission as an independent architect after parting ways with his mentor Louis Sullivan. Previously, he’d completed a number of “bootleg” houses around Chicago—that is, commissions on the side of his full-time job, which he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

“You can almost feel where Wright was experimenting with different forms and different ideas of how to design the house,” Arthur says. “For me, that was captivating.”

The front of the house rises in a traditional box shape, a sign of Sullivan’s influence, but the roofline has Wright’s signature wide eaves, an early harbinger of the Prairie style. The back of the home shows playful experimentation, as different geometric shapes extend out from the house.

The five-bedroom main home is approximately 5,000 square feet with ornate woodwork and brass sconces throughout. As visitors enter the home, their eyes will be drawn to the inglenook fireplace, a cozy, recessed room within a room that Wright repeated throughout many of his designs. Unlike many homes of the era, Wright used an open floor plan, where visitors can see “end to end,” Susan says. Large windows drench the home in natural light. The property, which sits on about two thirds of an acre, also includes a two-bedroom coach house.

“We felt that the best way to preserve this house was to make it suitable for a family to live in it and continue the legacy of it being a family home,” Susan Vogt says. “But it needed to be brought into the 21st century.”

When the Vogts began renovations, their top priority was adding air conditioning. They also upgraded the electrical system and remodeled the bathrooms. They added modern touches for convenience—the house now has a tankless water heater, a whole-house generator, and smart thermostats.

They also tackled the overgrown yard, adding a drainage system to mitigate any flooding from a nearby river. Then, to honor Wright’s original vision, they hired historic landscape architect Carol Yetken to design a yard featuring native plants that would have been available during Wright’s era.

Their efforts evidently paid off, both in securing a quick sale and in ensuring the home remains in good shape for years. Indeed, Worl told Crain’s Chicago Business that the drainage addition “ensures the home will be standing 100 years from now.”

Now the Vogts are ready to turn it over to the new owners, the Worls, who they hope will love it as much as they have and preserve all of its one-of-a-kind features.

“You could call it a love story,” August, the listing agent, says. “[The Vogts] wanted this home to shine and carry on for years to come.”

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

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