A Kankakee, Illinois, home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright has just sold for $449,000, reports Crain’s Chicago Business. Built in 1900, the home was among the designer’s earliest commissions and represents the burgeoning genesis of his then soon-to-come architectural revolution, but it had remained largely unseen since it was bought by its previous owners in 1976.
“This was truly a family home, and the homeowners were very private people, so few guests have been in the house in the last 50 years,” says Victoria Krause Schutte of @Properties, Christie’s International Realty, who represented both the buyer and seller. Since the previous owners did not allow tours, its listing was not only an opportunity for potential buyers, but offered a rare chance to see images of the interior of the home.
Known as the Warren Hickox house, the home sits next to another Wright design, the Bradley House. A brother and sister—and their respective spouses—commissioned the pair of homes at the turn of the century. The Bradley House, the larger of the two, was built for B. Harley Bradley and his wife, Anna Hickox Bradley, while the Warren Hickox House was designed for Anna’s brother, Warren, and his wife, Laura. The Bradley house, the larger home, is perhaps the more famous of the pair—and often credited as Wright’s first Prairie home—though the Warren Hickox property shares many similar qualities and is just as monumental.
Built before he was established as a pioneering architect, many early Wright homes show less of a distinguished style and look similar to other Victorian and Colonial homes that were popular during the era. This all changed with the two Kankakee homes. Though they lack flat roofs and the earthy red and yellow accents that would come to define his later work, the overhanging eaves, windows with geometric designs, and a noticeable emphasis on horizontal lines are all classic Wright. The Warren Hickox house “fits into a turning point for Wright,” John Waters, preservation programs manager at the Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings Conservancy, previously told Crain’s.
Though the pitched roofs are still evocative of Victorian sensibility, the homes show what Waters described as Wright “working towards the simplicity and clarity” of the homes he’d design later in his career. The flared roof ridges also demonstrate a noticeable Japanese influence, an aesthetic Wright would continue to reference throughout his life.
“The home was designed during a turning point for Wright, as he started moving toward the Prairie style,” Krause Schutte adds. “He would often bring Chicago-area clients down to the home and seat them in the reading nook’s built-in benches to help them visualize the new direction his work was taking.”
According to Schutte, the home was based on two articles Wright published in the Ladies’ Home Journal. “The interior is adapted from ‘A Home in a Prairie Town,’ and the exterior is based on ‘A Small House with Lots of Room in It.’”
Inside, the living room flows into a terrace and two bayed alcoves, originally designed as the dining room and a library. Large hallways between the spaces create a sense of openness in the 3,277-square-foot home, which is further enhanced by “thin bands of leaded glass that span the bays,” the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust explains. “The windows perceptually extend the interior of the house into the surrounding natural landscape, blurring the boundaries between Wright’s architecture and the world of nature outside.”
According to Crain’s, the buyer was Kevin Sullivan, an information technology professional. “It’s a dream come true for me,” he told the publication. “Younger me fantasized a lot about what it would be like to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house.”
Though the residence hasn’t changed much under the stewardship of the previous owners, some renovations were done before their purchase. For example, an art glass door that once opened to a terrace and offered views to the Bradley House was taken down at some point and replaced with an enclosed porch. “All of the original built-ins and much of the hardware and lighting fixtures remain intact,” Schutte says. Most other changes are minimal, though the sellers conceded that for this reason, new owners might want to update appliances or make other restorative changes.
Now that Sullivan owns the property, he plans to undertake some of these projects. He told Crain’s that he’ll start by replacing the roof and updating the kitchen and bathrooms. It’s also a priority to add the terrace back. “You can see how important it was to living in this house and enjoying the view of the river and the Bradley House,” he said.
The home first listed in March 2024, almost a whole year before the sale closed on March 12. The original asking price was $779,000 and was reduced a few times before reaching $449,000 in January. It went into contract one week later.
Schutte, who has represented a number of Wright designs, says that its often very passionate Wright fans who end up purchasing available properties. “Naturally, when one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s homes is listed for sale, there is a huge buzz in the Frank Lloyd Wright community,” she says. “These buyers are typically very passionate about protecting these uniquely American structures.” The homes are unique and can be taste-specific, so the buyer pool isn’t often as big as others, she adds. “These homes require care and oftentimes restoration, so buyers take their roles seriously and with a lot of enthusiasm—which is amazing to witness. It’s truly a love of this art form.”
Sullivan appears to be this exact kind of buyer. He told Crain’s that his restoration timeline will likely be years, but that he will live in it in the interim. “It needs a lot of work,” he said. “I want to get it back as close to the original as I can.”
