PHX: Help Save the David Wright House

[HooverDam]

The David Wright House is a single family home in the Arcadia neighborhood of East Phoenix, built by Frank Lloyd Wright for his son David in 1951. The house is known for its unusual circular floor plan, a precursor to Wrights round designed Guggenheim Museum in NYC.

Unfortunately the Wright home was recently bought by a man named John Hoffman who has been considering knocking the home over. The home sits on a rather large parcel, and apparently the developers plans were to knock the home over, split the parcel and build 2 stucco McMansions. Sadly, because the Arcadia area is so lovely, its been suffering a lot of its cool mid century ranch homes being knocked over and replaced with McMansions in recent years.

As you may know, no in tact Frank Lloyd Wright home has ever been knocked over. The people of Phoenix surely don't want the 1st one to be here. There's been a huge community effort to save the building, lead by ModernPhoenix.net and BloomingRock.com two terrific architecture websites.

Recently the home was approved for the 1st step of "Landmark designation" which will stave off the threat of demolition for a few years. Tonight the issue of Landmark designation goes before the Village Planning Committee and will hopefully be approved.

This past weekend the home was open to the public- sort of. The interior was closed off, likely for liability reasons. Though the owner of the house tried to spin it that the house is structurally unsound. The architects and engineers who have been in the home on private tours strongly disagree with that assertion.

Anyway, here's my pictures from this past weekends open house showing the exterior:















More info on the House, including some interior pictures and information on the historic preservation process can be found here, here and here.

What can you do to help save the David Wright House?

You can sign this petition and show your support. They're trying to get to 25K signatures and are about 6K away.

If you'd like to see more pictures, there's tons floating around on places like Twitter and Facebook, just search "David Wright House" and a lot will come up.

Warning:
Finally, before someone posts some idiotic nonsense like "ug typical Phoenix, what a terrible City" (which ALWAYS happens any time PHX is brought up on these forums) keep in mind that the guy that wants to do this isn't from Arizona. Its an out of State developer and as soon as the local community found out about it, there's been a huge uprising to try to stop him. There's a big effort out right now to try to find a buyer who's more sympathetic to the building and its history.

[BnaBreaker]

It would be a shame to lose this beautiful piece of history just because some greedy douche bag wants to make some money by building as much cookie cutter crap as possible.

[KEVINphx]

I made it by the house this last Sunday - what a beautiful property, everything those in favor of preservation have to say is understated to put it mild. The place is very special and it's a shame it didn't already have an overlay.

I can only imagine what Mr. David and Gladys Wright would be thinking - so sad!

[HooverDam]

The story has now been picked up by the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/03/ar...zers.html?_r=0

[HooverDam]

Myself and others have started a 24 hour citizen watch, broken down into hour chunks to make sure the developer doesn't knock the building over.

Today during my shift the local news showed up and interviewed me on the house:

http://t.co/MgBLdGjA

If you want more info on the whole situation this is a good site:

http://savethewrighthouse.org/

[PHXistheBEST]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

Myself and others have started a 24 hour citizen watch, broken down into hour chunks to make sure the developer doesn't knock the building over.

Today during my shift the local news showed up and interviewed me on the house:

http://t.co/MgBLdGjA

If you want more info on the whole situation this is a good site:

http://savethewrighthouse.org/

This comment shows a big part of the problem with preservationists. You are not the historic preservation police. This house does not belong to you or the city. Please post where you live and what you want to do with willow neighborhood house so we can debate it (interior included). We can then set people outside your property to ensure you do not do things that we the community do not like. Its called private property!

BTW I understand the police are already at the house but I would call if I were the owners and see if I could have you guys removed under harassment. Learn to mind your own business.

[Don B.]

^ And you aren't the maven of what is appropriate and not appropriate for this situation. As long as the "activists" remain in the street or city right of way, the owners cannot have them removed or charged with any sort of crime. Since no one lives there, it's not like someone is actually going to be inconvenienced.

That being said, Prop. 207 will prove to be most troubling for the city of Phoenix. The owners' attorney is correct - anything the city does to "preserve" the house will amount to an unconstitutional taking. The owners will obtain millions from the city, and like the Bailey's Brake Shop case in Mesa - ultimately the homeowner will prevail under existing law and the house may get destroyed anyway.

The only hope here is that the city negotiate directly with the owners to buy the house and preserve it. They will need to pay for the lost profits the owners would have realized from splitting the property and selling both lots/houses.

--don

[Capsule F]

This is one of the few noteworthy pieces of architecture in Phoenix, it should be saved.