11 Most Endangered Historic Places

George Kraigher House

Year Listed: 2004
Location: Brownsville, Texas
Threat: Neglect, Poor Public Policy

Kraigher House east elevation, Brownsville, Texas. The Kraigher House was on the 2004 list of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

Credit: National Trust for Historic Preservation

Significance

A little-known landmark of the recent past, the 1937 Kraigher House is an important example of the groundbreaking work of Richard J. Neutra, considered one of America's - and the world's - most important architects of modernism. The house he designed for George Kraigher, a Pan American Airways pilot, is one of the few Neutra houses outside of California and may have been the first International Style house in Texas. Despite its impeccable pedigree, the house has been vacant for years and is scarred by the effects of neglect, vandalism, water penetration and termites. The City of Brownsville, current owner of the property, needs to take immediate steps to weatherize and restore the house and market it to a sensitive buyer - or a unique structure that once represented the wave of the future could become a thing of the past.