Oregon Frank Lloyd Wright House to Get New Home

Oregon’s only Frank Lloyd Wright house will be moved, not demolished.

Owners David and Carey Smith have donated the house to the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy and are giving the group 105 days to remove it from their property.

The Chicago-based conservancy will now look for a new owner who will agree to restore and protect the house and reimburse the organization for its costs to move it.

“It’s our second-best choice,” said Deborah Vick, a conservancy board member. “We prefer Wright’s houses to remain where they were first built, but it’s better than demolition.”

Local preservationists are concerned about the difficulty of moving the house in such a short time.

“It’s just a first step,” said James Hamrick of the State Historic Preservation Office. “The house isn’t saved by any stretch of the imagination. But it got a reprieve.”

The conservancy will look for the “most qualified party” to take the house and likely will require that it remain in Oregon, Vick said.

The Smiths and the Wright Conservancy signed the agreement just before the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners was to meet Thursday to consider removing the house from the county’s historic resources list. Usually that is the first step to demolition.

“I have never received as many e-mails and letters over an issue in 16 years of public life,” Commissioner Mike Jordan said, thumbing a pile of paper he said had arrived “from across the country.”

The board of commissioners then voted to remove the house from the resources list, which allows it to be moved. The agreement spared the county board from a court showdown with the State Historic Preservation Office.

The house, commissioned from Wright and built in 1961 by Conrad and Evelyn Gordon, is located on a narrow strip of land between Charboneau and the Willamette River.

The Smiths purchased the property for $1.1 million in September from the Gordons’ son, Ed Gordon.

A local design firm revealed the Smiths’ plan to demolish the house. The conservancy and the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects--along with hundreds of Wright aficionados nationwide--began clamoring for the house’s preservation.

Earlier this week, Dianne and Jay Plesset, of California, said they were negotiating with the Smiths to move the house to a different part of the 22-acre property it now sits on. The land would be partitioned and part of it sold to the couple. The Plessets are looking for “at least two acres with a Mt. Hood view,” Dianne Plesset said.

Brian Carleton, president of the Portland chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said moving the house without dismantling it will be difficult--if not impossible.

“The house isn’t out of danger yet,” Carleton said. “A lot could still happen. We have to stay on top of it.”