Lloyd Wright homes on endangered list

CHICAGO, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A non-profit group says the most endangered landmarks in the Chicago area include three area homes designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Wright homes were identified as the J.J. Walser House in Chicago; the William F. Ross House in Glencoe, Ill., and the William J. VanderKloot Bungalow in Lake Bluff, Ill.

The Chicago Tribune said Thursday the Landmarks Illinois preservation group tabbed the Wright-designed homes as being in danger of demolition or substantial alteration.

Also included on the group's eighth annual list of endangered sites in Illinois is the steel and glass Rose House and Pavilion in Highland Park, Ill. The pavilion, cantilevered over a ravine, was made famous in the 1986 film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

Other notable additions to the endangered list are 18 houses surrounding the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Ill., and unincorporated DuPage County that were built between 1896 and 1916.

"The Wheaton Colony is a significant and very interesting part of Chicago and Wheaton history that has been largely forgotten," Chip Krueger, a Wheaton Center for History board member, said of the endangered Wheaton district.

Other endangered sites include the former Libertyville Township High School in Libertyville, Ill., and the South Side Masonic Temple in Chicago., the Chicago Sun-Times said. The late actor Marlon Brando was among the students who attended classes in the old Libertyville school, which was built in 1917.