Frank Lloyd Wright’s J.J. Walser House Finds a New Owner in Chicago’s Austin Neighborhood
A long-vacant Frank Lloyd Wright house in Chicago has changed hands, setting up a new chapter for one of the architect’s rare Prairie-period survivors. Austin Coming Together has acquired the J.J. Walser House, a 1903 residence in the city’s Austin neighborhood that had fallen into disrepair after years of neglect and a foreclosure sale.
Designed for printing executive Joseph Jacob Walser, the house is one of only five surviving Wright Prairie-period structures in Chicago. It is also a Chicago Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Because it is Wright’s only single-family home on Chicago’s West Side, the property has long carried significance beyond architecture alone; it was included among the community assets identified in ACT’s 2019 “Austin Forward. Together” quality-of-life plan.
The house’s recent path has been uneven. Hurley Teague bought it in the 1970s for his wife, Anne, and refurbished the interiors himself, though the couple did not know its historic importance at the time. After their deaths, the building was burdened by a reverse mortgage and deteriorated further. By 2019, it had landed on Landmarks Illinois’s annual list of endangered historic buildings. It resurfaced on the market in January after a December foreclosure sale made Fannie Mae the owner.
According to a source familiar with the transaction, Fannie Mae reduced the asking price from $200,000 to $125,000 so Community Investment Corporation could purchase the house in April. ACT then assumed ownership from CIC yesterday for $65,000, with $60,000 of that amount coming from Chicago’s Trouble Buildings Initiative.
ACT says its first priority will be stabilization. After that, the nonprofit plans to consult residents, partners, and community leaders on the building’s restoration, redesign, and future use. The organization has pointed to its $45 million transformation of Austin’s former Emmet Elementary School into the Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation as a model for that process.
The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy has said it will support the effort through a profile in its SaveWright magazine, status updates for members, and fundraising outreach when appropriate. For Austin, the acquisition offers a chance to preserve a rare Wright house while deciding how a historic building can remain useful in the neighborhood around it.
