Why Buying Frank Lloyd Wright Furniture Is More Controversial Than You’d Think
Photo: Santi Visalli/Archive Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
More than 30 years ago, furniture appraiser Thomas Maher bought a bedroom set and barrel chair to match the other early-20th-century decor in his 1937 William B. Stratton–designed home in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. In the set is a wood dresser with a mirror and a double bed. “It’s oak, it’s dark-stained, it all matches [what I already have],” he says.
The pieces were not just any midcentury furniture; they were designed by the one and only Frank Lloyd Wright (the bedroom set was originally created for the William E. Martin House in Oak Park, Illinois, and the chair, for the Frank L. Smith Bank in Dwight, Illinois).
Scooping up a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed chair, window, or even weed holder could be the next best thing for a fan priced out of one of his homes, which can easily spike into the millions. However, the practice of selling Wright furniture is much more nuanced—and potentially controversial—than some may think.
On Wednesday, August 29, 2007 Angela Adams, a local artist and retailer, walks and talks about the F
“Preservationists don’t like it when pieces are removed and sold from a Wright home,” says John Toomey, founder of Toomey & Co. Auctioneers, which has facilitated the sale of Wright furnishings in the past.
Wright often designed holistically and considered the whole space—inside and out—when crafting his masterpieces. For this reason, many Wright fans do not believe these pieces should ever be separated from their intended interiors. Nonetheless, this has never stopped the process from occurring.
Sometimes, it was for financial reasons. “Owners have sold furnishings to remain in the home they wanted to live in,” Toomey explains. “Some would argue you shouldn’t remove them from the house, but maintenance and property taxes are pretty high. Wright wasn’t the window or cabinet maker, he was the designer. So some homeowners have had copies made.”
Other times, the original owners would simply take the pieces with them to their new place after selling the home. In either scenario, this often begins a long chain of ownership with paths difficult to trace.
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For some in the Wright community, it’s important to reunite furnishings with their intended residences whenever possible. Margaret Howland, who grew up in and later became a steward of the Frederick C. Bogk House in Milwaukee, remembers her parents’ tireless efforts to track down the home’s original furniture.
“(My parents) had started corresponding with Mrs. Bogk’s daughter over the years and knew she had the original dining room furniture, a side table, and two side chairs,” Howland says. As stewards of the residence, it was extremely important to her parents that it represent Wright’s vision as faithfully as possible.
Eventually, they were able to buy back a number of the original pieces, including a dining room table, drop leaf table, eight dining room chairs, and two side chairs. When Howland’s family sold the home in 2023, she offered this collection, which included other Frank Lloyd Wright furniture pieces her parents bought, with the residence for an additional $400,000. “The buyers did end up keeping the furniture in the home,” she adds.
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This is not always how these scenarios end. Before Norman Silk and his partner bought the Turkel House in Detroit, a previous steward of the home sold the dining table, three coffee tables, and six dining chairs. “It just wasn’t thought of as being important at that time,” he says. “As far as we know, those are all in private collections now.”
So when Silk saw Toomey & Co. Auctioneers was offering a chair from his home in March of this year, he decided to bid on it. “I thought it would be interesting to own the original, and then it got crazy expensive,” he says.
Built from mahogany plywood, it was estimated to sell between $4,000 to $6,000—and ended up selling for $50,400. “I stopped at $45,000,” Silk adds. After obtaining authorization from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, he’s ultimately commissioned a local cabinetmaker to create a number of reproductions—using Wright’s plans—to stand in for some of these out-of-grasp originals.
Though it would have been nice to own the originals, he and his partner are happy with the reproductions as the home still appears the way Wright intended it. However, he says he feels “strongly that if a house today goes on the market and it has the original furniture in it, the furniture should stay. The furniture is so integral, and [it’s] part of the design.”
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, a non-profit based in Chicago that champions and facilitates preservation of the architect’s work, has looked to address this in recent years by, at times, including furniture in preservation easements that have been donated to the conservancy. This gives the organization legal right to monitor the furniture and, essentially, ensure no matter how many times the home sells, the furniture remains inside.
“When possible, we would want to keep furniture and decorative arts items with a house since Wright’s goal, like many architects’, was to design a complete environment, where each item worked together with the larger design of the building,” John Waters, preservation programs manager at the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, says.
The organization also bestows Wright Spirit Awards, which recognize “efforts of extraordinary individuals and organizations that have preserved the legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright.” In 2020, the nonprofit gave one to the University of Victoria Legacy Art Galleries in British Columbia, which returned seven art glass windows that it had in its collection to their original site, the Martin House in Buffalo, New York. “That was a great story for us,” Waters adds. “One of the things we do with the Wright Spirit Awards is try to encourage things like that.”
The Martin House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright
However, if a homeowner is less motivated to honor Wright’s interior vision—which is not protected through landmark designation like the exterior often is—some fans believe it’s acceptable to keep that furniture in their collection. “If you have a Wright house for sale and it’s purchased by someone who doesn’t care [about the furnishings], then what?” George Hall, president of Wright in Wisconsin, questions.
He experienced this once with a built-in sideboard and two base cabinets that were originally designed for the Stephen Hunt II House in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. A previous owner had removed these pieces decades ago, and they were stored in the basement for years. When the home later sold, the new owner didn’t want it. “A guardian ad litem approach was taken,” Hall says, explaining that it was better for the piece to be removed from the home and in the care of someone who valued it. The pieces are now in storage under Wright in Wisconsin’s care.
However, he’s also motivated by the thought that owning pieces of furniture can widen accessibility, as is the case with a dining table from the A.B. Groves Building Co. House in Madison, Wisconsin.
It had sat in a northern Wisconsin cabin for decades and belonged to a member of the family who lived in the home during the 1920s and 1930s. Though some might argue it should be returned to the original property, as Hall explains, this family member specifically wanted it donated to Wright in Wisconsin. “The power of attorney for the person donating the table was fulfilling a promise made over 10 years ago,” he says.
The dining table is now on display at Burnham Block in Milwaukee, the country’s largest collection of Wright’s American System-Built Homes. (In 2017, while Hall was president, Frank Lloyd Wright Wisconsin reorganized into two groups: Wright in Wisconsin and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Burnham Block.) “It’s an important piece of history and I’m just pleased that it’s in good hands and people will see it,” Hall says about the table.
For Silk, this can be a good option for many of these artifacts. “If the furniture has left the house and the owners can’t get it back, at least if more of the public will be exposed to and see it, that’s a better alternative,” he says.
Does this mean no one should buy any Wright-designed furniture if they don’t own the corresponding residence? Not necessarily, but it can depend on what it is and the circumstance that surrounds it. Many Wright aficionados would frown at buyers who simply purchase the furniture as a quick-flip investment or who have little interest in honoring the legacy of the American architect. But if the desire is the same—to preserve and respect Wright’s work—then the decision to buy, sell, or donate a piece is often determined on a case-by-case basis, considering multiple factors such as where it came from, how it will be used, and if there is a possibility of losing it. “It’s sort of like children and guardianship,” Hall says. “What’s in the best interest?”
Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
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