You would think ALL the Frank Lloyd Wright homes are known and documented. The Urban Milwaukee reports an undiscovered Frank Lloyd Wright home has hidden in plain sight in Shorewood, Wisconsin.
It is the only documented Frank Lloyd Wright home found in the last 10 years. How could this happen? Maybe there are more undiscovered Frank Lloyd Wright homes out there waiting to be found.
Per Urban Milwaukee:This modest home in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin suburb was discovered by Richard G. Johnson, a Chicagoean whose hobby was researching Frank Lloyd Wright homes in the Midwest. He and his team have discovered other FLW homes in the Chicago area. Johnson’s theory about this house was hard proven until Wisconsinite Mark Lilek, Curator of American Built Homes by FLW, found a historical file about a lawsuit and lien with Wright’s name listed.
This newly discovered 1917 Frank Lloyd Wright home was built during a troublesome time in his life. He had an affair with a woman named Mahmah Borthwick. They both left their spouses and children to live together. This brought condemnation from the public with threats to arrest Wright for immorality. He built a settlement in Wisconsin called Taliesin for he and Mamah Borthwick to live in away from reporters and public view.
Then while Wright was in Chicago a newly hired servant from Barbados set fire to the house and murdered seven people with an axe including Mamah, her children, a gardener, a draftsman, a worker, and another worker’s son. The murderer immediately tried to take his own life by drinking muriatic acid. He was taken to jail, had medical attention, but died of starvation several weeks later.
I’m filing that under things I never knew about Frank Lloyd Wright!
The gist of it is that this was not a good time in Wright’s life to make waves in court or in public about how he was not being paid for his work on this house so documentation of this FLW house got lost.
The now famous home is at 2106 E Newton Ave, Shorewood, Wisconsin.
The total count of authentic Frank Lloyd homes was 433 plus one more is now 434.
Frank Lloyd Home details:
Owner: Patricia Wisialowski and Roger Wisialowski
Location: Village of Shorewood
Neighborhood: Each block of Shorewood is its own little neighborhood.
Subdivision: Hillcrest
Year Built: 1917 [Village records say 1919]
Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright
Style: American System-Built Home Model A203; Prairie School style.
Size: 1,258 square feet, with no wasted space
Fireplaces: 1 Natural Fireplace
Finding out you live in a Frank Lloyd Wright home is like winning the lottery. When the homeowners are ready to sell, the listing price can be higher than normal.
See more photos and details about this lost and now found Frank Lloyd home on Urban Milwaukee.
