The sale of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Shavin House atop Chattanooga’s Missionary Ridge closed Friday.
A Nashville couple’s winning bid of $4 million was selected by a chancellor following a lawsuit filed by Karen Shavin against her two brothers, according to David Shavin, one of the brothers.
Travis Close, the buyers’ agent, confirmed the $4 million sale closed Friday.
Gerte and Seamour Shavin commissioned the house as newlyweds in 1949, and it was completed in 1952.
When Gerte Shavin died in 2020, the house was left in a trust with her three grown children — Karen, David and Eliot Shavin — as trustees.
The house was owned by the Shavin family for more than 75 years, but the siblings were unable to reach an agreement that would have kept the house in the family.
The lawsuit forced the public sale of the house, which was listed for $1.6 million in June.
Seamour and Gerte Shavin originally paid $33,000 for the house, the architect’s fee and all the furnishings, according to Karen Shavin.
“The original family has lovingly cared for this home for generations,” listing agent Sandy Poe of Alliance Sotheby’s International Realty said in an email in June. “Now, this remarkable property is ready for its next steward, someone who will cherish its architectural significance and continue preserving its extraordinary legacy.”
The Shavin House, one of Wright’s Usonian homes designed for the average American family, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993 and became the only property in Chattanooga to be designated a local historical landmark in 1995.
It has many of the features common in Wright’s Usonian homes, including mitered corner windows for unobstructed views, clerestory windows with custom screens to let in natural light, a hidden entrance and the use of native materials such as Tennessee crab orchard stone.
“I hope the new family enjoys the same thrill out of the house that I have been blessed to experience each time I walked through its doors, and I’m confident that they will continue the work that my parents began so many years ago and that I continued in their absence,” Karen Shavin said in an emailed statement last week, when the sale was pending.
Contact business reporter Emily Crisman at ecrisman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6508.
Emily Crisman became a staff writer for the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 2009. She also writes for Chatter Magazine. Emily graduated with a degree in humanities from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2006.