When Fort Wayne Realtor Joe Leksich bought a side-by-side duplex in Fort Wayne’s historic West Central neighborhood, the two homes needed a lot of work. But he was willing to invest the time and money because he knew there would be a payoff.

The homes sold quickly for about $200,000 each. Buyers purchased the homes, Leksich said, because they wanted to live in a house with a history.

“I think it adds value to a house,” Leksich said of homes having a historic designation. “In my opinion, I get a premium for the ­houses I’ve worked on because they’re historic.”

So, when the owner of Fort Wayne’s only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home said he wanted the house’s local historic designation removed during recent appearances before the city’s Historic Preservation Commission, preservationists were puzzled.

Richard Herber, owner of the home at 3901 N. Washington Road, said he wanted the distinction pulled because he wanted to sell the house for the best price.

Getting the property off the historic list was the only way to “cast a wider net to the widest number of people,” he said.

Paul Hayden, who attended the meeting, was among the befuddled.

A preservation specialist with Indiana Landmarks, Hayden last week said the key to selling any historic home – especially one designed by one of America’s best-known 20th-century architects – is marketing it to the right buyers.

Not everybody is a candidate for buying a home that’s historic, he said, but those who are know exactly what they’re doing.

“Given the unique qualities of his house, most people who would be interested wouldn’t be bothered by historic designations or protections on it. People are very interested in those properties, and want to do the right thing by them – more interested than Mr. Herber thinks,” he said.

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Usonians come at many price points, depending on how elaborate they are and home values in their neighborhood or city, Halstead said.

A four-bedroom river-facing home from 1957 on three acres in Plover, Wisconsin, is now listed for $345,000, while another Usonian with three bedrooms on nearly four acres in Minneapolis is listed for nearly $1.495 million. People pay $300 for a listing with pictures that can last up to a year, Halstead said.

The two Usonians now listed are at least twice as large as the local house, which dates from 1951 and has about 1,400 square feet and two bedrooms. Herber paid $174,500 for the property in 2004, according to Allen County property records.

Herber told the historic commission July 25 he had not listed his house because real estate agents “uniformly” told him it would be difficult to sell with its historic designation.

His request to remove it was denied by the commission, but that decision could be voted on this month by City Council, which has 45 days to act from receipt of that decision.

The denial was the second this year, and Herber said he would continue to refile until the commission voted differently.

Realtor Lynn Reecer of Reecer Properties, Fort Wayne, said selling historic homes does have challenges.

One is determining an historic home’s value, she said. Appraisers usually base the price of a house on recent sales of comparable homes, she said, but often that can’t be done.

She pointed to two homes her company recently sold – the McCray Mansion in Kendallville, built in 1928 by the founder of an early 20th-century refrigeration company, and the sprawling Vermilyea House, one of Allen County’s oldest residences, with portions dating to 1839.