Archinect - News

The Hudson River Valley in NY is the next stop for Gehry's Winton Guest House

2015-05-21T18:50:00-04:00

The Frank Gehry-designed Winton Guest House will embark on another lengthy roadtrip, moving roughly 1,200 miles from its current location in Owatonna, Minnesota to its new home in New York's Hudson River Valley. The geometric house sold for $750,000 at the Wright auction house in Chicago on Tuesday. The new owners, who wish to remain unidentified, paid an additional "buyer's premium" of $155,000 for the guest house, bringing up the total to $905,000. Wright listed the house's starting bid at $850,000.

The new owners pledged to restore and preserve the Guest House on private property, according to Dr. Victoria M. Young, professor of modern architectural history and chair of the Art History Department at the University of St. Thomas, which owned the house since 2007 as part of the Daniel C. Gainey Conference Center. Since the university sold the Gainey Center to Meridian Behavioral Health Services last summer, the house was scheduled to begin relocation this June to meet its August 201...

Update: Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House auctioned for $750,000

2015-05-19T13:14:00-04:00

UPDATE: The Winton Guest House sold for $750,000 today at Wright's "Design Masterworks" auction in Chicago. During the approximately 40-minute livestream that began promptly at noon Central Time, the Winton Guest House was auctioned among several furniture pieces including a Charles Eames & Eero Saarinen Chair and Table, and a George Nelson Marshmallow Sofa. Although Wright's website listed $850,000 as the starting bid for the Winton Guest House, the bespeckled auctioneer Richard Wright opened up its bidding lot at $500,000 and increased it by $50,000 increments. As silence filled the room, the auctioneer nearly deemed the house as Pass/Unsold until a phone bidder named Michael purchased it for $750,000. "This is a bargain on an architectural masterpiece," Wright commented. Not too surprisingly, the pacing of bids for the Guest House was neither as competitive nor as enduring compared to the furniture pieces. However, the House's bidding lot closed on a small celebratory note as att...

Pondering the cultural value of Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House

2015-03-20T20:56:00-04:00

Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House was recently announced to be up for auction on May 19 in Chicago. Designed for Mike and Penny Winton during the '80s in Lake Minnetonka, MN, the Guest House helped propel Gehry into international stardom in the '90s. Currently, the University of St. Thomas owns the $4.5 million home, which was repurposed as part of the Daniel C. Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna, MN a few years ago. Ever since St. Thomas sold the Gainey last year, the Guest House is once again up for grabs and must -- also once again -- start relocation this June to meet its August 2016 deadline.

The Winton Guest House revives the question of what cultural value that the house -- and others vernacular structures like it -- possess. As this comment discussion shows, the topic is a subjective one with no clean-cut answer.

Some may agree that the Guest House's value lies in its history, like an art object that can be studied or referred to for inspiration. According to the University o...

Archinect Sessions Episode #20: Three Funerals and a Curator

2015-03-12T18:01:00-04:00

Ten minutes before we sat down to record this week's episode, the Pritzker Prize Laureate was announced – posthumously. The winner, Frei Otto (1925 - 2015), was a German architect whose impressive work and research with lightweight and sustainable structures influenced countless architects through the 20th century to today. Otto was informed of the prize before his death in Germany this past Monday, March 9, prompting the Pritzker committee to make the formal announcement the day after.

This episode, we reflect on Otto's remarkable life and the Prize's announcement in the midst of his passing. We also examine the uncertain fate (and value) of Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House, which will be up for sale on May 19, and consider whether architects should shoulder the cultural and emotional weight of deciding how we bury our dead.

And on the heels of Google's announcement that BIG will collaborate with Heatherwick Studios on their campus expansion, Amelia spoke with curator Brooke Hodge i...

Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House to be up for sale on May 19 in Chicago

2015-03-06T17:45:00-05:00

Frank Gehry's Winton Guest House must be sold! Completed in 1987 for Mike and Penny Winton, the Winton Guest House in Owatonna, Minnesota is one of Gehry's few residential projects that contributed to his rising fame during the 1990s. According to the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul -- the home's current owner -- the $4.5 million home will be up for auction on May 19 in Chicago, with auction house Wright in charge of handling the sale.

Entryway to the University of St. Thomas St. Paul campus

Mike and Penny Winton commissioned Gehry to design the home in 1982 when they needed extra room for their family to accompany their Philip Johnson-designed residence on their property in Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota. Built from plywood, stone, brick, and metal, the 2,300 sq.ft guest house consists of five separate geometric spaces that include a central pyramidal living room tower, two bedrooms, a kitchen, fireplace room, two bathrooms, and loft space. The house's distinctive geometric-block de...