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Is That a Frank Lloyd Wright? Prove It

Perched above San Francisco Bay in the big-money enclave of Belvedere, Calif., a French Provincial manor boasts exquisite views of the Golden Gate Bridge, wood-paneled walls and its own rose garden. Formerly owned by well-known venture capitalist Tom Perkins, the home also boasts one of the Bay Area’s most coveted designations: It was designed by local architect Julia Morgan, the first female architect licensed in California and the designer of iconic properties such as Hearst Castle in San Simeon, Calif.

Or was it?

Longtime Morgan scholar Karen McNeill says no. Asked last year by prospective buyers to establish the home’s provenance, she says the building’s architectural characteristics are inconsistent with Ms. Morgan’s hallmarks, and says she couldn’t find any reference to Ms. Morgan’s alleged involvement with the property until 1968, when it began to be marketed as her work. Ms. McNeill says she dug up records of building contracts from 1929 identifying the architect as H.O. Alden, a local firm.

Based on her findings, the couple decided against a purchase.

It’s a problem the art world has dealt with for centuries: Buyers worry about paying for a work by a famous artist, only to learn later that the work may be misattributed or a forgery. In the real-estate world, buyers pay a premium for a famous property only to see their home’s value plunge when its history is debunked. To protect their investment, buyers are increasingly turning to historians, architectural experts and nonprofit foundations to authenticate the provenance of the property.

“Buyers want a home with a history or architectural pedigree. Realtors and sellers understand this,” says Ms. McNeill, who declined to say how much she charges for her research. “In today’s competitive and sometimes frenzied marketplace, none of the parties are always as diligent as they should be in researching attribution.” Ms. McNeill is also a senior historian at wealth management firm Ascent Private Capital Management of U.S. Bank.

Danielle Chavanon and Isobel Wiener of Sotheby’s International Realty, who had listed the Perkins property, admit they aren’t historians. They say they described the property as a Morgan after seeing it listed as one of her undocumented works in a book by the late architectural historian Sara Holmes Boutelle. The book was provided by Mr. Perkins’s heirs, they say; Mr. Perkins died in 2016. The agents declined further comment.

When it comes to a name-brand architect, there are more than bragging rights at stake. Nina Hatvany, a luxury agent with Pacific Union International in San Francisco, says having Ms. Morgan’s name attached to a listing could add a 5% to 10% pricing premium to a property. Listed for $16.5 million in September 2016, the Belvedere home sold for $14.46 million in March—by Ms. Chavanon and Ms. Wiener—and a second time last year for $14.25 million by another agent. Mr. Perkins’s estate didn’t respond to requests for comment; the home’s current owners couldn’t be reached for comment.

Little wonder that Morgans tend to multiply. Daniella Thompson, former president of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, says the organization was asked by prospective buyers to research a small Craftsman-style home in Berkeley that was marketed as a Morgan. Ms. Thompson says she knew straightaway the claim was false—she had researched the home previously and knew it was by Edna Deakin, another female contemporary of Ms. Morgan’s.

The listing agent, Galina Plizga, doesn’t dispute Ms. Thompson’s conclusions—her only evidence of the home’s Morgan provenance was a 2011 rental listing—so she removed the Morgan claim before the home sold. The home sold for $1.37 million last year, public records show. “I have no idea how Julia Morgan got tied up in it, but it doesn’t surprise me since everyone seems to want to claim their house is by Julia Morgan,” Ms. Thompson says.

While the Bay Area is replete with Morgans, in Los Angeles the coveted architect is Paul Williams, the first African-American to be admitted to the American Institute of Architects. It can often be difficult to determine the provenance of a possible Paul Williams home, since records of his work aren’t exhaustive and he designed in many different styles. Jeff Hyland of Beverly Hills-based brokerage Hilton & Hyland says that, when in doubt, agents default to describing homes they believe to be designed by Mr. Williams as being “in the style of Paul Williams.”

For years, locals believed a 19th-century Newport, R.I., estate was designed by noted architecture firm McKim Mead & White, the same company behind the design of New York’s original Pennsylvania Station. McKim Mead & White historian Richard Guy Wilson, a professor at the University of Virginia, says he believes they were wrong. He traced the mistake to a 1952 book titled “The Architectural Heritage of Newport, Rhode Island: 1640-1915.”

After the book was published, “the information got passed around town until it became as good as fact,” says Mr. Wilson, who identifies the actual architect as Dudley Newton.

Even in the case of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, whose projects are faithfully and almost exhaustively documented by scholars, disputes occur. That may be due to the fact that the economic incentive to document a Wright is considerable. “It maybe raises a building’s value by a factor of five or more,” says William Allin Storrer, a Wright historian. “A $160,000 home would be worth $1.5 million if it was by Wright.”

Joel Hoglund, communications director at the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy in Chicago, estimates that his organization is contacted every couple of months by homeowners who believe their property may be a Wright. The conservancy checks such inquiries against its internal database of all Wright structures. “While discovery of a previously unknown Frank Lloyd Wright design is unlikely, it is not impossible,” he says.

Susan Jenkins, owner of Flying L Guest Ranch, a large ranch resort in Bandera, Texas, near San Antonio, says that her years of research show that cottages on the 1940s-era property were designed by Mr. Wright. While she has no original plans, she found several historical references to Mr. Wright’s involvement in local publications, including a 1963 mention in “The Dude Wrangler,” a publication for dude-ranch operators, as well as mentions in the Bandera Bulletin and the San Antonio Express that same year. She also points to clues such as the unusual use of precast cinder blocks made of seashells. She says Mr. Wright previously used sand and crushed coquina shells in the construction of another project, Florida Southern University in 1941.

Mr. Storrer, the Wright historian, visited the property at Ms. Jenkins’s behest earlier this year. He argues there is no solid evidence to prove the cottages’ provenance. “I went there already knowing it wasn’t by Wright,” Mr. Storrer says, adding that he could tell from the floor plans. “I have a phrase that I’m not popular for: ‘Those who have eyes and cannot see should not advertise their ignorance.’ I don’t want to insult these homeowners, but I do want to clarify.” Ms. Jenkins says she believes Mr. Storrer is wrong.

Pat Wisialowski, who formerly owned a Wright home in Shorewood, Wis., says the interest in her home rose after its provenance was discovered by a local historian. She and her husband learned that the property was one of a small collection of homes designed by the architect in 1917 as part of a previously undocumented effort to develop well-designed houses for all income levels. After the discovery was made, tour buses would turn up to Mrs. Wisialowski’s home, and she even landed on local television. “It was so cool,” she says.

When she eventually listed the home last year following her husband’s death, Mrs. Wisialowski says she got a “nice offer” from a Wright enthusiast. She sold the property for its asking price of $264,900.

“The Wright Conservancy has over 1,000 members, any one of whom would die to live in a Frank Lloyd Wright house,” Mr. Storrer says. “Most don’t have the money to buy one, but some do.”

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