A newly renovated Frank Lloyd Wright home that owners Susan and Arthur Vogt call “a labor of love” will hit the market on September 4. Located in River Forest, Illinois, near Chicago, the residence, know as the Winslow House, will be offered at $1.985 million. Elizabeth August of @properties Christie’s International Real Estate holds the listing.
The Vogts first fell in love with the Winslow House 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 are listing the home at an intentional loss.
“I think of it as our personal philanthropy project,” Arthur Vogt 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.
