LOVED it! Not a fan of the bathroom tile/tiled countertop (no matter how "house appropriate" it may be), but as a whole, the house is pure awesome! Thanks for sharing it with us!

Very cool! I could do without the carpet that looks poorly installed (lots of bunching and bad seams), but so many nice elements in the house. That entry tile and staircase is killer!

What a treat! It is a stunning house and , yes, I could most definitely live there---except I could probably not take the winters!

Thanks for sharing. I love the clean aesthetics of MCM architecture. Our house used to have the small tile countertops in the bathrooms and isn't something I would replicate.

That's really great! It needs no remuddling at all -- for either form or function. (Just a good carpet restretching -- I wonder if that is the original style or was it something more "groovy").

This post was edited by gooster on Mon, Dec 9, 13 at 23:50

There is very little that could be done that would not have a negative impact on the house, because it has so much integrity as a whole object. It would be almost like trying to change a circle, and keep it a circle: you can't.

I suppose you could carefully change the tile countertops to a solid, similar colored quartz, although that tile and grout looks pristine.

Did you all notice that the bathroom and kitchen ceilings are translucent material like Lexan or something?
I like the subtlety of the blue fixtures in the bathroom.

I am usually a big proponent of overhead venting in the kitchen, but I would not want to mess up that ceiling.

I would probably want brightly colored furniture.

LOVE LOVE LOVE! I have always loved MCM -- although I didn't know what it was called when I first loved it ;-) My grandparents have a custom MCM home and I have always loved it since I was very young (early 80s).

But something I have come to realize...I think it can feel very cold and uninviting. So as much as I love it, I prefer a liveable eclectic home that has a mild MCM vibe. I would like to live in a home that is architecturally MCM, but with transitional/eclectic interior...minimalist but comfortable.

It actually wasn't called anything at the time, except "contemporary". Mid-century-modern is a description that goes fairly far back, and was the title of a 1983 book on Furniture from the period, but really only started to be generally used around the turn of the 21s century.

I have been thinking about this house since I first saw in on RetroRenovation...it's kind of a cross between Frank Lloyd Wright and John Lautner.

I really would like my next house to be MCM. If I have to just modern/contemporary - probably more likely given there are not that many MCM houses around here. You really have to luck out with the timing.

Thanks so much for sharing!

I like most of that house a lot, but I notice some wonky bits that could be hard to live with:

What's with the bumping out that sitting area next to the kitchen without bumping out the porch outside it? Counting boards, there are two boards between the window wall and the porch railing so maybe a 12" wide walkway.

The odd sunken area in front of the downstairs fireplace which squeezes the pathway in front of the couch. It invites a fall - especially if guests have partaken of the output of the wet bar.

Carpet on one side of the kitchen island and range top filling the depth of the island - at least there is a ledge to the tile to keep modest spills confined, but it still seems like it would be easy to have some stuff splash onto the carpet while cooking or prepping.

The master bathroom looks like it doesn't have any door to separate it from the bedroom (and is it missing a shower?). That is taking open plan too far. Especially since a sunken tile tub is hard enough to get filled with hot water. One doesn't want a draft coming in disrupting a nice hot soak.

Lovely to look at but it seems like all of those flaws could have been avoided. At least the sunken area might be filled in and I think that is one change that could be done without interfering with the integrity of the design. Making the porch follow the bump out to follow the contour of the house could be done to, but might be costly.

The sunken area probably had a banquette-like sofa/conversation pit associated with it that has been removed.

I think the form of the deck was given precedence over having a wide walkway near the door. There is another way out on the other side. I think it's supposed to be like walking along the narrow part of a boat to get to the front where it widens out again. It's a bit of form over function, but there is another clearer way to that part of the deck And you could still walk through there, carefully, or at least people could 50 years ago before Americans got so overweight :)

I had the same thought about the master bath (no door? eeek) but then I looked closely at a different bathroom and it seemed to have a pocket door. I'm guessing there's a pocket door to the master bath as well. I'd have a problem with no shower in the master.

Wow!

Thank goodness not everyone has a compulsion to update. Can you imagine this house with crown moulding. and new Edwardian looking subway tile baths?

"Thank goodness not everyone has a compulsion to update. Can you imagine this house with crown moulding. and new Edwardian looking subway tile baths?"

Thank goodness no one painted the wood in this this home. Paint absolutely ruins MCM homes. Ruins!!

For those of you who don't know bumpouts.....could well be a tribute to FLW.

I love this house, and what a beautiful waterfront setting. I agree, very cold in the winter, but gorgeous although probably very buggy in the summer (DH lived in MN for a couple years as a kid, so talks about this all the time).

Very cold? It's 4 degrees today! :-) And we do have mosquitos in the summer, but I'd take that any day over places where it's warm enough to have bugs all year round. Even our spiders go into hiding six months out of the year.

I have driven past this house a few times, but obviously have never been inside. It's amazing!

I think the Paint thing really depends.

A lot of MCM houses were very modest, and quality of millwork was not at a high point, especially at the end of the period. (Some of the crowns in my parent's traditional house had to be custom cut --the company had the profiles, nobody was asking for them).

My house is MCM (1963), and part of a series of houses that were built on a budget. Most have them have been painted since new, because the millwork is basic clamshell and hollow core doors.

A couple of the houses have a lot of stained millwork and they are a bit hit or miss. Some of it looks nice, but off-the-rack louvered closet doors and luaun hollow-core doors--not so great-looking.

So if the house is masterful, like the one in the link, it would be a shame to paint. But some modest houses look fine painted.