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11 Most Endangered
George Kraigher House
Year Listed: 2004
Location: , Texas
Current Status: Saved
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.
Updates
Encouraged by preservation-minded citizens, the city of Brownsville purchased the house and fenced it to ward off transients. As time passed, it became clear that the university could best handle such a delicate project. "I thought we needed to look at the university’s track record of what it had done restoring some of the historical buildings downtown and on the campus," said former Mayor Eddie Treviño. Lof’s team of restoration carpenters, aided by students in the UTB historic building rehabilitation program, has recently completed this project.
**Update courtesy of the University of Texas at Brownsville’s Orange and White-Summer 2008 and Larry Lof, Director-UTB Historic Restoration.
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Submitted by UTB/TSC and City of Brownsville collaboration at: May 18, 2009
This newly restored functional work of art can be viewed by following this link to the UTB/TSC website. http://www.utb.edu/vpia/publications/PublishingImages/portfolio/neutra.png