Frank Lloyd Wright on the Market

Brandes Residence, Sammamish, Wa.
Photo by Alan Weintraub/arcaid.co.uk

I want this house! Where the heck is the Sammamish Plateau, anyway?

I found out how easy it is to find Frank Lloyd Wright houses that are up for sale when I did my article about the restoration of Fallingwater for the Wall Street Journal. If you go to the site for the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and click "Wright on the Market," you will, at this writing, see 17 tempting possibilities, from Manchester, N.H. to Sammamish, Wa.

Detailed information (including prices) and photos are posted for each residence. The Wright Conservancy protects the architectural integrity of these houses by establishing and monitoring legally enforceable preservation easements.

As I wrote back on Aug. 20, 2003 (here if you're a WSJ online subscriber), a number of Wright houses are at risk because they were "commissioned by now-octogenarians in desirable areas. Their sites, but not their modest-sized rooms, are attractive to affluent buyers who want to replace them with megamansions."

The FLW Building Conservancy has been acquiring, repairing and reselling Wrights-at-risk since 2003. And they list privately held homes whose owners want to find preservation-minded buyers. Every so often, I go back to the website and imagine myself in one of these gems. Who needs high ceilings that don't leak, spacious modern kitchens or big master bedrooms, anyway?