Linda McQuillen, a 69-year old retired teacher from Madison, Wisconsin, bought a house with her family for $100,000. It was 1989, a simpler time of huge recessions, job losses, Eastern European countries on the verge of collapse, and house prices on the cheap.
Little did McQuillen know her house wasn't just any house. It was one of 16 experimental house designs that the famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright created for middle class homeowners who couldn't afford his own individualized attention and rates.
Eventually, two Wright scholars and historians, who thought something looked familiar about the house, approached McQuillen about her humble abode and asked to poke around. Clues were everywhere, but there was nothing concrete to rely on. That is until one Wright scholar, Mary Jane Hamilton, found an advertisement from a 1917 newspaper promoting the unique Wright designs--which included the design for McQuillen's home.
Not many homes from the Wright experiment remain today, as only 14 are known to exist, all in the midwest. Considering that Wright-designed homes can sell for millions, McQuillen's home is valued only at $480,000 today.
But that might be a good thing. Imagine trying to pay the property taxes on a multi-million dollar home on a retired teacher's income.
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