WashPost: Preservationists Want Fenty Adviser Off Case

"The D.C. Preservation League is demanding that a senior adviser to Fenty (D) disqualify herself from ruling on the Third Church of Christ, Scientist's appeal to raze its building at 16th and I streets NW," the Post reported yesterday. "The preservationists contend that Harriet Tregoning, the District planning director who began presiding over the case yesterday, cannot rule impartially because her boss, Deputy Mayor Neil Albert, has already backed demolition."

Click here for more documents and background on the case from the DCPL and here for earlier posts I did on the debate.

Updated: 1977 Deck House in Bethesda - $999K (Sold for $830K)

Before there was the pre-fab dwell homes by Empyrean, there was the Deck House. This new listing is for a 1977 Deck House located here on a more than half acre wooded lot in Bethesda.

Deck House, Inc. was founded in 1959 by William Berkes, a pioneer in post and beam building systems. The Deck House features post and beam construction with exposed Douglas fir beams, wooden ceiling, and mahogany windows and trim. This 6/3 home features the plan's tongue and groove vaulted ceilings, what look like original cabinets in the kitchen and prominent sloping carport jutting out from the front of the house. The entire rear of the house is glass, including sliding glass doors leading out to the tree-surrounded deck.

In 1995, Deck House merged with Acorn Structures, which was founded in 1947. The firm was renamed Empyrean International in 2005, the same year that the dwell home by Empyrean brand was developed. The combined companies have built more than 20,000 homes.

Compare images of this Bethesda house with this vintage shot on the Empyrean web site.

Thanks to long-time reader Michael in Reston for the tip off on this one.

1960 Ken Freeman Contemporary in Bradley Park - $849K

This new listing is for an expanded 1960 contemporary in Bradley Park by Ken Freeman. Many vintage touches are still evident in the 4/3 Bethesda home, including exposed wood-beams, hanging, stem-mounted globe lights in the kitchen, original kitchen countertops and wood cabinets, wood walls and yellow and white master bathroom. See images here (click on Current Listings and then click on the first image in the left-hand corner of the grid).

Modern Baltimore?

Now that the greater Baltimore area has become somewhat of a bedroom community for D.C. (yoo've seen the ads on the Metro and probably know somone who commutes), I'll highlight now and again some of the mid-century modern homes you can find in the suburbs of Charm City. I can only imagine what this 1963 MCM would cost if it were in Bethesda or McLean. The 3/4.5 home on more than 4 acres in Owings Mills looks like it was ripped from California and relocated to Maryland--the neighborhood is even called Velvet Valley. You have post and beam construction, stone and wood walls, wide expanses of glass and cool stand-alone fireplace in the corner of the master bedroom. Not to mention the pool, pool house and tennis court. For $795K. Take a look.

Columbus, Indiana: Middle America's Modern Mecca

Saarinen's North Christian Church, Photo by Greg Hume

I saw that this Sunday's Washington Post is going to highlight the modern mecca of Columbus, Indiana. I thought I would beat them to the punch. You're thinking Columbus, Indiana? For those who went to the Eero Saarinen visit at the National Building Museum, you saw a number of Saarinen's works in Columbus highlighted, including the Miller House, Irwin Union Bank and the North Christian Church, Saarinen's last building (pictured above).

So why was Saarinen designing homes and buildings in a small town in Indiana. Why does the town have "more buildings per capita designed by winners of the profession's highest award -- the Pritzker Architecture Prize -- than any city on Earth," as former Post architecture critic Benjamin Forgey wrote in a 2004 obituary of J. Irwin Miller, the force behind the creation of the modern enclave in middle America.

Miller, the the longtime head of Cummins Engine Co., went to Yale with Saarinen in the 1920s. In the post-war years, a foundation ran by Miller agreed to pay the architects' fees of newly designed schools, but they had to come from the foundation's list of architects. "This explains why major-league architects such as [Harry] Weese [think Metro, Arena Stage], [Richard] Meier, the Architects Collaborative, Edward Larrabee Barnes, Gunnar Birkerts, Eliot Noyes, Romaldo Giurgola and Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer have designed school buildings in minor-league Columbus," Forgey wrote. The program was later expanded to other buildings in the town located 40 miles south of Indianapolis and 600 miles from D.C. Six buildings are designated on the National Register of Historic Places.

I've never been to Indiana. I think it's time to go.

Price Drop: 1972 Herndon Contemporary with Atrium - $650K

This early 1970s Herndon contemporary has dropped from around $900K and is a short sale. Located here on nearly an acre near Eero Saarinen's Dulles Airport, the 4/3.5 home has an open-air atrium, open floor plan, walls of glass and wood ceilings.

1960 Bethesda Ultra-Modern Renovation - $1.4 Million; Open 10/19

Here's another open house for you today. This one is a for a 1960 Bethesda house renovated in 2004 to give it more of a ultra-modern feel. Look at all that glass in the master bedroom, which won an AIA award. The 3,400 sq. ft. home is located here and open from 1 to 4 p.m.

1969 5,000 Square-Foot Contemporary in McLean - $1.595 Milion; Open 10/19

Looks like a lot of the late '60s details have been renovated out of this McLean home, but check out the open kitchen/sunken living loom space with wood-beamed ceilings and large brick-wall fireplace. The four-level house, located here on almost an acre with pool, is open today from 1 to 4 p.m.

Price Drop: 1955 Atomic Ranch in Raymondale - $320K; Open 10/19

This 3/1 atomic ranch in Raymondale in Falls Church features a low-pitched gable roof, clerestory windows and side carport. The price on the house is down from $335K. The listing has only two exterior images, but it is open tomorrow (Oct. 19) from 1 to 4 p.m.

1965 Better Homes and Garden MCM in Hollindale - $589K; Open 10/19

The plans for this MCM in Hollindale in Fairfax County (just south of Hollin Hills) were designed by Frank Glass, the architect-editor of Better Homes and Garden and appeared in a 1964 issue of the magazine. The upper level of the 4/2.5 flat-roof house is clad in redwood, while the lower level is concrete. The house, which sits on .62 wooded acres, also features a cantilevered screened porch and retro freestanding fireplace separating the living and dining rooms. The open house is from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 19.

A Tour of Southwest

More than 50 years ago, Southwest D.C. underwent a massive transformation, representing the largest urban renewal project in U.S. history. The project covered 113 blocks, more than 450 acres and led to the relocation of more than 20,000 residents. Amid new development in the area, the question is how should the mid-century modern architecture of the original renewal effort be protected and preserved. On Oct. 4, the D.C. Preservation League and DOCOMOMO held "Southwest DC: Renewal at Risk," a walking tour of the key projects from the 1950s and '60s. Eric Jenkins, an architect, associate professor at Catholic University's School of Architecture and Planning and River Park resident, led the two-hour tour of the area, which he described like the "Lower East Side up until the 1950s." Jenkins said roughly 25 to 30 percent of the mostly working-class people came back to Southwest after the massive renewal effort.

In his AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D.C., G. Martin Moeller Jr. writes that while many urban renewal projects have "come to symbolize indiscriminate destruction of neighborhoods (squalid though they may have been) in favor of drab, soulless superblocks ... much of the redevelopment in the Southwest quadrant was of unusually high quality, avoiding the pitfalls that plagued many such projects elsewhere. Notwithstanding the sensitive social issues surrounding the genesis of such endeavors, several of the housing developments in Southwest are among the best works of large-scale urban architecture of their era."

These are the very projects the tour focused on: Tiber Island and Carrolsburg Square by Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon, Harbour Square, Capitol Park/Potomac Place by Chloethiel Woodard Smith, River Park by Charles Goodman, the Waterfront mall development, Marina View west and Arena Stage. Throughout the tour we saw efforts to preserve the old amid the new. Residents at Smith’s Harbour Square are working on an oral history to document the complex. I.M Pei's apartment buildings (originally called Town Center Plaza, then Marina View and now The View at Waterfront) are being renovated inside and preserved as much as possible on the outside, with the architect Phillip Esocoff trying to maintain Pei's clean, glass facade while updating the windows for better efficiency. New residential buildings are planned for the surface parking areas near Pei's existing buildings. Next door, Smith's unsuccessful Waterside Mall has been reduced to dirt, awaiting its own revitalization.

In Smith's Capitol Park, we saw the results of new development. Monument Realty built two massive condominium towers where the ground breaking park by Dan Kiley, the dean of American landscape architects, used to exist as a bridge between Smith's Capitol Park Apartments (now Potomac Place Tower) and the community's townhomes. Smith building, with its signature terra cotta honeycomb panels, has been designated as a landmark by the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Review Board and now being renovated and turned into condos.

Harry Weese’s Arena Stage, originally constructed in 1961, is undergoing major change as well.

As Southwest continues to age and the area changes to meet the needs of the current residents, questions about what should be preserved and how it should be preserved will continue to be debated among residents, preservationists, city officials and developers. While these issues will not be solved today, I encourage you to take a walk through Southwest on one of the these beautiful fall days to see these and other mid-century modern gems in a unique modernist haven right in our backyard.

Columbus Day Sale at Millennium Decorative Arts

In honor of Columbus Day on Monday, do your own discovering of vintage MCM furniture and objects at Millennium on U. Street from 2 to 7 p.m. Selected furniture will be 20 to 50 percent off. All small items will be marked down 20 percent.

Price Drop: 1965 Goodman Hickory Cluster Townhome - $379K

This is a brand new listing for a 3/2.5 Hickory Cluster townhome by Charles Goodman located in Reston. It is open Sunday, Oct. 12 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Price Drop: Lyle Rowley-Designed MCM in Moyaone Reserve Reduced $100K

This 1957 MCM home attributed to a design by noted Dallas modern architect Lyle Rowley is now listed at $299K, dropping $100K since I posted it back in March. The house, which looks pretty much untouched, features a low-pitched roof, slate floor in the foyer and some nice wood walls. The 3/1.5 home sits on more than five acres in Moyaone Reserve in Accokeek, Md.

Rowley and his partner Jack White led Ju-Nel Homes Inc., which designed an built MCM homes in Dallas in the 1950s and '60. "Inspired by Howard Meyer and Frank Lloyd Wright, Wilson and Rowley wanted to break the cookie-cutter mold of the traditional ranch homes being built during the mid-century period," according a web site dedicated to the work of the duo. "Instead of the usual ranch house, they designed and built contemporary homes with open floor plans, using unusual ideas and innovative products."

FSBO: 1951 Rare Goodman Unit 3 in Hollin Hills - $592K - Open 10/11 and 10/12

This rare Hollin Hills Unit 3 by Charles Goodman (one level, 1,544 sq. ft., 3/2 with two-car carport) has been in the same family since it was built in 1951 and comes with the original blueprints and original steel kitchen cabinets. The house has also has a nice patio overlooking a large, landscaped backyard. The house is located at 2106 Martha's Rd, Alexandria, Va. (For some reason, the link on Google maps is not working), and open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m this Saturday and Sunday.

Click here for more details, pictures and contact information.

More on Saarinen's American Embassy in London

The architecture critic of the Sunday Times (London) argues that the Eero Saarinen-designed U.S. Embassy in London should not be lost as the State Department seeks a new home elsewhere in the city. "Like it or loathe it, this building has enormous character, the expression of a subtle architectural intelligence," Huge Pearman writes in the Wall Street Journal. "I know this: If we lose it, we will come to regret it."

In an accompanying article, Joel Henning describes how the University of Chicago Law School revitalized its buildings completed by Saarinen in 1960 rather than tear them down and start from scratch. Check out the all the Saarinen and Eames furniture the lawyers-to-be get to enjoy as they hit the books in Saarinen's renovated library tower, which was done by the architecture and design firm OWP/P. Here's another story from the Chicago Tribune.

Modern Snapshot: Arlington's Highlander Motor Inn

With Wall Street's wild ride the past few weeks, I thought the vintage neon sign at the Highlander Motor Inn advertising "MODERATE RATES" was a needed look back at the optomistic and heady days of post-World War II America. This MCM motel, with flat roof, mix of stone and brick and large plate glass windows on each room, is located here on Wilson Boulevard.

Sponsor Spotlight: Lost River Modern

Build it and they will come. It may be a cliché saying, but nothing is cliché about Lost River Modern. A modern pre-fab “cabin” on 30 acres in Lost River, West Virginia decorated with vintage Eames chairs and other mid-century modern furniture. The only pre-fab home by Resolution: 4 Architecure (think original Dwell home) available to rent. Its owners, Chris and Sarah, obsessively blogging about the entire two-year project and including all the financial details of how much it cost to help others interested in taking on such an endevor. I would say that is pretty unique.

I recently took my wife (and two kids) to Lost River for her birthday. The surprise trip was made even more exciting by the drive up the nearly quarter mile twisting, steep gravel driveway to the house. While we had fun at Lost River Park just a few minutes away, the focus of the weekend was enjoying the house. We had dinner plans for Saturday night at a local restaurant, but we called to cancel because we did not want to the leave. We grilled on the deck, enjoying the complete solitude and surrounding views of forest and soaring birds. Even when inside, the walls of glass allow you to be enveloped by nature (don't worry, there is Wi-Fi and satellite tv). Only a couple hours from D.C., it is a true modernist haven. Book now, before it is too late. I can already imagine the views when the trees change color.

Post Reviews Oscar Niemeyer Retrospective

The Post's Phil Kennicott reviews the Oscar Niemeyer retrospective at the Art Museum of the Americas that I previewed here.

"Niemeyer hasn't chased trends, he hasn't had a silly postmodern phase, dabbled in the Zen of glass boxes or blown apart his voluptuous forms in a nod to deconstruction," Kennicott observes. "His career has had high and low points to be sure, but it has been remarkably consistent."

He concludes: "Evaluating Niemeyer's work is likely to make us uneasy, because it has been so obsessively consistent to one idea of the good life -- bold, cool curves of oversize concrete set in empty, beautiful places -- that has passed us by. And it's not clear if that's a good thing or not. Sometimes we fail to live up to our dreams, and sometimes the dream itself was the problem."

My favorite part of the exhibit is how the curators superimposed Neimeyer's rough hand, thick black-line sketches of his projects onto large Plexiglass panels (I thought I took a picture of one of these, but looks like I didn't). They are works of art in themselves, especially the sketch of his own home in Rio. The House at Canoas, is a Miesian glass house with a large extended, thick, white flat roof with sensual tropical curves.

1954 Untouched Goodman in Hollin Hills - $549K; Open 10/5

This brand new listing is for an untouched, 3/1.5 Hollin Hills home by Charles Goodman with the original kitchen, including yellow cabinets. The one-level, slab-on-grade Unit 2 house (Goodman's most basic model) is close to 1,400 sq. ft. and sits on more than half an acre. The house is open Oct. 5 from 1 to 4 p.m.

Saarinen's U.S. Embassy in London to Meet Wrecking Ball?

With the United States looking to build a new embassy in London, Eero Saarinen's massive 1960 concrete and stone building in Grosvenor Square will likely meet the wrecking ball becasue it sits on prime real esate that is estimated to be worth close to $900 million. Peter Wetherell, a leading Mayfair real estate specialist, quoted in yesterday's Post story said "any new owner would most likely raze the building to make way for a hotel, offices or homes."

"While many people appreciate the historical significance of the embassy building," Post reporter Kevin Sullivan writes, "it has drawn wide criticism as ungainly 1950s architecture dropped into a neighborhood that otherwise largely retains the ambiance of the 18th and 19th centuries."

Jonathan Blyth of the State Department's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations said "renovating the building would have cost up to $600 million, taken seven years and still not have resulted in state-of-the-art security" needed to meet standards imposed after 9/11.

Should the building be preserved? See some debate and comments here on a British architecture web site.

Post Highlights a Modern River Renovation

Kirsten Madison and Matthew Dyckman did a nice ultra-modern interior renovation of the their 1959 Alexandria ranch house overlooking the Potomac. While the couple totally transformed the inside of the home, they left the modest mid-century exterior pretty much intact. The did add a nice touch with the Neutra House Numbers, which are on sale if you have been wanting to buy them. Read the Post story and see the images of the Madison-Dyckman home here and here at Forma Design, the architecture and design firm that did the project.

1965 'Glenmore' Model in Carderock Springs - $795K

This nice Glenmore model perched on a hill in Carderock Springs in Bethesda appears to be a one-level rambler but drops in the back to a second level. The house by Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon has wide expanses of glass on the front and back, including in the open living room and entranceway. Looks like it has some original details including the hanging ball light fixtures and kitchen cabinets with the vintage rounded pulls. It also features a nice deck to take in the .35 acre corner lot.