The star of Christie’s spring art auctions is sometimes a painting and sometimes a sculpture. This year, it’s a house.

For the first time, Christie’s has included a landmark work of American architecture in an auction: architect Richard Neutra’s 1946 Kaufmann House, in Palm Springs, California. Thanks to a widely reproduced photograph taken in 1947 by Julius Shulman, the house is a famous symbol of light-infused California living. Shulman’s picture, which shows the lanternlike house against a backdrop of mountains, is featured in Christie’s catalog. (View slideshow.)

Christie’s has tagged the home with a $15 million to $25 million estimate. That is a bit of a long shot, since a bid somewhere in the middle of that range would be more than three times the highest price ever paid for a house on a comparable lot in Palm Springs. The underlying bet is that the value placed on provenance will carry over from the art market into real estate. The Kaufmann House’s pedigree is impeccable: Commissioned by Pittsburgh department-store magnate Edgar Kaufmann Sr., it was a retreat from another home built for him, Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece Fallingwater.

Experts say the house’s recent restoration, which undid a number of modifications, including an addition overseen by singer Barry Manilow, could also help. “The Kaufmann House is a great example of how architecture can be brought back,” says Thomas Hines, who co-curated a 1982 Neutra retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art. “It is now very much a Richard Neutra house.”

Yet even at $15 million, the Kaufmann House could be a bargain of sorts. Crosby Doe, a Los Angeles-based real estate agent who specializes in properties by prominent architects, says that the market for California midcentury Modern architects such as John Lautner, Pierre Koenig, R.M. Schindler, and Neutra is booming. “I liken it to the stock market,” says Doe. “When the real estate market is bad, these are the blue chips that people still go out and buy.”

But while Neutra’s buildings typically sell for 20 to 30 percent more than comparable properties, they’re still cheaper than the competition. Film director Joel Silver, for example, sold Wright’s Storer House in 2002 for three times as much as other homes in the neighborhood. Plus, the Kaufmann House isn’t the only Neutra on the market. His 1959 Singleton House, in L.A., is listed for just under $20 million. The current owner, hair-care baron Vidal Sassoon, bought it three years ago for $6 million and dramatically remodeled it. “It’s not so Neutra anymore,” Doe says. “What was the master bedroom is now a sunken bar. That’s a little extreme.”