A portion of Frank Lloyd Wright’s most elaborate and largest prairie-style home, the Avery Coonley Estate, has hit the market for $2.89 million after a decade of extensive restoration.
The five-bedroom, five-bath manor, one of several buildings on the original Coonley Estate, sits on a bank of the Des Plaines River in the Chicago suburb of Riverside, Ill. The 6,000-square-footer (pictured left and below) has since been restored by the sellers, Dean Eastman, the former Argonne National Laboratory head, and his wife, Ella Mae, who purchased it in 2000.
Originally built from 1908 to 1912, the home was divided into two residences in 1950, separating what had been the servant’s bedroom wing from the main house. Although it is still two residences, with only one for sale, the Coonley House has been restored to its original architectural elements, colors and textures. However, three original servants’ bedrooms were converted to a master bedroom and a master bath with a large soaking tub.
It was in restoring the Wright architectural elements that the current owners showed their respect for the home and Wright,” Baird & Warner real estate agent Marcee Gavula said in the home’s listing description. “Original tile floors were brought back to former glory when the owner cleaned them by hand. Wright cabinets were sometimes moved but preserved and restored. All home restoration was researched from color to texture to authentic historic detail.” That includes artisans’ re-creation of a 28-foot mural from a fragment of it that had escaped destruction.
Gavula has experience marketing Frank Lloyd Wright homes. She sold his 1902 Heurtley House in Oak Park in January 2007 for $2.5 million, and the Eastmans enlisted her in 2008 to sell the Coonley Coach House, which they purchased in 2005 for $350,000.
After a million-dollars in total restoration, the coach house was listed for $1.63 million. It is now off the market