For the young family in the budding years, a ready-built house is often the wisest first fling in home ownership. You can see the house in finished form and, figuratively, try it on for size. And you are free as a bird to shop the whole real estate market to check value versus sales price. This, in fact, you must learn to do discerningly. Seek basic facts-the house size in square footage, the lot size, the worth of the land. the landscaping, the equipment supplied with the house, the over-all quality of design and planning. These are the essentials that determine value-not color schemes or a cute front door or a tricked up powder room.

A marked advantage of the ready-built house is that the development builder can put it up for less than you could duplicate it. And he passes some of his savings along to you. He buys materials and equipment in quantity and he builds in quantity which reduces the cost of the individual house. Quantity building can also give greater value per dollar. This house is manufactured by Scholz Homes, Inc. Its major elements framework, walls, windows, for example-are fabricated in factories throughout the country and sold as a "package" to Scholz builder-dealers. The builders install the foundation slab or basement, the heating, plumbing, wiring, general finishing details. The manufacturer's package includes roofing materials, doors, closet units, kitchen appliances, hardware as well as the prefabricated framework and walls. Mass produced by factory methods, such parts as the exterior wall panels are precisely cut and nailed and are free from moisture or imperfection. Windows may include insulating glass, are factory installed in the 4' to 8' wide panels, and the exterior board and battens facing is factory applied. Such exact production-line manufacture makes for sounder construction, and sounder value, than you are likely to get for the same money when the whole house is put together by hand on the site.

In appearance the manufactured house differs little, if at all, from its handmade brother as this house demonstrates. Its exterior was designed to conform with architectural style restrictions imposed in many communities. But the living-dining room has a gabled window wall that gives the interior a contemporary spaciousness. It makes the room as high as the house and it seems to take in the paved terrace outdoors. The plan indicates how well the rooms are related, with a minimum of hall area. Yet sleeping, living and kitchen areas each have privacy.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | June 1959

 

The architects' conviction that the best storage is unseen worked out as successfully in the kitchen (usually the most over-stocked room of all) as in the rest of the house. Walls freed from the usual hanging cabinets and a sparkling blue, gray and white color scheme give the kitchen a sense of space and tranquility, making it an inviting spot for children's dining and occasional family meals. The two sleek work counters (one topped with white Micarta, the other with stainless steel) hold dishes, place mats and cooking necessities in addition to the under-counter dishwasher and warming oven. Food is stored in two walk-in rooms (one refrigerated, the other not) near the service entrance where a package receiver takes deliveries. An equally capacious walk-in china closet near the dining room holds everything needed for table settings, down to the last finger bowl.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | February 1959

 

After the children marry and go off to homes of their own. father and mother have won their independence. Once more there are just two of them. This can be a time of new freedom, leisure and fresh horizons. It proved so with the Irving Zions. When both their children had married and Mr. Zion, an attorney, had rounded out 12 years as Mayor of Lawrence, Long Island, he and Mrs. Zion gave up their big, old house and built a compact new one in the same community. Originally they intended to spend winters in New York. But the house did so much to pamper them and free them from care that they are now busy with local activities all year round. It has proved to be a house, not for retirement from life, but one that continually renews their interests. Many such houses are going up today in numbers rivaling those built for young marrieds.

The Zions' former house was boxy and closed in and demanded endless upkeep. The new one, in contrast, takes care of them instead of calling for ceaseless care itself. All on one level, it has no stairs to climb and consists of just four, easily managed rooms. Walnut plywood walls need no repainting, dust-catching trim is eliminated, a stone floor wants only occasional mopping. Dust circulation is discouraged by radiant heat in floor and ceiling which provides draftless warmth at an even temperature. 

On the south and east sides of the house, glass walls invite solar heat, too, so that on sunny winter days the furnace shuts off from 10 A.M. until 4 P.M., greatly reducing fuel bills. The house is equally comfortable in summer. Roof overhangs keep out the sun and indoor temperatures can be lowered 10° to 15° in less than half an hour by faucets which flood the roof with cold water.

To save steps, there are telephone jacks throughout the house, speakers for music indoors and out, pass-through storage between kitchen and dining area and a radio controlled garage door.

Best of all, according to the Zions, is their closeness to outdoors. Glass walls at the rear of the house look out on two landscaped golf courses and beyond them the boats sailing on the Reynolds Channel. The pleasures of bird watching, sunrise and sunset, a dramatic snow- fall or rainstorm, changes of season can all be enjoyed from the snug comfort of the living room. On the two acres surrounding the house, paved terraces, ground cover and gravel paths eliminate all grass cutting, while evergreens and flowering trees do away with the "manicuring" of flower beds. But thousands of spring and fall bulbs, tubs of geraniums and chrysanthemums give Mrs. Zion, a long time gardener, the flowers she loves. Now she has the leisure to enjoy them.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | March 1959

Commissioned by industrialist and philanthropist J. Irwin Miller and his wife Xenia Simons Miller, the home was completed in 1957 and is renowned for its open layout, flat roof, and integration of architecture, landscape, and interior design. The interiors were crafted by Alexander Girard, and the landscape was designed by Dan Kiley, making it a true collaboration among design legends.

Designed by architects Eero Saarinen and Alexander Girard with Kevin Roche as associate, the diverse arrangements of space give the house wonderful variety inside the 100' long and 80' wide rectangle. Entering the great central living area, which spreads to glass walls and loggias at north, south and west, you feel exuberant and ten feet tall. Then, moving on to the smaller rooms at each corner of the house you gain a pleasant sense of seclusion and privacy. Another element which adds enormously to the family's pleasure is the way the lighting is woven through the structure. Bands of intersecting skylights pierce the roof and also border the outside walls. The result is a house alive with light. There is overhead illumination by day and night in all but the bedrooms; and in every room except the bathrooms, light pours in horizontally as well from a wide window wall.

 

The old-time pantry is back-as well stocked as grandmother's was with the wherewithal for festive menus, as redolent as hers with the smells of coffee and spices and fresh baked cookies. But today's version is no longer a separate room. Instead, a line-up of colorful cabinets stores a gourmet's hoard of modern packaged foods and also provides a preparation center where these goodies can be turned into a party spread in a few minutes.

The cabinets are wood, in a rich range of finishes walnut, fruitwood or autumn tone, or solid shades of reds, greens, blues, yellows, beiges or grays. Paul McCobb designed them for Mutschler Brothers Company and inside you will find all the built-in fitments that mark well equipped kitchen storage. Mounted on free-standing uprights of satin-finished aluminum, these versatile cabinets can be set up any place you please against the wall or in the center of the room and in any combination of open shelves, closed cabinets, work areas of different heights-with or without a pass-through. You can substitute an undercounter freezer for a base cabinet if you like, since they share with kitchen equipment the same standard unit of measurement. And if you want your wall to serve as a room divider you can get matching panels to finish the ends.

H&G's own pantry wall, was designed in a combination of six colors to make a wonderful splash in an all-white kitchen. White plastic laminate was our choice for the countertop, but you might prefer wood or stainless steel. We planned the whole arrangement as a companion to the freezer wall we pioneered in September-portent of a new era in kitchen design. Another portent: the decorative, un-kitcheny look of cabinets raised off the floor on high legs (easier to clean under, too) and the handsome effect of open shelves where you can display good-looking accessories and open spaces where you can suspend onions and cheeses from hooks screwed into the top.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | December 1958

 

In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways." These words from Edith Wharton's autobiography, A Backward Glance, were written on the slip of paper Mrs. Charles W. Tobey hand ed us when we asked her how she had come to build a modern house.

"That's what inspired me," said the widow of the United States Senator. "I decided to give up the old house in New Hampshire, and start a new life." Here is the house she built for it-small, flat-roofed, open through glass walls to the Virginia countryside, in contrast to the tall, gabled, closed-in homestead she left-a proud monument to the past.

Mrs. Tobey has lived on some- what closer terms with the past than most people. She has traveled extensively, collecting antiques in villages and farmhouses in France, Italy and England, at country auctions in New England. The house in New Hampshire was filled with them. But after her husband's death, she says, she began to feel like a curator.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | December 1958