the midcentury muse

There are so many satisfying things happening at the house! I am gloating about our re-use of the original light fixtures. Here is the post about all the things we harvested from the house to use again.

We could have replaced our original fixtures with something like this, at $225 a pop.

aloha, from rejuvenation

But we kept the old ones, and they are happily re-installed this week. With 19 fixtures in the ceiling, that means we saved roughly $4000. just re-using the perfectly good fixtures we have.

You'll see them throughout, and a few others that we re-used.

Here are the orange doors. You get a teaser of the cork floor, which is being installed. It does not have finish on it, so imagine it a few shades darker. It will feel, I think, like a lawn indoors.

The architects added a cove light above the fireplace, which ties the FP to walls and ceiling beautifully.  You can see the flooring extending onto the benches. I have been looking at Knoll wool remnants on ebay to buy for making cushions.

old meets new

Here are the old lights meeting the new kitchen, where the wood ceiling folds over the beam above. While our architects (hi guys!) have suffered multiple design phases on some elements in the house, this was one of many immediate YES, we love it elements.

the before view, with mahogany paneling removed.

reinstalling bedside lamps

Here we are deciding where to hang the old bedside lamps. We are also re-installing three alien lamps on the north wall. My friend Mark Butler took an Ikea version of one of these and played crazy man alien with it and ever since I cannot look at one without thinking of him. I toyed with going all Martha Stewart on these and getting them painted an autobody shop. I decided in the end that the brass on the bedside lamps would be lonely without them, and if we weren't changing the others, these would stay the same too.

alien lamps in the bedroom

Alien as they are, the are the perfect length in relation to the beam and the open space above it. You can see our Tom Dixon mirror ball kissing the ceiling in the dining room beyond. Once it gets hung above a table, I think it will feel right at home.

That's it for now! Move in is now scheduled just before Halloween.

Treehouse

Our house is a treehouse, and it especially feels like one now with all the windows removed.

On nice days the carpenters pull down all the masonite and it is open all the way through. It is quite a feeling!

We got our letter today about our bid for the state tax freeze application. At this stage, they do not feel our house qualifies because of the changes we made to the front windows (see this post on structure) and the amount of removal we have done on the interior. We anticipated this, but I am still a little disappointed, mostly from a preservation perspective.

After going through this process, I wish there was a middle ground, where a more moderate tax incentive is offered to homeowners who preserve a period structure on the exterior. The interior preservation is so worthwhile for posterity, but is not always in the homeowner's best interest. For contemporary use, resale value, and to carefully update our home to current code, we elected to make some changes that are significant on the inside. But on the outside, the house is virtually unchanged and will be the same as it has been for fifty years from the perspective of the Village or the neighbors. And I think it is worth providing an incentive to keep the variety of styles, ages, and housing types in our Village and the neighboring cities and communities. Without any incentive to preserve the building, it makes financial sense to raze homes and build anew, so that the structure, insulation, wiring, ducting can be brand new and up to current standards.

Once the project is complete, we may go back to them and show what we have done and ask them to consider our application again. And at the very least I'll write a letter, and renew my membership in the local preservation organizations that are fighting this fight every day.

Certificate of Rehabilitation

So we are going ahead with an application for a certificate of rehabilitation from the state. Property taxes are pretty steep here, and once the valuation on the house goes up we could be looking at significant savings over the next ten years if we freeze at the lowest valuation (next year). Also, I am interested and curious to have a conversation with the state architects about our project, and to determine how the changes we are making to the house do or do not fall in line with expectations for historical preservation. Our house is just a baby in historical preservation terms and modern and traditional architecture diverge in many ways. Here are the guidelines:

Illinois Standards for Rehabilitation

1. A property shall be used for its historic purpose or be placed in a new use that requires minimal change to the defining characteristics of the building and its site and environment.

Good on this one. It's a house, we are using it as a house.

2. The historic character of a property shall be retained and preserved. The removal of historic materials or alteration of features and spaces that characterize a property shall be avoided.

We are removing elements and altering spaces, and this gave me pause. So far, however, conversations about this with the state are relatively positive. It seems preserving a certain proportion of critical elements in public spaces and the house overall is key.

3. Each property shall be recognized as a physical record of its time, place, and use. Changes that create a false sense of historical development, such as adding conjectural features or architectural elements from other buildings, shall not be undertaken.

I love the purity of this one. Absolutely.

4. Most properties change over time; those changes that have acquired historic significance in their own right shall be retained and preserved.

This is the one I have been thinking about the most. We are the first ones to alter this house after the original owner and builder. If we think 200 years down the line, our architects are the ones who are making changes that will acquire that layer of historical significance. How many Villa Savoye-inspired rocket ranches on pilotis are there in Illinois, anyway? The changes they are making, particularly lining up the structural grid (more on this in the next post) are important. I feel we are making the house more true to its bones.

5. Distinctive features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property shall be preserved.

Note that it does not state explicitly that they need to remain in place. We have removed the paneling and light fixtures to re-wire and re-insulate. Virtually all the material in good condition will be re-used and much will go back in the same place it came from: sustainability, design and budget practicality all align here. However, some materials have been removed, and some material will be installed in new locations.

6. Deteriorated historic features shall be repaired rather than replaced. Where the severity of deterioration requires replacement of a distinctive feature, the new feature shall match the old in design, color, texture, and other visual qualities and, where possible, materials. Replacement of missing features shall be substantiated by documentary, physical, or pictorial evidence.

Luckily we do have pictorial and drawing evidence for the few removed elements (from our time and the Gutnayer's time), so one could return the house to an earlier state if desired.

7. Chemical or physical treatments, such as sandblasting, that cause damage to historic materials shall not be used. The surface cleaning of structures, if appropriate, shall be undertaken using the gentlest means possible.

Yup.

8. Significant archaeological resources affected by a project shall be protected and preserved. If such resources must be disturbed, mitigation measures shall be undertaken.

I wonder if the vintage Sunfish that is still on the side of the house qualifies as an archeological resource.

Sunfish, anyone?

9. New additions, exterior alterations, or related new construction shall not destroy historic materials that characterize the property. The new work shall be differentiated from the old and shall be compatible with the massing, size, scale, and architectural features to protect the historic integrity of the property and its environment.

I appreciate this idea. So architectural and modern in its essence—what is new should be new—related, compatible, but having its own distinct design.

10.New additions and adjacent or related new construction shall be undertaken in such a manner that if removed in the future, the essential form and integrity of the historic property and its environment would be unimpaired.

Nice and logical. Touch lightly and make future restoration easier to do. Our additions touch lightly in this way.

We still aren't sure if we will get it: we won't know for a few months and the state has asked for more drawings. At this point it is difficult to predict what will happen with taxation rates and property values, so figuring out cost/benefit is a bit...speculative. We maintain the attitude that we will continue to do what is best for the house, preserving as much of its character and material as we can while shoring it up and making it ours.

au revoir chandelier

The cast iron pieces that Gutnayer installed in the house left this week. With the help of the state architectural historian Anthony Rubano and Chicago architectural salvage scion Stuart Grannen, we pieced together a bit of the history of the items. The sconces are theatre sconces, hopefully Stuart will find out where from. Gutnayer apparently had four of them, and he took the other two, cut them down and had a base made for the dining room table, which he described as 'turkish bookended marble'. Stuart described the marble on the table as the kind used in building construction, which makes sense given how many leftover construction materials were used in the house! The chandelier was identified by Stuart as probably 1940s, so if it came out of an English Castle (as Gutnayer claimed it did), it must have been a recent purchase. Stuart will pass them on to good homes.

These were still working perfectly with all the bulbs burning after a number of freezing winters.

Harvesting continues!

demo begins

We are doing the 'harvesting' this week, carefully dismantling all the elements in the house we hope to re-use. It is exciting to see the rooms start to become more anonymous. As we took the last furniture and things out of the house, we both started to feel a little sad for the house and its impending transformation from its original state. The harvesting of materials for re-use feels like breaking us in gently.

Interesting to see that framed-in slatted door. It appears in drawings
of Gutnayer's and I wondered where it had been.

 

Kitchen, minus all the cabinets and appliances.
We are taking the walls away...I can't wait to see through this room!

Kitchen from the dining room. Note the beam that lands...where?

The kitchen has a dropped roof, and I think what you see here
above the bit of insulation are the roof planks.
They run the opposite direction from the interior ceiling boards.
Those tongue-in-groove members are about 21/2-3" thick.

 
The lights get a rest after 52 years!
We will re-use all these in the LR and bedroom.

Here are the cabs and the flooring in their temporary home in the garage.
We will reuse some of the cabinets for storage in the basement and utility room.



This is the tongue and groove paneling that lined the kitchen volume.

The likely plan for this is to create a wood surround for the kitchen:

Ooh! Snuck in a design drawing. See the beam coming in from the upper right? That is that same beam from the picture above (the one that lands...where? Now it will land on the steel column). We are getting pretty close on the design, with some really wonderful details I can't wait to share. Friends will note in this view the, ahem, similarity in layout to our old house. The house was essentially lined up in the same kind of configuration as our Seattle house. Take out a couple walls, and voila! As our architect tactfully said, if it worked for you guys before... .

Technology

J. Marion used state of the art technology in his home. We hope that continues to bode well as we start to peel away the layers of materials to get down to the structural elements. A couple of our favorite elements are his stereo, which had built in speakers in the sideboard in the dining room:

Those who know Reed and remember his speaker system in our old house will understand that this made total sense to us. I will post pictures of the stereo, which is a big box with the turntable inside. It came with construction drawings which I found in the living room storage along with a series of articles about building bomb shelters.

There are two giant dimmers like this one:

 

They feel wonderful to operate. You can sense the scale by comparing them to the lowly standard wall switches just to the left. This is a serious piece of lighting equipment.

This OSB composition board has caught the eyes of the architects. I love it. They have said that is a pretty early application of this material. It is the wall material in the kids bedrooms.

On Saturday the Illinois Historic Preservation architect comes out to talk to us about what we would need to replace/restore/retain if we were to apply for Landmark status and benefits (a ten year property tax freeze!) We are looking forward to meeting him. We will be holding our breath about the replacement of the blown aluminum windows (the 40 feet of them on the front facade in particular) which is a big ticket item already and could get much bigger if we are required to keep everything quite close to the original. We'll see...

Slow Going

We are in the process of choosing an architect, working through the choice between two different firms. One is a design/build firm and the other would likely come with a construction manager as part of the process. It is a slow process being thorough about making a balanced choice. They are both great options and it is really hard to choose which way to go. It feels a bit like looking at two big, expensive wrapped gifts and trying to pick one.

So, in the interim, Ive been working on getting J.Marion's papers into safer, drier, warmer places than our house, and it looks like we will have some success. I have found lots of his houses around to drive by,and buildings too. As the dispersal of the images become imminent, we are figuring out what we might like to keep ourselves.

The same questions will come up regarding interior details. Here are some good ones that we hope we can keep, and some that will surely go, but give us a sense of J. Marion and Alice's funky style.

The master bedroom. Lamps and built in headboard with blanket storage and closet on the rear side.

 

master bath tile.

second bath tile and velvet stripe wallpaper.
J. Marion specified some awesome wallpapers in his projects.
Silver foil sunsets in one kitchen, huge musical notes in another kitchen.

the circular stair.

Even beautiful with white carpet and plastic tread.

Originals

(11/05/09) I recently found two more interior photographs and a little more information about when and why they were taken. Gutnayer put his house on the market in 1973, and these photos were the interior shots from the sales materials (which look like old test results from elementary school: how marketing has changed!). He wrote a letter to the agent cancelling their agreement around selling the house because they could not get an offer at their asking price ($156,000). Lucky for us, I think. So below I have added the other two interior views. Don't miss the huge paintings in the dining room. I will try to identify them from his art inventories.
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I got a request for more images, so here they are. We are working on making our architect choice and I am meeting with landscape architects: gotta plant some new trees to replace the cottonwood tree cover that came out. The operative word for our house with the designers has become 'tree house'. Also news on getting the house local landmark status will be coming up: I am starting discussions with a local historian who does those requests.

Here are some images of how the interior and exterior of the house looked in the 50s. And a photo of Gutnayer's immigration card.

J. Marion. DP stands for Displaced Person.

early view of the house.

That window is 40 feet long. I want to expose it all, but we will see what the architects think. Right now it is broken up by some bookcases (that might be bearing some structural weight!) and a maid's room. You can also see the original roof garden structure which is no longer there.

 

interior looking west.

 

interior now.

Paintings on the wall to the right are Courbet and the like.

African art all over as well. Couch and coffee table remain.

View to the east. 'Structural' bookshelf to the right.

 

that same spot now. So much wood, and so many different kinds!

interior, dining room. Table and chairs are still here.

I'm hoping to find a buyer for them somehow, someway.

master bedroom.

that crazy growth to the left of the door?
who knows...must be a sculpture because it is no longer there.
Can you imagine sleeping with that figure looking at you?
I wonder if they had a name for her.

Some visitors seem mildly icked out by the master bedroom opening on the living room, and there is inevitably an uncomfortable joke made about the evening's entertainment! I think I spent enough time in unconventional houses as a kid (those 70's treehouses in Marin and Sea Ranch come to mind) that I am not phased by this layout. The bedroom will be a great art gallery, because all it can really have in it is the bed. The wall to the right inside the bedroom has a picture rail: I hope we keep it as an artwall.