Wright-designed Wausau home listed for $425,000
WAUSAU - A historic four-bedroom home that Frank Lloyd Wright-designed in 1938 for a Wausau businessman is for sale for $425,000.
The home, 1224 Highland Park Blvd., was last purchased in November 2014 by David Wood, a management consultant from Austin, Texas. The terms of the sale weren’t disclosed at the time, but the previous owner, Donald Aucutt of Norway, Michigan, had listed the house for just under $190,000.
Wood said that he and his wife are selling the home because they live and work in Texas, and they find it hard to spend enough time in Wausau living in the house.
“We feel it is time to pass on the project to another good steward for Frank Lloyd Wright houses,” he said.
The asking price and details about the house are highlighted on a website, davdwood.wixsite.com/manson. The site explains the “significant endeavors to preserve and restore the house” that Wood has made since he purchased the home.
Those include replacing the original (and leaking) pebble and tar flat roof with modern rubber roofing materials; refinishing all of the exterior wood; restoring the exterior of the master bedroom by removing added windows and a gas heater that were not part of the original design; and redoing the
landscaping on the property.
All told, Wood said he spent more than $100,000 in restoration projects.
Wood also applied for and gained approval to have the house listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.
The sale price, according to the website, includes all existing furniture, framed historic photos, blueprints for the house and an original clothes drying rack designed to hang in the kitchen.
“For many years we have dreamt about owning and living in a Frank Lloyd Wright home,” Wood told the Wausau Daily Herald in 2016. “So when the property hit the market in 2014, we were obviously thrilled beyond words . ... We continually find new and unique aspects to the home.”
The building of the house was completed in 1941. Wright designed the home for Charles and Dorothy Manson in what he called Usonian style, a way of creating distinct and well-planned homes for middle-class families.
The Wisconsin Historical Society placed the home on the State Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The Charles and Dorothy Manson house is important because “it is significant as an excellent example of the (Usonian) style,” said Peggy Veregin, the National Register coordinator for the Wisconsin Historical Society, in 2016. “It’s really wonderful to identify this house in Wausau . ... It’s small, but it’s interesting. And it has some wonderful surprises.”
Wright developed the Usonian style as a way to reduce design and construction costs for the homes, Veregin said. To do so, Wright used a simple, nearly modular design that could also be easily adapted to particular sites or owners’ desires.
Aucutt, co-author of the book “Wausau Beautiful: A Guide to Our Historic Architecture,” co-owned the home for about 25 years before Wood bought it.
The house reflects the values and interests of Charles and Dorothy Manson, Aucutt told the Wausau Daily Herald in 2016. When he was a young man, Charles Manson was a journalist who traveled extensively and returned to his hometown of Wausau with his wife, Dorothy, to join his family’s insurance business.
“The small second story included a bedroom (originally for maid), a bathroom and a darkroom for Charles’ photography,” Aucutt wrote. “The house has 37 windows framed by a design resembling pine trees, a modern followup to the art glass windows in Wright’s acclaimed Prairie houses.”
The Manson residence was the first of two Wausau homes that were designed by Wright in the Usonian style, and they linked. The second home, located at 904 Grand Ave., was designed in 1957 for Duey and Julia Wright, who owned a music store and school.
They were no relation to Frank Lloyd Wright, but they were friends of Charles and Dorothy Manson, and the Mansons helped link the Wausau Wrights with Frank Lloyd Wright.
That home is still owned by members of the Wright family. Duey and Julia Wright’s son, Duke Wright, is the chief executive officer of Midwest Communications Inc., a company that owns more than 80 radio stations. The company now rents the building from the family to use as office space.