Steven, Michael and the pup is Bobby.
Rochester Steven has completed some drop dead gorgeous updates to his 1957 Alcoa Aluminum house, and shares the details and images. This is the third story on these late-1950s “demonstration” houses. We first featured a time capsule for sale in Wisconsin. I think that’s how Steven found this blog, and we featured his house in New York state, along with the home’s original brochure, just a few weeks later. There were only 23 of these houses built — and Steven, Michael and Bobby are amazing caretakers. This house will knock you off your chair — it’s worthy of Architectural Digest.
Pam, There are three areas that we have addressed in the past several months:
1. Restored the house back to the original color of purple (the front anyway, have to work on the back next spring). It was painted brown some years ago, most likely due to the unsightly fading over the years of the purple that we have seen on a couple other Alcoa houses. We removed one of the aluminum panel pieces from the garage and retrieved the color from the un-weathered side of it.
2. Partially restored the kitchen. When the kitchen was gutted and remodeled years ago the upper metal cabinets were installed in the storage area of the garage. We had them painted the light blue that you see now at an auto shop and reinstalled them. I think that the Auto Body painting worked out great. Especially when it is metal. It was a bit of a pain to cart them all over there!!! Since we only had the original upper cabinets we went with some simple black faced cabinets to complete the lower ones with white Corian for for the counter. We also reconfigured the layout of the kitchen to more reflect the original kitchen in the brochure. The bottom cabinets are made out of wood with black lacquer paint and aluminum pulls… they were purchased at IKEA and are quite inexpensive. The tiles are new tiles with a vintage feel and were purchased locally. We selected the color of both the back splash tiles and the cabinets so that they relate nicely to the multi-colored ["Mondrian"-style] cabinets [shown just below] that face the family room
(The “Mondrian” cabinets are original to the house. I believe that all of the Aloca houses that were built had these unless another option was specified. They are wood with Formica facing.)
3. Family Room/lounge area has been furnished with many great finds from local shops and online. Still somewhat of a work in progress……….
We were able to see another Alcoa house that was located in Pittsburgh this fall when we went down to see Fallingwater. We got out of the car and were looking at it and the owner saw us, greeted us and invited us in for a tour, What a treat!!!!!! It was so interesting to see the subtle differences between our home and his.
Woah. Thank you, Steven. This is fantastic. Understatement. What a marvelous place you have created. And a purple house! Who woulda thunk it. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I am for sure coming to visit next summer. Perhaps you can adopt me.
Readers, to get to more of Steven’s photos, available on his flickr stream, click on any of the photos in this post.
Simply STUNNING !! I checked out more photos of Flickr and I am AMAZED! Fabulous!
Maryann
Awesome house. You’re doing a great job guys.
Even the chimney is purple! Love the green door; a hint of what you’ll find inside. Love the landscaping too. What a super place.
It’s so welcoming. I don’t honestly like a lot of midcentury stuff but I could live in THAT house!
Wow!
What a great home.
This is the look I wanted-but, unfortunatly took a wrong turn somewhere. Congratulations for staying on-track.
Pam is correct-what you have created is “magazine worthy”. I would be pulling strangers in off the street for tours!
Really amazing home! I absolutely love the purple exterior as well as the Mondrian-inspired cabinetry. The tile color you chose for the backsplash looks wonderful! And I would be interested to know more about the pattern on the windows in the family room/lounge. Is it screening or is it decaling?
I’m in Buffalo and can’t believe such a great home is located so close! Thanks for sharing.
Your house is fantastic, inside and out. I’m so happy to see the Mondrian kitchen cabinets. I’m thinking of doing a similar look in my kitchen. Question: What flooring do you have in the kitchen and family room?
Thanks for all the nice feedback. It has been a great experience jumping head first into this project and being enveloped in the period. Many of our friends gasped when seeing the house for the first time….empty and in need of work, and couldn’t quite understand why we would make such a move. I guess this kind of space is not for everyone but most have since come around.
There are aluminum grills on the front and back windows and they are attached to the outside of the window frame. They are easily removed for the grand task of window washing. Each one of them has a number written on the back, we were told that some parts of the house were delivered on flatbeds so many pieces were numbered for easy assembly.
The kitchen floor has vintage looking linoleum and all of the carpeting in the house are carpet tiles from FLOR.
What memories. When I got discharged from the Army in 1957, I was offered a job, by moving to Agusta having the house built and act as a saleman for the building. Was supposed to join Country Clubs etc and promote the heck out of the project. Only trouble at that time was the building codes. I decided not to take the position, not because of the project, but I had spent some 16 weeks in Augusta going through basic and then Military Police training. I had enough of Agusta . Really a great city but wanted to get back North to be with my family. THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES.
Very cool.
What a visual treat, inside and out! I am swooning over those windows with the geo-patterned wire, the teardrop pendant lights and the aqua/chartreuse/black/white cabinets!
Outstanding.
I’m awestruck! “Architectural Digest” is right. Have the Mondrian-style cabinets held up that well over the years or have they been restored?
So gorgeous. Now I know exactly what I want to do in my own kitchen: Mondrian-style in blue, orange, and yellow. Thanks for sharing and thanks for the inspiration.
Just beautiful. I can remember when they built and featured those Alcoa houses. I don’t think there was one here (Detroit), but our neighborhood got a compeititor, a steel house. When I was little, we went to the open house on it, and everything was steel. Stainless appliances and fixtures in the bathroom, too. I drive buy it often and it still looks solid, though the siding has all been covered and made to look like the neighboring houses. It isn’t in a great area and a lot of vacant lots are in there now.
Oh wow, I can’t imagine living in a place like that, what a dream! And thanks so much for sharing!
The cabinets have not been restored, they are tough with Formica fronts.
Elaine….You do have one in Detroit!!!!!!! If you look at the sales brochure(page 15) that I have posted you will see a list of locations where the models were built. 30761 Northgate Drive, Detroit Mi.
Here is a google map address, you can identify the house easily by the cut-outs in the the roof for the courtyard: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=30761+northgate+drive+detroit+michigan&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=50.291089,78.837891&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=30761+Northgate+Dr,+Lathrup+Village,+Oakland,+Michigan+48076&ll=42.515741,-83.22842&spn=0.002883,0.004812&t=h&z=18
Cool! I’ve driven by the one we have here in the Minneapolis area – I hope someone fixes it up as nicely as you’ve done with yours… Great job!
That’s stunning! Simply gorgeous!
I LOVE your kitchen. I know now what I want for mine, too… such a great modern yet cheerful, fun look. The rest of your house is amazing, too. Thanks for sharing!
I was wondering too about your windows… I assume they are single paned aluminum. That’s what we have, in Berkeley, CA, and I cannot imagine having them in a place that gets as cold as Rochester! How do you keep your heating bills from getting astronomical?
Believe it or not but all of the windows are double pane!!!!! The overall utilities are not much more than the house that we moved from that is smaller and 30yrs newer. What helps is the way that the house was designed we seldom need to use the air conditioning.
Steven, I never tire of looking at your photos for inspiration. What’s even better is that my husband, a slow to be MCM fan, likes your home too. In particular, he is coveting your Starburst Mirror. Is it vintage or is that something you found new?
Hi Alice
He has got a good eye liking 1 of the 2 items(pottery barn lamp on right) in that room that is not vintage……we found it online.
Exposure to MCM will win him over eventually, some of our friends were reluctant at the start too. Michael and I often say when the time comes how will be able to live in a non MCM place
Steven – the answer to my query cracked me up this morning!! I clearly have my work cut out for me with my husband/fellow MCM retrorenovator! Thanks for the time for the answer.
Again, love you place and the excellent work and choices!
Great house and love how it looks.
I love it ! I was born in ’64. And, I think this is about the style of that time. I want to build something like this on the mountain lot I bought last year. I am living on the other side of the globe, by the way!
What does “Mondrian” mean? Who would have thought PURPLE???? When I think ’50s, purple doesn’t come to mind, but it is beautiful. (Purple is actually my favorite color.) Here in the Denver area, it was quite common for people to have metal cabinets and appliances re-painted professionally by Denver Buick, in its body shop. It was actually a big part of the business, and they even picked up and delivered. I remember when the folks had our pink refigerator painted coppertone, and a friend had her pink refrigerator painted turquoise. And, in 1964, my parents bought a GE “Gold Medallion” home. I wonder how-many of those there were and where they are. Ours was actually the model that we bought from the builder, because my parents didn’t want to wait for one to be built, and I don’t recall whether he built any more in that subdivision or not.
Joe, Mondrian was an artist. Put the word into my Search box – before I started talking about them, I did a post…
I could sooo live here…
I love seeing all that color!! Looks so liveable for today, too. If you haven’t contacted Atomic Ranch (magazine) yet, you should. This is the best example of mid-century — and fun — I’ve seen!
I grew up in Brighton and remember the house when it was purple during my childhood. Every time we drove by my Mom would point out to me, “That house is made entirely of aluminum.” I am curious how you came up with the compass for the floor bathroom. Was that in the original who is it something you came up with? It’s very cool. Congratulations on all you efforts. It is looking quite handsome.
We have a friend who is an interior designer and he came up with the floor design and it was not original to the house….ends up being one of my favorites!!!!! Pam posted a story here at the site if you want to read more about it.
Do you still live in Rochester?