Wright Chat

[Matt]

Let's take this as a wake-up call to protect Wright properties before they are sold.

[Paul Ringstrom]

David Wright Home sold to preservation minded buyer.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/20121031frank-lloyd-wrightdesigned-home-sold.html
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Owner of the G. Curtis Yelland House (1910), by Wm. Drummond

[NadineLynn]

Yes, Sale confirmed last night. I thought it was posted here already. Everyone is guessing at buyer here in Phoenix, except those that already know. Supposedly last name has "MO" as first two letters. Best guess has been Moby; it could be someone else, even a local, but it's probably him.

[Roderick Grant]

If all goes well with the transfer of Wright from the jaws of death to a new life, we should nominate Nadine Lynn for a Nobel Prize.

[NadineLynn]

It's all done in the backrooms by someone who knows someone, etc. I did waaaaay less than others, especially those with more knowledge, know-how, and means. (sounds like an acceptance speech--lol!!). Okay, I'll take it IF the buyer found out about it through one of my rants. I was sorta hoping to eventually get one . . . for poetry!!

[egads]

This house, with that ramp, is quite poetic.


Now about that rug......

[Rood]

Now that the David Wright house has apparently survived relatively intact, it's time to throw bricks at the several people who used the house to profit financially ... from the David Wright heirs on down. In my humble opinion they should all be ashamed of themselves.

[peterm]

[Sequoia]

It's great that the house has been sold, as long as a good steward has been found. If it is Moby asking about the paucity of a "rug" could have double meaning.

[NadineLynn]

This brand new article in NYTimes makes the sale sound more "iffy" than local news, but at least it doesn't praise the developers like the local news:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/us/a-new-buyer-appears-for-a-threatened-wright-house.html?ref=us&_r=0

[DavidC]

(from the article):

"... buyer who has agreed to pay the asking price of $2.379 million, all of it in cash."


Seems as if the current owners got what they were after - hanging on till the last minute to squeeze out that last dime (via demo threats).

The 'praise' that's being tossed around by the local officials is no surprise, either. They don't want to bad mouth (in public) a developer who is interested in investing in local properties. The officials look at this as a 'win-win' for all involved.

Let's just hope that whomever the new owner is, he/she takes proper care of the physical aspects of the house - as well as protecting the future legal ones.


David

[Matt]

The conspiracy-theorist in me wonders if this "offer" isn't some ploy to delay or discourage the council from naming the property a historic landmark. I could see the sellers telling their council-person that any such designation would wreck the sale-deal. Personally I think the council should move up the vote so there is no doubt and the new buyer know what they're getting: It's a house by Frank Lloyd Wright!

Who was the interim buyer who apparently lost $1 million on the sale.

Matt
www.LandmarkModel.com

[KevinW]

Matt
The interim buyer who sold at the loss was Jean Tichenor....she was the one who also sold the rug at auction. A few months after selling the David Wright house, she purchased a TAA designed house for over 2 million dollars...cash.
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KevinW

[NadineLynn]

Actually, I was told that JT Ent didn't want the rug, and that was first clue to Wrights that all was not well. It may have been bought as a "trophy" home, but they didn't sell the rug because they needed money. Later, it was clarified that JT Ent allowed Wrights to sell the rug, so Wrights received the money for it. Who knows what's true, but I'll paste that info when I find it among all my saved records.
Second, JT Ent, I was again told, had made so much money this year, they had to show a loss, hence the $1million loss on Wright sale (but who knows if some hard money didn't go through, also).
Here is what they bought after selling Wright--doesn't sound as if they sold Wright because they needed the money, does it:
Priciest Home Sales
$2,600,000
Dexter B. Hewett and Cheryl A. Hewett, as trustees, have sold the house they had designed by a team hired from Taliesin West. Camelback Mountain is used as the walls in the upstairs master bedroom, the guest suite and the guesthouse. The residence has a a 50-ton boulder in the living room. The guesthouse has the feel of a highly developed cave, but one with bamboo and adobe-brick floors and an upstairs captain's bed that juts from the rock of the mountain. Two floors of the main house have the same design, using the mountain for the walls. The home, which sits in Camelhead Park at the mouth of Camelback Mountain, was bought by Jean Tichenor, as trustee of the Jean Tichenor Family Trust. Jean Tichenor is the daughter of the late McHenry Taylor Tichenor, a radio-broadcasting pioneer and one of the foremost developers of the Hispanic radio industry in the U.S. Jean Tichenor, as part of a general partnership, paid $2.8 million in cash for another home in Arcadia in 2009.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/2012/01/23/20120123done-deals-Priciest-recent-local-home-sales-around-Phoenix.html#ixzz2B5BHydw2

[NadineLynn]

The link at the bottom will take you to the article that has the specifics about the rug. I do ask myself this--why didn't the Wrights just keep the rug? Here's an excerpt from article; Tichenor is the buyer:

Just before closing on the property, Wright-Levi says, Tichenor said she didn't want the iconic Wright-designed rug custom-made for the living room.

"A little flag went up for us," Wright-Levi says. "We had it appraised. It went to auction, and someone bought it for preservation."

The rug sold for $16,000 -- much less than the expected $40,000 to $60,000, but the family was glad it would be preserved.



Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/style/hfe/articles/2012/10/08/20121008frank-lloyd-wright-house-dispute.html#ixzz2B7QOkpkw