If you like the convenience of modern planning but prefer traditional decoration, there is no reason why you can't merge the two in your own house. Architect Perry M. Duncan, who is also well known for the interiors he designs, takes this point of view in his house in Connecticut. The plan takes its shape from the contours of a lake and river. The main rooms open on an outdoor loggia where family and friends gather to swim, boat or just relax. Since Mr. Duncan likes his interiors suave and polished, he has stamped the cosmopolitan character of the house right at the front door. He made the hall low and shadowy in contrast to the high, sunlit rooms at either end. The walls are painted black- plum, lighted from a frosted panel set in a pale pink ceiling. The floor is beige travertine. These colors. repeated throughout the house, form a unifying framework. On the next four pages, you will see this modern-traditional blend illustrated by French and Italian antiques at home with modern structural materials. Mr. Duncan used the same approach in de- signing a small house across the lake for his daughter, Mrs. Kimball Blanchard.
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source: House and Garden Magazine | June 1951
As our way of life becomes more informal and appliances get better-looking and more efficient, kitchens are again becoming the center of family life. The one shown here, planned by General Electric, is a good example. Its hub is a U-shaped island which contains an automatic laundry, Disposall, sink, dishwasher and storage, together with a bar and a soda fountain. When you work behind this counter, you face a reversible dining-games table and can talk easily with people sitting at it. Food is prepared on counters which form an L along the two back walls and incorporate the stove. Storage for food and utensils is under these counters and also in wall cabinets of a new type whose counterbalanced doors swing up at the flick of a finger. Refrigerator and freezer are next to the service entrance. An attractive architectural feature is the way two wide, shallow steps lead down to the living room. At one side is a built-in bookcase-desk, complete with telephone and housekeeping files; at the other a stone fireplace. If your kitchen is in full view of your living area, take a tip from this decoration. Bar, bookcase and furniture could all be of rare woods, their surfaces impregnated with plastic to resist heat, acids, alcohol. Fabrics could be nylon, Fiberglas or plastic yarns which are so easy to clean you can choose pastels without worrying. Indirect over-all lighting between redwood beams gives a sense of outdoors.
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source: House and Garden Magazine | June 1951
You can't change the weather but you can analyze its make-up and welcome only the parts you want to live with in your house. Before building his house in Raleigh, North Carolina, architect Henry L. Kamphoefner (he is Dean of the School of Design at North Carolina State College) compiled all the weather information he could and set to work accordingly. He found that summer temperature in Raleigh hovers in the 80's, sometimes goes as high as 104°, and since relative humidity ranges between 70 and 90 per cent, good ventilation is essential not only at night but throughout the day. Most of the breeze (80 per cent) is south- west, veering southeast, so these are the best exposures except for the hot westerly sun. Keeping these facts in mind, he angled his house broadside to the breeze, faced the living wing to the shady southeast; put the bedrooms (where ventilation is most important at night) on the sunnier southwest. Outlets at the roof ridge keep the air in motion. Indoors, the rooms depend on cork and flag- stone floors for visual coolness. Thanks to these weather-wise design techniques, this southern house enjoys indoor climate 10 to 15 degrees cooler than nature provides.
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source: House and Garden Magazine | May 1951
Through the almost continuous expanse of glass of this handsome house on the crest of a hill near La Grange, Missouri, Mr. and Mrs. W. Emery Lancaster can look out upon their family acres of Mississippi valley farm and woodland. In this view, the guest wing is on the left, the living room at far right. Behind the living room is the dining room—and beyond, the service wing. From his desk in the master bedroom—his "country office"—Mr. Lancaster can oversee his farming operations. William F. Deknatel, Chicago, was the architect. Samuel R. Lewis and Associates, Chicago, designed the heating system.
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source: House and Garden Magazine | May 1951
Mr. and Mrs. Arthur U. Hooper’s house at Baltimore, Maryland, forms an index to the rapid change in our pattern of living. Only in the United States, where standards of comfort and convenience advance daily, could a house grow old in 26 years. Built in 1925, it was considered modern as the minute in every way. But by 1948, although still in good shape, overhauling was indicated. The Hoopers asked architect Marcel Breuer to do the job. First on the list was bigger and better quarters for their two little girls (preferably near the ground level). The solution they hit on was a new wing adjoining the master bedroom at one end, the play yard at the other. A new garage tucks in underneath. The garden door became the main entrance (it is near the garage) and with the kitchen door moved around to the side, the second-story passage forming a roof overhead, this makes a pleasant outdoor anteroom. The old entrance is now a paved terrace. Inside, the house is basically unchanged but a re-organized kitchen, a modern color scheme and carefully planned storage facilities have readjusted this 26-year-old house to today’s more practical living.
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source: House and Garden Magazine | April 1951
If you have four children and a sizeable lot, it’s a good idea to organize their outdoor play space as carefully as their quarters indoors. This is the plan architect Alexander Smith Cochran worked out for his own family. On the generous site in Baltimore, he has included such second-generation essentials as a sandbox, a ball diamond, a “tenting ground,” all within voice range but not centered on the view from the wide living-room windows. Indoors, too, the house makes room for youthful exuberance. The playroom is large, has its own garden entrance and play terrace. Most of the lower story is floored with scuff-proof flagstone and asphalt tile; walls are natural plywood which tends to hide finger marks. Above you see the four youngsters—Sandy, Teddy, Gill and Carol—having their supper in the dining alcove of the large family kitchen. In conservative Maryland, which numbers among its treasures countless great Colonial houses, this modern house is winning friendly approval for its good sense, its frank recognition of the new informality of today’s living.
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source: House and Garden Magazine | January 1951
