There’s a house across the street on short sale from the lender. Bids start @ $390K — an unbelievably low price. A seemingly great value for the right person. We’re hoping an Eichler enthusiast picks it up…
This weekend, we ventured down to Mountain View to see the much-talked-about Dwell House. During the trip I discovered a few things.
First, it’s a nice house — a 2500sf (at $320/sf building cost… an overheard figure) modern home with many bells and whistles. Great neighborhood. Great schools. Walking distance to downtown. A dream home for sure and one that will make the owners (one of whom I used to work with) happy for years to come.
But what I really realized is that I really need to lower my expectations when stepping into these situations (even in fetching green booties). While the house was indeed a nice place, I wasn’t overwhelmed by anything other than it being a beautiful mod-box. I was sort of expecting next-generation homebuilding beyond the fact that the home was premanufactured, but for the most part, the bits featured here — a huge product showcase for the manufactures and advertisers in the magazine — was stuff that could be fairly easily procured at the local big box (and by the proliferation of the tags on the walls, fixtures and furniture, it did feel quite a bit like I was walking into one big ad and magazine promotion).
Perhaps I was expecting solar panels for off-the-grid living. Perhaps a laundry gray-water irrigation system to help with the nicely manicured lawn. Maybe some new and somewhat untried materials, technologies or techniques. But I didn’t notice anything like this. While it’s touted to be pre-manufactured, nothing seemed really new-new (again, save that it was simply a very nice house).
For instance, when we visited the Sunset Breezehouse a few years ago, we were introduced to SynLawn… an odd, but new-to-us product that has since taken off. Additionally, I found the indoor/outdoor architecture of the Breezehouse a bit more intriguing and one which utilized passive solar and natural breezes (thus the name). Granted, these are two different cases, but since I do find Dwell a more avant-garde magazine and the fact that a lot has happened in the building industry in the past 2 years, I was expecting more when walking in.
One of the things I found delighting was the placement of a bedroom suite and desk-set by my friends at Semigood and the efforts of Branch and Design Public. This was a great contrast to the otherwise big-box-style products in much of the house (Kohler, Electrolux, etc.) and I’m glad that Dwell is getting behind up-and-coming talent when they can.
Anyway, as I mentioned, it’s a beautiful home… some pix:
We have a new favorite furniture store, Klassik by Lynne in Emeryville… just a few blocks from our old place. Not only is Lynne and crew super nice, but they have great stuff… and they have a unique policy of letting folks try it out before committing to buy.
When we were there last, we found a neat, angular danish chair in soaped oak. It’s become Marty’s new favorite chair. Unfortunately, while it looks like the oak version of a Wassily chair — nice and boxy, it’s a bit square in the space and we’ll likely opt for a more traditional, organic Danish Modern chair for the space… which is good because Lynne has a few.
But Marty’s going to be quite upset and will have to revert to his old haunts.
We had the chance to check out a few "common interest" houses in Palm Springs (Kings Point) this weekend. A bit like a condo, these homes have shared public spaces and pools — but like a house, they have no adjoining walls and each seems to be a slight bit different. While stepping into them felt a bit Kubrick-esque with all of the white finishes, they were really neat.
And they were huge — twice the size of some Eichlers and something we did not expect from a condo-esque house. For instance, the last two images are taken in the same room from nearly the same spot (taken in opposite directions)… that bedroom is larger than many family rooms.
While the lack of true "back yard" would be a bit of a deal-breaker for me as a full-time home, it’s perfect for someone who has fewer projects or for someone looking for a retirement/vacation spot.
It was getting a bit dark, so photos were a bit hard… check out the realtor’s site for more detail and better images.
We had the chance to visit the Marmol-Radziner prefab. After Google maps had taken us through a wasteland of wrong directions, we were able to find the house after a call to the very understanding selling agents. It’s one thing to get lost in downtown San Francisco, but quite another to find your path blocked by 3 foot boulders with a fresh alignment on the car.
Once we were there, we were greeted by a very nice piece of prefab… I was really taken by the cabinetry and attention to detail throughout and geeked-out taking some upclose detail shots of the cabinetry before my battery went south. It didn’t feel "prefab" at all, but after visiting the Breezehouse during Sunset’s showplace weekend, I’m not sure what that "feel" would be anyway.
While a (really) nice house, I think a few LV buildings in an unincorporated area of Palm Springs might be more up our alley, price-wise (this one is well beyond our reach at $1.8M).
We were very fortunate to have the opportunity to learn about the architectural history of the area from Tony Merchell — a cornucopia of information and delightful candor — during an open-air bus tour this morning. Starting with the civic buildings and moving to Frank Sinatra’s house and beyond, it was well worth the sunburn. Many of the images I snapped would be meaningless without Tony’s commentary, but I’ll add a few.
Ever since I snapped a picture of a shirtless oil portrait of Kris Kristofferson that my friends Brenda and Jon kind of became obsessed with, I’ve been hyper-aware of the odd celebrity-icon art around me. And my wife’s brother has an uncanny fondness for Robert Stack. I snapped these for them.
We’re blogging semi-live (aka when we get back to the hotel room where there’s wifi) from Palm Springs this weekend. We decided to ditch the house projects and take a breather. The irony is that last time we were down here (in March of last year), my wife commented on how cool it would be to own a MCM house… little did we realize that 3 months later, we’d be knee-deep in an Eichler renovation. Too bad she didn’t mention something about a winning lotto ticket that weekend as well…
Our friend, realtor and fellow Eichler-owner, Sam Benson started a blog a short while ago. A few weeks ago he linked to this site.
One of the comments alluded to the "redneckmodern" name, so just for the record (as I noted to Sam):
"… as to the title of the eichler blog, it took two kids from virginia to move to california (and buy a modernist house) to justify the purchase of an old pickup… nothing more."
This Christmas, we’ve something to be thankful for: redneckmodern… and the house that goes with it.
