Another mid-century tear-down

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This house is only a mile or so away from where I grew up! There were a lot of homes similar to this built in the 50's in Hinsdale and nearby Willowbrook back then. Hinsdale was always considered kind of chi-chi, but over the past 15 years or so it has grown much more so.
The house my parents bought in 1960 for $35,000 is on the market now for well over $1.5 million. But then again it was in town in the historical district.
 
You Asked:

"Why is it being torn down? What a nice up kept home."

Because in this "Me"-oriented society of ours, many people think it's perfectly okay to destroy history so that they can impose their personal taste on an existing neighbourhood. Since mid-century houses are, in many cases, a little too recent to qualify for historic preservation protection, they are often targetted by builders and developers. Not even the finest mid-century examples are immune - more than one Frank Lloyd Wright has been threatened with teardown. At Modernism Magazine, we see this sort of thing all the time. The best thing to do is educating a neighbourhood about its special mid-century character, so that homeowners will begin to understand that mid-century is an historic period in its own right, not just something out of fashion with most people. Some education of local officials can help enormously.

When people get together and work to preserve mid-century neighbourhoods, some very good things can happen. In the 1980s, the Bay Area's Eichler houses were considered weird and outdated, fit mostly for rentals and teardowns; values were not that great by Bay Area standards. After twenty years of grass-roots preservation efforts, Eichlers can go for over a million - and these are not huge, fancy houses.

Sad to say that the handsome house in the photo is probably doomed, but its teardown could serve as a warning that the neighbourhood will change drastically and forever unless people band together to preserve its character. What will happen if nothing is done is this:

1- The new house will be much larger than the old one, spreading out as close to the lot lines as code permits. It will almost certainly be two floors instead of one.
2- The new house's bulk will block views and sight lines within the neighbourhood, cutting off light to adjacent houses, making them less desirable to live in.
3- As more teardowns happen and more big houses get built, the remaining mid-century owners will have to give up and sell out, because their houses will be hemmed in by larger ones; they will become unpleasant to live in, and will begin to look strange in the new landscape of mega-dwellings.
4- Eventually, if nothing is done, turnover will be complete. I've seen it happen.
 
From the photos I see I don't know why it would be a tear-down, it looks to be in really good shape! But, then if this home is one of the last remaining originals in an upscale neighborhood now surrounded by much larger, million dollar plus homes, well then I understand.

It's really too bad because it's a beautiful property!
 
Growing up in the San Fernando Valley north of L.A. I always thought population densities couldn't get any worse, because every square inch of land was already developed. But what Sandy describes is exactly what happened there: one by one, smaller homes were torn down and replaced with huge apartment complexes, countless mini-malls and other businesses. I would have never believed "Pleasant Valley Sunday" could be converted into something that looks and feels utterly cold and industrial.
 
Wow, I'm almost sorry I went and looked at the link. This is so terribly unfortunate. Based on the pictures I saw, a change in the exterior paint color, a light fixture or two and that hideous black refrigerator, and it would be move in condition afaic. Nothing you would build today for any cost would have the quality this house likely has. Guess all we can hope is that basically everything is put to good use/reuse.

I guess I would have thought we were "beyond" this foolishness now, with all that has happened. Friend of mine here had a "Big Fat Greek Wedding" house built next to his family's mid century ranch. Boy did that thing look stupid!

Maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't understand the fascination with these big houses. All I see is money, work and headaches. No steps for me, and I have all the cleaning I want, thank you!
 
Laundress. Thanks so much for your view on this. I totally agree with you. The development I live in, started contruction in 1958. There were three types of homes that were built. A ranch, cape code and a split level. We have the spilt level. It is nice to know that this type of house is not being built anymore, (in NJ anyway), and it is also nice to know that I own one. A couple of my neighbors, (original owners), have shown me pics of the development being built, their homes and how the street looked back then. I was so interesting to see. For the most part, almost all of the homes have taken on their own identity from the original version. Some really nice, and others not. What I mean is that, the homes had new siding, brick, and replacement windows. What I also mean by some of owners went over board and bricked the whole front, which I think that there should be some sort of a break in the facade. The upper bedrooms have an over hang. WIth the original home, some of the homes in the development had wood panels, or wooden shakes along with the other two levels that had grooved cedar shakes, which gave the house definition. The split levels all had sliding aluminum windows. These did need replacement because of the draftiness, also being worn out. We replaced ours with casement windows and a bay in the living room and family room. As soon as I am done landscaping the front, I will post pictures, and also pictures of the renovated kitchen, deck and siding.

It is nice to see that the homes took on their own identity through the years, but for the most part, most of them still keep the original look.
 
Sorry, I don't see anything special about that property. Pretty nondescript inside and out. The T111 siding is a joke in an upscale neighborhood. In some areas it would be a nice home but if the rest of the area is upscale this is decidedly downscale.
 
I should have said the Big Fat Greek Wedding house popped up next to him, he didn't put it there! LOL We both loved the movie but that's what I always call those big garish houses.

Jeff, is that song about the SF Valley? I never would have imagined. Everything historical I've read about the valley makes it out as this wonderland of candycanes and lollipops, but in this modern day I see little if any evidence of that, Sherman Oaks, Stu City and south of the boulevard notwithstanding (granted I've never been west of Balboa Blvd). I'd live in south LA before I would live in wide swaths of the valley. What the h*ll happened?
 
Scott, the song was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, and just from the lyrics, e.g. "here in status symbol land" I assumed they were talking about the SFV, or at least somewhere in southern CA. But the song's Wiki page claims Pleasant Valley Way in West Orange NJ was its original inspiration.

As far as candy canes and lollipops, the valley really was that, up until the mid-1970's. Very little traffic, no one locked their doors at night, homes were immaculately maintained etc. Looking at it now, you'd never know it ever existed, although many of the border areas (parts of Woodland Hills, the hills of Sherman Oaks and Encino, Porter Ranch above Sesnon etc) are still excellent neighborhoods. If I ever hit the lotto I'd be back there in a heartbeat.
 
danemodsandy:

We call the kind of houses you described as "zero lot line" homes, because the replacement home usually takes up ALL the landspace on the lot.
And those replacement homes are usually expensive, but it's all a facade. Underneath the fancy skin, they usually are cheaply built. After all most people these days only care about how the house looks, versus how durable it will be.

This home seems to be slightly updated. But maintained very well.
 
Such a nice mid-century home.

Brings tears to my eyes that they want to replace this with a shoebox.

~Tim
 
It is very sad to see a nice place like that being torn down-but from reading the link it sounds like the "demolition" isn't as bad as it first seems.At least the fixtures,appliances and many other things are being sold and removed for reuse.Better that than the place being smashed by the buldozers and wrecking ball and then scooped up and taken to the rubble dump.It would be best for the home to be reused-best bet is maybe the city or county there shoud NOT issue a demolition permit under the guise the place could be historical.
 
What I hate

What I hate about most new homes is that they are "French Provencial" or "Tuscan" or some other contrived style. Here is an honest design, simple and effective, to be demolished for a fake style (probably). Also the newer homes tend to be bigger for bigness sake. Lots of extra square footage to be heated, cooled, and worst of all from my point of view, dusted and cleaned!

Martin
 
Martin:

Since this is an area I work with every day, I'd like to make a fearless prediction:

In twenty years, today's monster McMansions will meet one of two fates. Those in "good" areas will be cut up into condos; as energy prices rise, one owner will not be able to afford the heating and cooling costs of a whole mega-dwelling. Those in lesser areas will become cheap apartments, and fall into disrepair; again no one will be able to keep up the whole thing as it was designed and built. Those in bad areas will very likely resemble early 20th-century houses during the mid-century years - they were considered unfashionable "white elephants," and no one wanted them, so many became extremely run-down before their historic value was recognised and they became popular restoration projects.

However, I don't see the revival of McMansions occurring after a period of undesirability and disrepair, the way that early 20th-century houses were revived. Houses built in the last 20 years don't have the construction quality that older ones do, and they depend on many components that will become unrestorable in future years. One instance of that is today's windows - I recently moved out of a 1984 house that had many of its windows inoperable, because plastic parts in their riser mechanisms had aged, become brittle, and broken. The manufacturer was long out of business, of course. For reasons like this, I foresee some serious problems with keeping today's houses in repair over the long haul.
 

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