Wright Chat

I was contacted by a neighbor of the Dorothy Turkel House in Detroit. She wanted to know if I knew who the new owners are. There are windows broken out in the house and homeless people are using it to keep warm.



While I'm glad that it is offering *someone* shelter, that is not the ideal way that I'd like to see a Frank Lloyd Wright home treated.



If any of you know anything about the owners, please let them know. I believe the police have been notified and they'll find a way to contact the owners.



Best wishes,



Pete

Hi Peter - The Turkel house is currently in foreclosure. I would love to purchase it! But... the price is somewhat different than it was a couple of years ago; at $400K, maybe, but at over $600 - given the neighborhood - I'm not so keen on the idea.



We are actually going out this weekend to see it and I'm going to take some pictures. Contact me if you're interested. [email protected].



Regards,

Guest from Detroit

You've got mail. Thanks

Anonymous wrote:You've got mail. Thanks

Sorry. That was me that posted that. I wasn't aware that the site had logged me out. Oops.



Pete

Good Morning.



I just found out that the Turkel House is up on the market again. I also talked with someone who went and did a bit of exploring around there.



It would seem that the house hasn't been badly vandalized or filled with trash. It appears to be pretty clean. Most of the glass doors have been broken open. One has been replaced with plywood. The upstairs balcony door is ajar. All in all, it wasn't in as bad of shape as I might have feared.



The listing for the home can be seen HERE.







Thanks to all the folks that e-mailed me about the house.



Happy New Year.



PEte

Is $500,000 a reasonable price for that area? I've seen the house from the outside and would never have guessed that it had that much square footage.

Peter, your link seems to be dead, though it was OK this morning.

I got to the listing again using the MLS #5172098. Seems they have taken down the photograph. Perhaps because it didn't quite match

their written description of the house as a Colonial. This would be amusing if it wasn't so sad.

Does anyone else think that since real estate is supposedly 'location,

location, location' , this house doesn't have a prayer of selling at anywhere near $500k in Detroit?

If location, location, location is a prime incentive, the area "Palmer Park" where the Turkel home is located is one of the best locations within the city limits of Detroit. The area has a wide variety of home designs, many on large lots and most homes have been maintained very well. A few homes in the area are old HUGE mansions built for executives of the auto industry between about 1915 - 1925. The area also has a Minoru Yamasaki designed home I think from the 1960's. Yes, the area does have many things going for it, but ........ The Turkel home is built on a rather small lot for the home size that it is. The Turkel home is large. It also is on a busy road and is close to it's neigbors to the east and west. As a Wright designed home the Turkel house does not comform to what many people would expect a Wright home to be. You don't find many Wright homes with a elevator.

The city property taxes are excessive and the city services are poor. The biggest plus is that it is an original FLLW designed home and you do not have an unlimited supply of those. If the bank wants $500,000.00 for it, I would think someone will make a counter offer of less than half that and still be overpaying for it. The house needs a lot of work to restore it. I would think it would cost a small fortune to pay to heat the home. All of those windows are single pane glass and I do not believe the home was built with any insulation (I could be wrong).

For someone to buy and restore the Turkel home would be fantastic. I hope someone will fall in love with the idea and approach it as a labor of love. It is after all, an original FLLW home.

Greg is dead on in his assessment. I've been to the house and it would really take a lot of money for someone to bring the house up to snuff to make it liveable again. It's a very strange plan, and one that I think is not Wright's best. The interior has been painted white, and the kitchen has been so mangled so much that it hurts just looking at it. A year ago or so, there was an article in the local paper here about the owner and his quest to sell it. He lived in the house a short time, and called it "difficult" to live in. After seeing the house up close, I would have to agree. The living room is spectacular, very Wrightian, but other than that, its rather dark and forboding, not one of Wright's best, to be sure. That, along with the price, would make it very tough to sell, indeed. It would take a very special, affluent person with dedication and patience to make this house what it could be.



The Conservancy should keep its eye on this one. We have another potential Eppstein house here.

Thank you for your comments. You have to wonder if FLW actually did the design or did this one go to one of his Apprentices where Mr. Wright may have been too busy to properly "sign off" on the desgn.



I really don't see Mr. Wright consenting to an elevator or all the very dark interior spaces.

Anonymous wrote:...I really don't see Mr. Wright consenting to an elevator or all the very dark interior spaces.

The elevator requirement undoubtedly from the owner. Architects, even FLW, provide a service to the client and do not have total control. On occassion FLW was less than brilliant.

On the real estate listing, it reads "Style: Colonial".



When my wife and I were in the market for a house approximately 14 years ago, I saw a real estate listing that stated "All new ducks in basement".

I completely agree that the elevator was most likely put in at the clients request. I think the clients of this project may have had many more requests and those requests my have influenced the overall design in a negative way.



I had a discussion several years ago with Mr. E. Thomas Casey about the Turkel House. He never mentioned to me that Mr. Wright did not give this design the attention he normally gave projects at that time. Mr. Casey a apprentice/student of Mr. Wright at that time indicated this was one of the first projects he worked on to any great degree and as such was somewhat proud of his involvement. I do recall reading that some projects during this time did not have Mr. Wrights full attention but I am unable to comfirm that by what Mr. Casey told me.



The late Mr. Casey was for many years the Dean of the school as well as being a direct link to Mr. Wright and his teaching's well after Mr. and Mrs. Wrights passing.