A retired school teacher in Madison, Linda McQuillen, discovered that her home was built by the American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. It was reported that the 69-year-old retired teacher bought the run-down hovel for $100,000. Experts have verified that the home was indeed built by the famous architect.
According to Associated Press, McQuillen knew that her American System-Built Home was built in 1917, but she never knew it was built by the famous architect. The house is reportedly one of the 14 homes still standing that Wright built. Wright reportedly built 532 houses before he died.
The 1,800-square-foot home was reportedly neglected until McQuillen bought it in 1989. McQuillen fixed the entire house.
In 2009, the retired teacher received a letter from Mary Jane Hamilton, a historian and Wright's scholar who spent years in finding evidence about McQuillen's home. Rumors have apparently circulated for years that there's a connection between Linda's house and Wright.
An extensive tour confirmed that Hamilton's suspicious were right. Eventually, Wright's scholar found a 1917 Wisconsin State Journal newspaper advertisement by Madison building company bearing the 1917 building permit for Linda's home.
"It does feel like a reward, a vindication that when I saw the house and could see beyond the disrepair that I knew there was something substantive," she told the AP. "The house really spoke to me."
It was reported that other indications that the old house was designed by one of the famous architects in America were the custom-designed window pattern and framing studs, a known Wright touch.
Falling water, a house which was built over a waterfall in Bear Run, Pennsylvania, and Guggenheim Museum in New York city are some of the famous buildings Frank Lloyd Wright built.