A very seventies home

[foraloysius]

I noticed that this house is for sale. It's not far from where I grew up. It was built in 1976, just after we had moved. My parents were fascinated by it, we even went inside when it was built and there were no windows and doors yet.

It looks like the original furnish is still there, most of the stuff is from that era. The styling is modern for the seventies, the colors are warm. Nowadays interiors are much whiter as the suggestions/drawings between the pictures show. I have a soft spot for older modern design.

Here's the link to the pictures of the house:

http://www.funda.nl/koop/feanwalden/huis-48053793-suderwei-27/fotos/#groot&foto-1

 

[chestermikeuk]

Wow

A great piece of classic architecture, love all the geomectric styling and colours...
what would have been or was the brand of appliances fitted when first built? would that oven be original Louis do you think?

Now wheres the laundry, near the bathroom / bedrooms?

 

[washman]

Dig it

Love the thatch roof!

 

[pulltostart]

Very nice! The photos are great, but having the drawings of the floor plans is wonderful - makes it much easier to understand the spaces.

lawrence

 

[rockland1]

Home

Very nice....kind of a contemporary style still looks good. Any idea what something like this sells for in the Netherlands?

 

[NYCWriter]

Actually ...

... prefered the orange tile in the bathroom to the antiseptic white.

Double goes for the living room.

What I don't like is *tile* in living areas; the hardwood floor was a definite upgrade.

 

[petek]

Beautiful house. I liked it just the way it was. The thatch roof is really interesting, I remember seeing those on my euro trip to the Netherlands and Belgium way back in the previous century even on city houses.
One other noticeable thing is it looks like there is a lot of green moss growing, it must be quite damp and humid there is it?

 

[frigilux]

A beautiful, interesting house. How does one care for a thatched roof?

 

[whirlcool]

Love it, it looks very American with a few Frank Lloyd Wright overtones. It also feels a little Scandinavian too, especially in the kitchen.

 

[philr]

Nice house. The blue cabinets look great. Too bad the dishwasher is so poorly installed...

 

I am about to replace my Bosch dishwasher that's very similar to the one in this house (I thought mine was a BOL model, but it more buttons/cycles). 

 

[iheartmaytag]

Beautiful house, the geometric design and minimalist interior almost has a Frank Loyd Wright feel about it. 

 

 

[hydralique]

To be honest I don’t get much of a Wrightian feel from this. Wrightian homes tend to have a lot more ornamentation and the relationship of the entry to the rest of the house doesn’t strike me as Wrightian either. I see it as more of a product of classic northern European modernism, the materials in particular make me think of some of Alvar Aalto’s work though they’re pretty standard in much of northern Europe thatch roof aside. Overall it really has a feel of something designed in the late ‘60s or ‘70s by a good competent architect. Not a masterpiece but certainly worthy of careful consideration.

I would have to do something about the orange and brown tile in the baths. One or the other could remain, it’s the combination that’s a little too period for me. I also take significant exception to the lack of any guardrail on the outside of the stair. This was almost certainly not legal when the house was built but someone valued the clean look more than safety and removed whatever railing was there. I'd install something very minimal, just enough to grab onto and keep from falling to that tile floor.

Other than this the house needs little besides some minor updating. I do hope nobody goes and plasters over the exposed interior brick. Since it is the same material as used on the outside of the house it gives a lovely feeling of continuity that is intrinsic to the design and shouldn’t be lost.

Thanks for posting Louis, it’s always nice to see a good and unmolested house with high quality architecture.

 

[foraloysius]

Lots of questions! Let's start with the laundry. The laundryroom is next to the garage, in the floorpland it's above the "Hal", between the hallway and the garage.

The kitchen must be the original one. I think I see a Bruynzeel logo on the door of one of the cabinets. The oven is original too I think. I think I see the name Siemens on the front of the oven. The glass oven door confirms that. The other appliances were added much later. The dishwasher is a freestanding one, I think they cut corners here. The fridge is a table model, it looks like the original one was taller.

Most likely this house belonged to an older couple. I somehow get the impression money got a bit short later in life. That might be the reason this house is needs some maintenance, especially the thatch roof. The asking price also reflects the need of maintenance. €369,000.- equals around $510,000.-. Normally such a house would sell for a lot more.

Considering the rather wet climate in the Netherlands it's not a surprise the roof has some moss growing on it. I think it's growing mostly on the west side of the house, which seems logic, in NL the wind and rain come most of the time from the west.

The Bosch dishwasher is a very BOL model. Only two or three cycles, one temperature (65 degrees Celcius).

I don't think there is a law here that says a railing is mandatory on stairs. You see stairs without a railing more often.

I'm afraid chances are big that this house will be "renovated" and a lot of the original design will disappear. This 70's design is totally out of fashion.

 

[foraloysius]

BTW, has anyone noticed the red coffeemaker in the kitchen is a later genereation Braun Aromaster?

 

[whirlcool]

The "Wrightian" feel comes from the brick walls, fireplace and tile floors. All the furniture is rather low. This is where that feeling comes from. Plus the house seems rather dark inside, Wright homes often have this same feeling in the Prarie style homes.

 

[davey7]

FLW

FLW actually was pretty influential, albeit briefly, in Dutch residential architecture just before WWI. I think it was due to a German publication of his work and, I think, a personal visit (if you'll remember and recall, a visit with his mistress and client [and client's wife] Mrs. Cheney, which caused a scandal as his wife Catherine was back home in Oak Park) around that time.

The thatch roof seems very South African to me.

 

[hydralique]

Using thatch as a roofing material is ancient and was common in many cultures because it was a cheap and easily available material. It was also lightweight and thus could be easily carried by individual men without much in the way of tools. I believe that today the UK has more thatch roofs than any other first world country which means traditional thatching methods are known and available in much of Europe. Unit masonry like brick is also very traditional to northern and western Europe, again because the raw material (clay) was cheap and available and it could be made by simple methods.

Wright had a gift for publicity and was well published during his lifetime. During the early 20th century architecture was in the midst of a modernist revolution influenced by many entities from the Viennese Secessionists to the Bauhaus. Wright was as good as anyone but unlike many of the others (particularly the Bauhaus) he had a real thing for ornamentation: his buildings are full of elaborate and elegant patterns in wood, glass, concrete block or whatever was available. Wright’s buildings are a real treat to be in with special spaces but they’re also very expensive to build which has limited his influence.

Wright did train a lot of young architects during his life at the Taliesin fellowship and occasionally when I see a Wrightian touch in an older building I wonder if the architect might have studied under him. E Fay Jones , who practiced in Arkansas, is probably the best known of Wright’s apprentices to closely incorporate his design concepts and make a real career out of it; his buildings are magical too. Many of the others learned from Wright but developed a more mainstream sense of Modernism.

We’re lucky that so many of Wright’s buildings survive. He could be rather experimental with structure and didn’t like to add extra strength when he felt it was unnecessary, which has lead to structural complications with many of his buildings as they age. I have clients virtually around the corner from the 1923 Samuel Freeman House in the Hollywood Hills so pass it frequently. It is owned by USC and is also a Registered Historic Place so is in no danger of being demolished but still suffers greatly from old earthquake damage. It’s been stabilized but a full repair is ferociously expensive so hasn’t been completed, thus the house exists in a twilight zone of being closed for repair indefinitely.

 

[whirlcool]

The style of homes that FLW created out west were different than the ones that were in Oak Park, IL which is where I lived when Chicago based for awhile. There are FLW designs of all differnet types everywhere. When I meant "FLW-esq" I meant the general overall feeling of the home, not the exact same details. When I see a rather dark interior with exposed brick walls and stone floor tiles along with large windows that's what I meant. If it was any more than that I would say the home would be FLW inspired. The photo of the room with the fireplace is like that.

As for living in a FLW home, I don't think I could ever do that. The kitchens are almost always an afterthought and being as dark as they are inside and especially after touring a bunch of them, I get the impression that they may also be haunted.
IMHO they are kind of a time warp environment. Modern day design and features in an old home. These homes were definitely way, way ahead of their time.

 

[gizmo]

Hi Louis, thanks for posting this topic.

My parents built their house in 1958 and that's the house I grew up in, but they were the first in the area and the surrounding suburb grew rapidly in the 1970s. My Dad was a carpenter so he was always updating, especially in the 1970s.
My parents house was unusual in that it was boomerang-shaped: a long floor plan which bent in the middle. The kitchen and laundry were odd shapes as they were in the centre at the bend. At some stage in the 70s Dad re-built the kitchen, changing it to very dark stained timber doors, gold laminex benchtops and green Heuga carpet tiles on the floor. Carpet in a kitchen - disgusting!

The house features in Louis's original post reminds me strongly of the 1970s houses that sprung up near my childhood home. (though they were single storey and nowhere near as grand.) While not really a fan of the colour schemes of the 1970s, I think the house designs of the period are very appealing, often cleverly laid out with thoughtful features. I think later homes are often rather bland.

The thatch roof would never be approved here - too much of a fire risk in our climate. Most house roofs here are clay tile, concrete tile or corrugated steel.