Frank Lloyd Wright called the 2,600-square-foot Laurent House on Spring Brook Road his “little gem” and considered it among his 38 greatest building designs.
The only accessible home Wright designed decades before the Americans with Disabilities Act, was on the auction block and could have been sold and moved out of Rockford.
But thanks to Jerry Heinzeroth, volunteers he recruited and the $1.5 million he helped raise from the community, the Laurent House and its contents were preserved and maintained. Thousands of people visit, explore and appreciate it as a Rockford museum each year.
Heinzeroth, founder and former president of the Laurent House Foundation, died at his home Jan. 19 at age 81.
“I would say unequivocally that without Jerry Heinzeroth, the Laurent House would not be open as a public museum today,” said John Groh, president and CEO of the Rockford Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. “His passion, his dedication, his drive to help fulfill the Laurents’ dream and vision of their home being preserved and open to the public is in large part what made that happen.”