[CPProt.net] Fire guts Wright building in Gary. House was vacant; police suspect arson

[Ton Cremers]

Fire guts Wright building in Gary
House was vacant; police suspect arson

By Gerry Doyle
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 11, 2006

A fire Monday night in Gary reduced a Frank Lloyd Wright home to a 
tattered collection of seared stucco and timber.

The destruction of the home at 600 Fillmore St. marked the fourth 
Wright building wrecked in the last 18 months. In November 2004, a 
Wright house was bulldozed in Michigan, the first such home destroyed 
by any means since the early 1970s. In September 2005, Hurricane 
Katrina ravaged two Gulf Coast bungalows Wright helped fashion.

On Monday in Gary, firefighters were called to the scene of the blaze 
at about 8:30 p.m. When they left two hours later, there wasn't much 
left standing. No one was hurt.

The building is vacant, making arson the most likely cause, officials 
said. The Gary Police Department and fire investigators are searching 
for the source of the fire.

The 90-year-old structure, named the Wynant House after its first 
owner, embodied an important part of Wright's philosophy, 
preservationists said.

It was the result of a marketing method called American System-Built 
Houses, a collaboration between Wright and homebuilder Richards Co. 
of Wisconsin.

The idea, said Ron Scherubel, director of the Frank Lloyd Wright 
Building Conservancy, was to provide high-style housing that middle-
class families could afford.

"A client could actually go to this company and have them construct a 
house based on Wright's plans," Scherubel said, adding that there are 
only 11 such homes left, including the one in Gary. "They [used] 
quality materials. He just designed it in a very economical way."

The Wynant House is the only surviving example of model D101, said 
the conservancy's program director, Audra Dye. It came with "all the 
bells and whistles" such as high-quality mantels and cornices, Dye 
said.

The American Heritage Home Trust of Olympia, Wash., bought the house 
in 1999, intending to renovate it. But that effort stalled and the 
home was sold again, this time to an Illinois man.

Eve Johnson of the American Heritage Home Trust said she had not 
heard from the current owner since the fire.

The angular, two-story house sits amid a neighborhood dominated by 
battered ranch-style single-family homes. The blocks around the home 
are dotted with vacant lots and boarded-up buildings. Multistory 
houses whose former grandness is obscured by layers of grime sit 
empty, shattered windows looking out over overgrown lawns.

On Tuesday, the Wynant House was no longer a house. Roofless, its 
interior was filled with fallen beams and bricks. From the front 
sidewalk on Fillmore, the back alley could be seen through what once 
was the living room, kitchen and dining room.

Neighbor Jean Griffin has lived three doors down from the house since 
1987. She said the house has been vacant the entire time, although 
workers began renovating it this summer.

"It's been just an eyesore for years," Griffin said.

She said she first noticed the fire when emergency vehicles began to 
arrive at the corner of Fillmore and 6th Avenue. By then, flames and 
sparks already were shooting up, she said.

The man Johnson said is the owner, David Muhammad, could not be 
reached for comment.

The gutting of the home represents the loss of a unique piece of 
American and architectural history, Scherubel said.

"We view any loss as a significant loss," he said. "It really was one 
of our high-priority projects."

Rebuilding on top of the Wynant House's twisted skeleton would be 
difficult but not impossible, he said.

"Anything can be redone. There's enough of the exterior structure 
there that with the right amount of money, you could rebuild it," 
Scherubel said. But "right now, you're almost at ground zero in terms 
of restoration."

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gxdoyle at tribune.com