Notes from the Glass House – yours and theirs

The Glass House sketchbook features quotes by Philip Johnson, blank pages for your own notes or sketching, and sketches inspired by the site by 29 architects, designers, and artists including: Yves Béhar, Michael Bell, Deborah Berke, James Biber, Mattia Bonetti, Constantin Boym, Seymour Chwast, Stephen Doyle, Steven Ehrlich, Rafael Esquer, Alexander Gorlin, Steven Holl, Christopher Huan, Rainer Judd, Maira Kalman, Chip Kidd, LOT-EK | Giuseppe Lignano and Ada Tolla, Mark McInturff, Richard Meier, Toshiko Mori, Michael Morris, Fred Noyes, Gaetano Pesce, Ron Radziner, Jens Risom, Yoshiko Sato, Denyse Schmidt, Alison Spear and Joseph Tanney.

All proceeds from this sketchbook will support the Glass House.

The custom edition Glass House Moleskine® sketchbook costs $25.95 can be purchased at the Glass House gift shop, or by calling 203.594.9884 - x 1. – GF

0857 L House - model takes shape

Building, building, building...

Technorati Tags: house plans, L House, modern design, modern house

Alice Ball

If you're interested in the fate of Philip Johnson's Alice Ball house, in New Canaan, you no doubt have already seen the Times story from Sunday and the post in Mediabistro.com (which linked to us; the Times, of course, did not, although the Times reporter spent a lot of time clicking around on our blog about two weeks ago while preparing the story).

The Times story is a rehash, although it does manage to get one important fact wrong: it cites as an example of modern houses commanding steep prices the sale of Neutra's Kaufmann house not long ago. But I read in the Times the other day that the sale did not go through; the anonymous buyer has either backed out or couldn't come up with the money or something, it wasn't clear (in fairness to the Times reporter, the Alice Ball house story was in a section that goes to press earlier in the week, and the news about the Kaufmann house sale might have come out afterwards).

Mediabistro.com isn't quite as kind to Cristina Ross, the owner of the house, as we have been, and I find the snarky style of the writing to be off-putting, but here's the post (which, by the way, uses our photo, which is fine -- we put it on Flickr and we ourselves rarely feel any compunction against using other people's photos). -- ta

Guess the upcoming house plan

The next design print in progress.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, L House

Virgina Plat House - exterior complete

A few new photos from the owner of the Virginia Plat House today. The siding is all done and the exterior more or less finished. The interior work is beginning now.



Here is the master bedroom side of the house. I liked this photo because it gives you a good look at the side overhang rafters. They did a good job with this detail which is always gratifying to see. You can also catch a glimpse of the creek in the distance - what a great setting for this house.

There are three new photos of the house posted at the flickr set for this project. Also remember to look at the LamiDesign Flickr photo pool to see all the photos from customers documenting the house designs under construction. Our thanks go out to them for sharing their projects with us.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Plat House

0751 Suburban House - fourth scheme

Today we will look at the next scheme from the suburban house project. This scheme came later in the process and so the sketches are more fully developed than the other schemes we have looked at. In this scheme we returned to the idea of the gathering of spaces around the living room, with the secondary spaces seeking a physical connection back to the center of the house. We also struggled to find a way to make a positive solution to the need to elevate the plumbing in the house above the septic system without lifting the entire house out of the ground and compromising the connection to the landscape or bringing in large amounts of fill. What we arrived at was a rather complex interior space arrangement which followed a multi level path through the house, but existed within a simple massing under a simple roof.



I think the house is difficult to understand from floor plans, yet we'll look at them anyway. Those of you who can read plans well will enjoy the jump from flat-land to seeing the space in your mind. For everybody else we'll look at some better representation further down.

click below to continue reading..



So on the ground floor you arrive at the house at what is a very ordinary suburban situation - a garage door flanked by a recessed entry. This gives way to a small vestibule which is also joined by the entry from the garage. Adjacent to the entry is a nice sized home office/studio space. This is great for home office workers as it is removed from the rest of the house and is even workable for taking meetings without parading through the home. From the entry you proceed up a third of a level to the living room - a small stair.



You arrive in the living room space, a high story and a half space. Straight ahead is a fireplace with niche on either side (actually not drawn on plan), to the left is the kitchen and dining area, which is another level up, and to your right is a more intimate area with a lower ceiling that has a window wall facing out to the site. Take the short steps up to the kitchen and you have a large table area that overlooks the living room. The kitchen has a large island, and another counter at the wall. Above the countertop is a large window looking out at the front of the house. At one side is a pantry space and another short stair that brings you up to the bedroom level.



The bedroom level has short hall/balcony that overlooks the living room. The two bedrooms share a bath room and have windows overlooking the side of the house where the entry door is located. At the end of the hall is yet another small stair that takes us up to the master bedroom level. The master bedroom bridges back over the living room on the left, and to the right has a large area for closets and master bathroom. Unlike the other bedrooms it is very isolated and feels removed from the rest of the house.



This section view above gives you a pretty good idea of all these level changes, but this cut away view is probably even better for understanding the layering.



And here is a rough walk through of the sketch model which will give you the best representation of the space and how the parts relate to one another.



I liked this solution as its simple geometry was efficient and economical yet it provided a very dynamic interior space that served the program. Right now its my favorite candidate for conversion into a stock plan.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house

Chilean Sampler

Perhaps the thing most important to me about any house or building, whether modern or ancient, is how it interacts with its immediate environment. I grew up in a neat little modern house that I was so proud of for its integration into the landscape: its grey cypress wood exterior and single story low profile gave it the appearance of being just another outcrop of the ever-present rockledge Pound Ridge is notorious for. It just makes sense that a dwelling respects the features of the land it occupies as opposed to appearing uncomfortably perched as if its placement is only temporary.

I keep an eye open for interesting architecture out of South America, (probably in a subconscious effort to offset my usual Eurocentric-ness), and this morning I bumped into the terrific Chilean architectural photography site called BARQO – banco fotográfico de arquitectura chilena. Poking around through the Vivienda Unifamiliar sections, not only did I long to understand Spanish, but I began to think about the relationship between exceptional places the exceptional architecture that is created in those places. Some houses are designed to blend in either by color, by texture or by shape - or a combination of those qualities. Some, however, are successful because they celebrate the physical environment they exist in by being radically different. Here are some examples from Barqo (bARCo as it appears on the site), which I found through Judit Bellostes, which is also very worthy viewing. – GF


























1. Casa Las Palmas · Sebastián Irarrázaval, Guillermo Acuña
FOTÓGRAFO Guy Wenborne

2. Chalet C-6 · dRN arquitectos
FOTÓGRAFO Max Nuñez

3. Casa Muelle · Jonas Retamal
FOTÓGRAFO Stefan Bartulin Cortese

4. Casa Dos Robles · Aguilo Pedraza

5. Asadera y Mirador · Carolina Contreras y Tomás Cortese
FOTÓGRAFO Alvaro Benitez

6. Casa Omnibus · Gubbins Arquitectos
FOTÓGRAFO Marcos Mendizabal / Pedro Gubbins

Next House: Prefab that fits all

I really like some of the things I see on Next House's site. I even like the site itself, which is really saying something; I find so many architects’ sites so fussy and difficult to navigate, which is odd given the inevitable descriptors in their “about us” statements: elegant, functional, minimal, clean, etc. I love that the flat-pack houses come in sizes XS, S, M, and L. – GF
(via Below the Clouds)

Neutra's Kaufman House Sells for $16.8 Million

In the leafy suburbs of Connecticut, Stone's Celanese House sold for $4.1 million. But in the California desert, Neutra's Kaufman House sold for much more -- $16.8 million. Christie's sold it, along with a trove of paintings. The Times reports:

Considering that a painting went for more than $50 million, the Kaufmann House, in Palm Springs, Calif., a 1946 Modernist landmark in glass, steel and stone designed by the architect Richard Neutra, was a veritable bargain. It was being sold by Brent Harris, an investment manager, and Beth Edwards Harris, an architectural historian, who are divorcing.

The home, which was originally commissioned as a desert retreat by Edgar J. Kaufmann, the Pittsburgh department store magnate for whom Frank Lloyd Wright built Fallingwater in Pennsylvania a decade earlier, met its low $15 million estimate (or with commission, $16.8 million).

After the sale, Marc Porter, Christie’s president in America, said the buyer, whom he declined to name, exercised an option to purchase an orchard adjacent to the property for an additional $2.1 million that includes three cacti that were a present from Frank Lloyd Wright to Mr. Kaufmann on his first visit to the home.

It isn’t the first time a Modernist house has been sold at auction. Over the years both Christie’s and Sotheby’s have offered such architecturally important dwellings as Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House and a 1950 town house on East 52nd Street that Philip Johnson designed as a guest house for Blanchette Rockefeller, the wife of John D. Rockefeller III.

I borrowed the photo, above, from Flickr. -- ta

A coherent account of the Housing Boom/Bust

This is tangental to my blog, no doubt, but the state of the housing industry is relevant to our interest in the resurgence of modernism as a housing product. If you have money to build or are able to borrow in this credit climate, its actually a good time to build. And that's an opportunity for modernist to get a foot in the door, for developers flat out of luck its a market that still has demand. So read up, or listen up as the case may be, and learn what actually went down in the credit bust.

This radio program "This American Life" just did a review of the recent history of the ongoing credit crisis, and the housing crisis it spawned, and the overall stinky economy following on its heels. This is the best plain language, easily understandable account of what has transpired that I have heard to date. It was put together by a pair of reporters, one a financial correspondent for NPR, and the other a regular from This American Life. So it puts together accurate financial reporting with a human outlook and good story telling. If you think "yeah, I know there is a credit crisis but I don't really know what just happened" then this is a worthwhile listen. It puts it in very human terms as well - via the experience of a lot of people who participated in it.

I'd really love to blame somebody. Sure there was greed in there, but not nearly as much greed as sheer stupidity. You know, its like those C students I went to high school with, the ones that were not nearly as smart or responsible as me, but today make so much more money than I ever did or ever will. Its like these are the ones we leave our economy to. And they'll put it into a tree on a joy ride as readily as they did with their dad's Old's Cutlass back in high school.

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355

These podcasts are only available as a free download for a week, starting this past sunday. So get it now or pay later.

Technorati Tags: modern design, modern house

It's a Deal for Edward Durell Stone's Celanese House

Really good news for modern house aficionados out of New Canaan today: The deal for the Celanese House closed. Joel Disend, an executive at New York Life, bought it for $4.1 million, half-a-million below its last listing price.

I say good news because we can only assume that Disend bought the house, which Edward Durell Stone designed, to live in rather than to tear down. It's an oddity outside, no doubt, but stunning inside. We loved it when we saw it, unfurnished, during New Canaan's Modern House Day in November. Except for its price, which was almost $4 million above what we could afford, and its location, on Oenoke Ridge Road, which is too main street for us, we might have bought it ourselves.

But its good news too for Jackie and Bruce Capra, New Canaan residents who bought the house because they didn't want to see it torn down (they had seen that happen too many times to modern houses in New Canaan), invested in the renovation and now, presumably, will get a payoff for their effort (Fred Bernstein wrote a good account of the Capras in the Times, here).

There's also lots of background information on this blog and on my other blog, Sphere. -- ta

0751 Suburban House - third scheme

Time to look at another schematic scheme from the suburban house project. This scheme was centered around an interesting idea about how to organize the house, but also departed from the previous schemes because of this. Here the living+dining+kitchen space is imagined as a glazed rectangular volume set atop a plinth containing the rest of the functions of the house.



This may be a little bit harder to imagine because the schematic model really does not give a good representation of how this would be integrated into the landscape. The plinth would be masonry, sunk into the earth, the stairs at the front looking like a bit of a ruin, emerging out of the landscape (which with fill needed for the site would not be as long as shown in the illustrations). The bar atop is lighter, framed, with many windows, cantilevering off the base on both sides.

Click the link below to continue reading.



When you approach the house there are two ways to enter. If you go up these steps at the front of the house you then walk across pavers on a green roof to a "front" door in the living dining kitchen bar. There is a smaller volume extending towards the front of the house here which is relatively solid, and beyond it the volume of the bar is more transparent. You enter through the door and step into the broad view through the bar into the landscape beyond. Another green roof and roof terrace mediates between the room and the landscape.



The second way to approach is to descend into the grotto that exists between the pair of front steps which will take you to an entry door. This door brings you into a center hall at the lower level of the house. The home office and studio is to one side, and the entry to the house from the garage is at the other. Beyond is a stair with light descending from above, and further the two secondary bedrooms. Each of these rooms is at grade and has a small patio, its own private outdoor space sheltered by the bar above. At the end of the hall is the master bedroom suite which also has its own patio at grade extending off the end of the house.




I've tried to describe the house more as an experience, since this rough model does so little to describe the definitive characteristics of the house. This proposal did not meet the brief for the project in many ways, but it still remains an intriguing idea for me. Perhaps it will find its place as a house plan in the future.

Technorati Tags: modern design, modern house

Modern Sewage Treatment

In one of my other lives, I write about Long Island Sound, where pollution and improvement to sewage treatment plants is a big issue. New York City is investing tons of money to fix its treatment plants, four of which sit near the far western end of the Sound. A bit farther west, in Brooklyn, the city is upgrading its Newtown Creek plant. The Times published this terrific picture of it today. -- ta

Stone's Celanese House on the Verge of Being Sold

While maneuvering continues about the fate of the Alice Ball House, two doors away on Oenoke Ridge Road in New Canaan, Edward Durell Stone's Celanese House is on the verge of being sold. Contracts have been signed; the closing is still to come.

Of course anything can happen between signing of the contracts and the closing, but it looks as if the Celanese House, a real gem inside and a conversation starter if nothing else on the exterior, will be bought. The listing was for $4.9, so if the final price is anywhere even near that, it won't be a teardown. There's background here and here.

More Maneuvering in the Quest to Protect the Alice Ball House

A settlement of a lawsuit between the owner of the Alice Ball House, which Philip Johnson designed, and the Town of New Canaan has been scuttled by neighbors of the Alice Ball House who don’t want to see the part of the property near them developed.

(I’m paraphrasing much of this from a very hard-to-understand story in the New Canaan Advertiser, here.)

The decision by the neighbors – William and Linda Powell – means that Cristina Ross, the owner of the Alice Ball house, will reapply to do exactly what the Powells don’t want: namely, to build a house behind the Alice Ball house and convert the Alice Ball House into its pool house.

Presumably if Ross applies to the Town, and specifically to the Town’s environmental commission, to build what they agreed to in the court settlement that the Powells’ scuttled, the Town will approve Ross’s application.

Now bear with me here. This is fairly convoluted but I’ll try to get the background right: Ross applied to build a house on her property behind the Alice Ball House. The environmental commission said no, so Ross filed a lawsuit appealing the decision. The Powells live behind the Alice Ball House and as adjoining neighbors, they had the right to join the lawsuit on the side of the town.

Ross and the Town subsequently agreed to settle the suit. But it takes three to tango, and without the Powells’ signature, the court was not able to approve the settlement.

So essentially the Powells are forcing her to go through the process again. Presumably they are hoping that Ross, knowing that the Powells will appeal if the Town approves the application, won’t want to spend the money or the time defending the appeal.

Or perhaps they’re hoping that if they continue to stretch out the process, a buyer will come along who wants to preserve the Alice Ball House but not build near the Powells.

Ross probably would prefer that too, but thus far there are no buyers. In the meantime, her permit to demolish the house is still valid, I think. I'm told, by the way, that the Alice Ball House has been rented for the next three months, so it won't be coming down any time soon, if indeed that's still a real threat.

There's plenty of background on this issue here. -- ta

0357T - Timber Case House, Construction Prints Done!

This plan set has been kicking around on the back-burner for a few years now. I had created the Design Prints and started on the Construction Prints, but set it aside to develop other designs. Its nice to have four variations on the Steel Case House, but getting other designs published took priority. But I'm in spring cleaning mode now and it was time to finish this and get it online.



The Timber Case House differs from the rest of the Steel Case line in that it substitutes an engineered timber frame for the steel frame that gives the line its name. The SIPs entry wall and roof increase the performance of the building envelope making up for the vast glazed area on the back side of the house. If you have not studied this design in while now is a good time to take a second look.

0357T Timber Case House

A few more plans sets to go and the initial collection will be complete.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Steel Case House

Letters from Sweden - plumbing the prefab

In our last "Swedish Prefab" installment we looked at the innovations in electrical wiring and compared the round Swedish outlet boxes and plastic flexible conduit with loose conductors to the American system of square boxes and shielded wire cables (Romex). These Swedish products are not in the US ... yet.

Plumbing is another area where there is noteworthy innovation in Sweden. However this innovation has made it the USA and is something that is rather common: Cross Linked Poly Ethylene or "PEX" tubing.



click the link below to continue reading

A brief history: German chemist, Thomas Engel, invented the process for making this tubing in 1968, which he licenced to the Wirsbo Co. in Sweden. Wirsbo introduced PEX floor heating in Europe in 1972, and for potable water supply in 1973. The US market didn't see PEX until Wirsbo set up an office in Minnesota in '85 to market their technology. In Sweden today PEX is used in almost every job – and radiant floor heat is installed in 50% of the houses. While becoming more popular radiant head is not nearly as common in the US. Wirsbo is now part of the Upnor company, and numerous other manufacturers make and market PEX tubing systems. More info can be found:

http://www.uponor.com/about/about_6_1.html

http://www.theplumber.com/plumbinginventions.html

http://www.ppfahome.org/pex/faqpex.html


While numerous qualities account for PEX market share growth in the US and elsewere, our concern is how this new kind of plumbing facilitates off site construction.

One way to look at this is to consider how traditional systems make off site construction more difficult. Rigid pipes, such as soldered copper tube, must be cut to very exact lengths and turns made with soldered elbows that can be unforgiving during handling. If a pipe was hit during handling joints hidden behind finishes could easily be damaged. Field joints in the pipes would either have to be stubbed out of panels and fed through adjacent work without damaging them, or left cut off within the wall panel, and that wall panel left unfinished in order to make the plumbing connections. All of which makes the process more difficult.

With PEX, the flexible plastic piping can simply be left in a small coil where it exits the panel and easily passed through a hole in adjacent work to be connected later. It is a very rugged mateial, and it flexibility contributes to it ease of installation and durability during handling. Because of this it is possible to plumb and ship the walls with the plumbing in place, and to easily connect the the piping after the panels or modules are installed.



Although the US didn't see this technology until 15 years after it was invented, almost every plumber is familiar with the system, as are inspectors – and the uphill battle of changing standard practices in construction was undertaken by Wirsbo who saw the reward of gaining sales in the US market. The nature of product vs. system type of technology is interesting to note here - since pex tubing can and is often connected to standard copper fittings for the final connections in US plumbing fixtures.

The Swedes also have a distinct approach to plumbing fixtures. This might not at first seem like an area that has anything to do with prefab construction, but in reality, the rationalization of the pipes and fixtures all fit within the "off site" and "low labor" model of Swedish building systems.

In Sweden plumbing fixtures are treated more like appliances than built in work. For instance bathroom sinks are commonly surface mounted, with the supply and drain pipes serving them all exposed underneath. Bathtubs typically don't have the filler spout and valves mounted to them - they are on an adjacent wall. The tub usually is not connected to a drain pipe either - rather the tubs which are often on legs like an old fashioned claw foot tub simply dump out the bottom to a floor drain located under the tub. They have no hard connection to the house plumbing at all. Home owners shop new tubs te same way we might bring a frig or microwave into our new house.



So a bathroom in a Swedish prefab when its delivered is typically an empty room with the various plumbing connections ready to receive fixtures. This greatly reduces the complexity of the finished product. No cabinets to install, no tubs to set, no tile to fit over the plumbing fixtures, no shower pans with numerous angles and intersections. There are none of the fussy rough framing issues, built ins, and other work that usually make bathrooms the most expensive part of completing a house. There is nothing in this method that would prevent a bathroom from being finished out in a way that was more familiar to Americans. But what is key is that in Sweden it is customary for the builder to prepare the house to receive the bathroom fixtures which the homeowner can select in a "plug and play" fashion from the range of possible products.



When you look at the foundations for a Swedish house you see a slab with pipes located at the planned locations ready to connect using the flexible Swedish system – indeed the plumbing has been rationalized for prefabrication. As with the windows, wiring, and other systems we've looked at, everything is designed to work in concert with the prefab process.

With our slab ready to receive the walls, the next step is to deliver the house and connect all the parts on site.

Thanks to Scott for photos, links, and cross editing with me.
Previously:
Letters from Sweden - wiring zen
Letters from Sweden - a windows tale
Letters from Sweden - panel building in Sweden vs the USA
Letters from Sweden - Europe is different, Sweden is not, sort of..
Letters from Sweden - land of modern, land of prefab
Letters from Sweden - conversations with an expatriate builder

Technorati Tags: modern design, modern house, prefab house

I can't stop thinking about this house

Eggleston Farkas Architects in Seattle designed the Methow Cabin which I first saw on wonderful below the clouds. I just can't get it out of my head! – GF

Colorado Plat House - house complete

We have not seen any photos of the Colorado Plat House since last August, so you can imagine my surprise to see a bunch of photos of the finished house in my inbox this week. I was blown away - what an amazing setting! There may be a few loose ends that we can't see, and there are no furnishing yet, but all the same its an amazing sight. Have a look below.



continue for more photos by clicking the link below.

In the photo below, which appears to be shot from a plane or helicopter, you can see the wrap around porch roof which is a unique feature of this build.



The owners have really had some fun finishing the interior - its like no other Plat House we've seen before. There is a corrugated metal ceiling and what appears to be cork floors. Look through the photo browser below to see some interior photos.

Technorati Tags: house plans, modern design, modern house, Plat House

The Cape Cod Modern House Trust

The town of Wellfleet, MA, voted to give $100,000 toward restoration of a Modern house, one of 17 that The National Park Service owns there but doesn't have the money for their upkeep.

The Cape Cod Modern House Trust, which promotes the documentation and preservation of significant examples of Modernist architecture on the Outer Cape, wants to use the money to restore what is known as the Kuegel/Gips house with the hope of eventually preserving more.

The Kugel/Gipps house was designed by Charlie Zehnder who built over forty highly original houses, all on the Outer Cape. He also was one of the prime movers behind building the local drive-in movie theater on what was once an asparagus field . . .

The web site’s overview explains how this concentration of little Moderns came to be: In the late 1930s, on the isolated ‘back shore’ of Wellfleet, a group of self-taught architecture enthusiasts began building experimental structures based on the early Modern buildings they had seen in Europe. Through mutual friends they invited some of the founders of European Modernism to buy land, build summer homes and settle . . . In the three decades that followed, these architects built homes for themselves, their friends and the community of internationally influential artists, writers, and thinkers that took root nearby. Though humble in budget, materials and environmental impact, the Outer Cape’s Modern houses manage to be manifestos of their designers' philosophy and way of living, close to nature, immersed in art and seeking community.

I liked reading the bios of the architects who built on the Cape, and the section called “others” which has stuff like, “Serge Chermayeff and Aero [Saarinen . . . you knew that] were sometimes seen rowing a small boat around Slough Pond with a rock and string, making a chart of the bottom and arguing about architecture.”

In addition to the predictable but necessary plea for monetary donations, the CCMHT is also seeking drawings, photographs and narratives – even in the form of loans – pertaining to these buildings to digitize and archive for future scholarship and publication. Donations of art and furnishings connected to mid 20th century modernism on the Outer Cape, however modest, are also being sought to recreate environments in the renovated houses.

We'll try to keep up on this as it would be a nice summer excursion: the CCMHT, in collaboration with Truro Center for the Arts at Castle Hill, will be hosting a Modern House Tour in August 2008. – GF

photos from the top: Jack Phillip's Bug House - Photo courtesy of Florence Phillips; Charles Zehnder's Kugel/Gipps House, photo by Mark Walker; Breuer's Wise House - Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, NY, NY, photo by Joseph W. Molitor

A Modern Story from Dallas

There's a terrific story in the Dallas Morning News about a modern architect named Harold Prinz and his wife, Jeannette, and the future of the house the built in 1950, now that he's dead and she's 86. I like it because it's really a sweet love story about a couple who worked together on every aspect of their living situation, even though he was an architect and she wasn't. They shared the same modernist sensibility and persisted until they got the house they wanted.

In a way it reminds me of my in-laws, who were exact contemporaries of the Prinzes, similarly steeped in modernism and collaborated on their house here in Pound Ridge, even though neither were architects. Here's what the reporter says about the future of the Prinz house:

In an age of bulldozers and zero-lot-line McMansions, what will happen to this one-of-a-kind home?

"Regardless of its pedigree, the Prinz residence could turn into a teardown scenario," warns Peabody. "The very fact this is a midcentury home, of smaller proportions than most, makes it more of a target for an insensitive renovation or demolition."

One of Prinz's contemporaries shares Peabody's concern.

"O'Neil Ford once told me there will come a day when you outlive some of your buildings. He was absolutely right," says semi-retired architect Ralph Kelman, now in his 70s, and best known for his design of the Hilton Inn (now Hotel Palomar) and Willow Creek shopping center.

"Things are more flamboyant now," says Kelman. "I think midcentury design was, comparatively, more honest."

It's an ideal description for the Prinz home, and a quality Jeanette hopes someone else will appreciate about her husband's design.

"It's time to let this place go and let someone else love it," Jeanette says. "I just hope they don't paint over my redwood walls."

One interesting aspect of the tale is that the Prinzes wanted financing from the Federal Housing Authority, but the FHA wasn't interested in anything but a conventional house. The reporter writes:

The FHA had four chief complaints against Prinz's design for his Oak Lawn Heights residence:

1. The lack of windows on the west-facing front of the house

2. The large expanses of uninsulated plate glass

3. The nonconventional heating system

4. The unlevel lot

Ironically, all of the elements the agency cited as not fitting in with the era's design standards were the very components Prinz used to make the house literally fit in to its site and region.

The west-facing front – red brick wall, solid and demure – was designed without windows to avoid interior heating from the afternoon sun.

Conversely, large expanses of glass on the home's south and east walls beckon in the rays, open views to the side garden and lush ravine out back, and help warm the home with sunlight in winter.

The dramatic windows in the living room stretch to the ceiling rafters and follow the peak of the high-pitched roof. Plate glass works fine here, thanks to strategic overhangs, which help to moderate the elements. ...

I also commend the Dallas Morning News for its use of photos (I'm sure my commendation will make their day). I've complained a lot about how lame newspapers can be: over and over they write about modern architecture and include no picture. The Dallas Morning News created a slide show of a dozen black and white photos from the 1950s, here (photo 6 caught my eye because of the Jens Risom chairs).

The story also includes a link to PreservationDallas.org. One of our loyal readers is in the Dallas area. Maybe he can do a drive-by of the Prinz house and tell us what it looks like in 2008. -- ta