Winn House for Sale by Owner - $200,000

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Sun May 27, 2012 1:45 pm

dtc, because half of the house is 2-story, forced air heating was used instead of the usual gravity heat.

Painted block is prosaic, indeed. It has an unfortunate quality about it best left for utilitarian basement rooms and bomb shelters. The most unsettling thing about the Lloyd Jones House is that the blocks throughout are painted a semi-gloss beige, not even an approximation of the color of the raw concrete. It would cost a fortune just to remove the paint, which solution is rarely completely successful. Owners of Lloyd Wright's Darby House hired an artist from Disney Studios to cover their painted fireplace with a new coat that convincingly approximates the original material; a good fix, but not perfect.

I cannot believe the floor covering or the texture of the ceiling was done with approval, if original at all. As Storrer points out, Winn is a variation of the Laurent plan, so its pedigree is good, but the detailing is bad. It needs help, and properly done could be made into a fine house. The landscaping also needs some major attention, as I recall.

outside in · Post by **outside in** » Tue May 29, 2012 9:23 am

The photographs of the house in Storrer show that the house was once a wonderful home - skylights in the screened porch, exposed block, etc. Clearly a case of remuddling. One would hope (pray?) that the block is painted with latex paint that could be removed without too much difficulty - but its the interior walls that are a mystery - I imagine that the original house had wooden paneling or boards that were either removed, or considering the quality of the work done so far, simply covered up with drywall. The house is heated by forced air, which could easily be converted to geo-exchange. I know its hard to believe, but this could be a great house! I am afraid its now a case of location, location, location.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Tue May 29, 2012 4:17 pm

Storrer notes that the blocks were painted shortly after the house was built. That would seem to make latex less likely a choice. The historic photos that appear in the PrairieMod article show the interior walls were wood paneled. Why they were altered is truly a mystery, unless it was just because they were too dark. There are no actual windows in the living "corner," just the perfs, which would not admit much daylight. It's possible that the wood walls remain, but are just painted white. That happened to the house my parents built with oak panelling throughout; the second owners painted everything white!

More troubling than the paint, the scale of the block seems to be 12"x16", which means the ceiling height is only 7'. That might make it hard for the seller to get the $200K.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:57 pm

I've been looking at the Winn House in Taschen 3/262 which has an as-built floor plan, Storrer S.301 and Mono 7/186 with elevations. From the finished floor of the upper level to the finished ceiling of the lower is only 6", and that apparently includes the duct work for the forced air heating, since the lower floor is only 7' high. Seems a bit skimpy. There are some notes in Taschen, but much too small to read. Blowup, anyone?

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:23 pm

The Winn House was taken off the market last Sunday.

Did you know that Mrs. Winn's first name was Winnifred? Winnie Winn! At least it wasn't Dixie.

peterm · Post by **peterm** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 1:25 pm

It's a Winn-Winn situation...

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Wed Jun 13, 2012 8:35 pm

Given those dimensions, it should have been Mini Winn.

Roderick Grant · Post by **Roderick Grant** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 2:11 pm

The house is vertically challenged, but from end to end it is 100' long.