A room with a view

One rm., two baths, 20th-c. masterpiece. Pool, sauna, boat house. On Fox River, 1 1/2 hours west of Chicago. 58 acres, dramatic history. Lowball value: $4.5 million.

An icon of modern architecture is on the auction block, despite last-minute deals and pleas from Chicago business leaders and preservationists who aim to keep the Farnsworth House forever on its grassy rise beside the Fox River.

Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and. completed in 1951, the Farnsworth House is a glass-box wonder. Fittingly, Sotheby's will auction the house and its furnishings on Dec. 12 as a work of art.

But it's still a house, and its Chicago sales agent expects to show it to as many as 30 bidders.

"It would be good for a couple," says Carolyn Eigel of Koenig & Strey in Wilmette, who's handling showings for Sotheby's. "It's extremely open. There are no walls or doors." But much of the home's appeal, she notes, is its fame.

Despite its place in architectural history, the Farnsworth House is not protected by landmark status. It can be moved, torn down or altered. Its vulnerable status is a disappointing setback for Chicago philanthropists such as former Sara Lee Corp. Chairman John H. Bryan and former Illinois first lady Jayne Thompson, who have been trying for several years to raise money and lobby elected officials to keep the Farnsworth House in Illinois.

Earlier plans, scuttled for budgetary reasons, called for the house to be owned by the state and open to the public for tours.

Typically, salvaging and then running an historic site is costly, Ms. Thompson notes. "We think the Farnsworth House would be easily sustainable," she says. "It's not a huge structure, (and) it's in pristine condition."

With the auction, she and others fear the house will be disassembled, packed up and set up elsewhere.

Mies van der Rohe's work is synonymous with Chicago. The IBM Building, the Federal Center, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus and...