Today we have a 1963 time capsule house for sale in Bowie, Maryland. And we are going to play a new game: “Keep It or Change It?” To start:
Note to afficianados: Those are steel kitchen cabinets with laminated doors – all original.
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Thanks to Bill Franklin, the listing agent, and to Jonathan Benya, a buyer’s agent where we first spotted these photos. The house is a great deal for Bowie, check it out on the listing on Jonathan’s website. Thanks, also, to the bundle of readers who sent me this listing — you guys just rock, it’s so much fun to get your tips!
Pam, this is so exciting!!! I opened today’s post and almost fell out of my chair. That’s my neighborhood!! I have the same model of home (the 1963 Cape Cod) in Bowie, MD, built the same year. Retro Renovation came to my town!! (well, virtually)
The neighborhood was built by Levitt and Sons and there is a little museum up the street in the old 1800s Belair mansion (the estate where all the land came from) where you can buy repros of the original catalogue that the developers gave out. My model home (and the model above) sold for about $15,500 brand new. The neighborhood (which is probably well over a thousand houses?) is a mix of original owners and younger couples (like my husband and I) and families looking for something affordable and safe with a yard in the Washington DC area. Several models were built through the 60s and into the 70s: the featured Cape Cod, a two story colonial, an awesome brick rancher (available in two sizes), and the premier model called “the Country Clubber” which is sort of cape cod / colonial hybrid, mostly with stone fronts.
I bought my house from the original owner. It had some of the original details intact: the parquet floors, the pink and blue bathtubs (toilets and sinks had been replaced) and an awesome slate hearth that goes the full length of the living room. The kitchen and some of the other rooms had some 80s upgrades that I have been slowly undoing and bringing it back like its 1963 (on a budget and not quite as vivid as the house above) I have 80s oak cabinets (now painted) but the original steel cabinets and sparkly formica are in the shed/workshop in only fair condition. I’m saving up to rip out the builder beige carpet in the bedrooms and den and put in cork floors. I found an original pink sink and toilet from a neighbor who ripped hers out. She knew I was looking and even delivered the fixtures to my house. I came home from work one day to find a pink toilet on the porch. Retro renovation Santa had visited in my absence! My husband is a little skeptical about making our bathroom MORE pink but he’s willing to give it a whirl.
The neighborhood (technically its own city) is a great ‘mid-century modest’ capsule. The schools (incorporated into the residential areas so kids can walk) and city hall have all retained their 60s and early 70s flair.
Buying my Bowie Cape Cod is what brought me to Retro Renovation in the first place, when I became the owner of a (half) pink bathroom and I have been a daily reader ever since! My house is the reverse color scheme of the one above. White with dark green shutters and doors. With the 40 year old azaela bushes lining the front, that the original owner planted, it is a lovely place to come home to! I am an Army officer in Afghanistan right now and I can’t wait to get back there. Thank you Pam for coming to Bowie and letting me ramble about my own home!
Lucky you! Sounds like a great place to live, just as it was originally designed to be.
Mariah, I woke up to see this post and have to say you have made my day! Thank you SO MUCh for sharing all this information. Moreover, the thought of you reading every day from Afghanistan is so incredible to me. THANK YOU for all you are doing for our country, what we do here is miniscule by comparison. When you get back, I’d love to get some photos of your house and your projects! TAKE CARE, GIRL!
That is so cool, Mariah! I’m sure you have already thought about this, but you may want to let the realtor and/or new buyers know that if they decide to redo the kitchen or baths, you will purchase the fixtures. You can also offer to do the dismantling yourself to make sure you get every little fixture – undamaged. It would be a win-win for everyone involved!
How can I find out the name and contact information for the museum? I’d love to get my hands on the catalog they sell. Any help would be greatly appreciated. And, lucky you for getting the chance to live in such a time capsule! ljb
Lindda,
The BelAir mansion museum is open from Tues – Sun, noon to 4. The office is open Mon-Fri 8:30 to 5. Its located on 12207 Tulip Grove Rd in Bowie, MD.
The office number is 301-809-3089. The little gift shop that sells the catalogues should be open the same time as the museum.
Give them a call, they do special events sometimes (demonstrations, open houses, high tea, historical lectures) It can also be reserved for weddings or parties.
If anyone gets a chance, go at CHRISTMAS! They have an amazing “colonial living Christmas’ demonstration tour of the house and stables.
Enjoy!
Mariah
My daughter purchased her first house this month. It is just around the corner from mine. We can wave to each other from our back yards! Her house is similar in size & style to mine, 2 BR. 1 BA, slightly less than 1000 sqft. We had the plumber & electrician out already and the central heat & air installed. Next is painting the interior. She is having a ball fixing up her new old little house! I think in our case it must be a heriditory thing, loving old houses!
Wow! I can go visit. Bowie platted in the fifties is arranged by alphabet. So, streets cluster together like:
Melody Lane
Master Blvd.
Mohican Way
and
Panther Drive
Pansy Street
(Not the real names, ‘cept for Melody and Panther…I have friends who have lived on those streets.)
The whole thing sounds like a retro-wonderland.
Fantastic bathrooms and kitchens. It would be madnss o undo all that amazing wallpaper, since it is from the original and with period fixtures. Normally I would vote against most any wallpaper, but those are just so perfect!
I gotta say that I hate the living room though. The earth tones and mirrors are too seventies looking forme. Great space,but i’m not sold on the look.
Wish could move in! Sounds like an amazing neighborhood.
LEAVE IT!! We are house hunting right now, and I would give anything to find something like this! Love it:)
I grew up in a Levitt development in NJ. My parents bought it in 1963 and later that year I was born. When I looked at this link, I knew right away this was a Levitt house. So I check the listing and it was the “Cape Cod”. We lived in the “Colonial” it had a pink bathroom, a blue bathroom and a yellow 1/2 bath. At the time I didn’t realize that they were quite luxurious for the time. Radiant floor heating, baseboard heat upstairs and CENTRAL AIR!! Plus only a 35 minute commute to Manhattan, what more could you ask for? Loved and miss my Strathmore house. Thanks so much for posting!
What a geart RetroRenovation Day this is! Thanks for the interaction.
i do try to mix it up
Love the snowflake paper! I’d get some snowman/skiing themed towels.
Are those kitchen cabinets metal, wood, or a mix of the two?
Patty, I mention it in the post but it’s kind of hard to see what with all that wallpaper
. Steel boxes – some kind of laminate door. Pretty kool.
I love this house! I would get rid of the office chairs in the kitchen, the red curtains and accents in the pink bathroom and take out the carpet in favor of some hardwoods.
Really a beauty!
Heck, I’d hang the wallpaper from the pink bathroom in my current place. It’s fab!
In the 1963 Kitchen, I would ditch the office chairs most definitely; store the vintage table and chairs; and replace with a set just like Pam’s new tulip set (or, even her old set).
If you look really closely you can see 4 matching chairs. I would just move the office chairs to someplace else.
I love Pam’s tulip chairs, but this chrome formica set looks too perfect to ditch.
Guy,
There ARE four chairs to the chrome and Formica table set. I missed the corner of one peeping out from the lower left of the photo.
I’d never want to give them up, but think it would be fun to change out the Formica for a tulip style set perhaps for spring/summer.
Oh my! I live about 20 minutes from Bowie. They should, of course, leave the house in its original state but I would gladly take those steel cabinets off their hands if the new owners don’t like them!
I think tulip chairs are a couple of years too modern for this–this is still kind of transitional 1950′s-to-1960′s-Mod. I’d definitely toss the office chairs, though, but I’d stick with the turquoise vinyl set (or one similar to it).
I confess this is an era of decor that I absolutely loathe, but I still wouldn’t change anything. I’m not sure how I can reconcile those two things, but I can. I don’t see how anyone could not love those bathroom fixtures–the basic styles of them are fabulous.
The exterior of that house is a classic, too. It’s a cute house and it will always be a cute house. It would be awful to change it.
I think the inside of this home should be furnished with Knoll.
Perfect choice. I agree completely.
…Florence Knoll, not the later stuff.
What a fun posting!
Pam, your answer choices show you have your finger on the pulse of your readers!
Haven’t checked the links yet, but I’d love to see close-up views of the wallpaper in the kitchen and the details in the living room.
What are those rolling desk chairs doing in the kitchen? The turquoise vinyl chairs should rise up and drive them out on the casters they rolled in on!
Any animators in the group who could make it happen?
i did have me some fun last night writing the answers.
Thanks for the tour and the chance to voice our opinions!
I just moved into a 1964 time-capsule last Friday…I’d love to have you do a poll of my house like that! I’m debating what to keep and what to change…
send me good, staged pics, wendy, this is a fun feature: retrorenovation [at] gmail [dot] com
We’re just finishing up with the unpacking…I’ll send pics as soon as I can. I think you will especially approve of the golden orange carpet in the living room!
The only thing I would change is the floors in the baths — pep it up with Dal Tile or a nice confetti mosaic floor like I have in my present bath. I love all the wallpaper. It would pain me to have to repaint over the weird wall paintings (or maybe they are adhesives?), but clearly, the walls are dirty. Maybe they could be cleaned? I would try the Magic Eraser first. The mirrors in the living room are a little strange, but I think I’d live with them for a year and see what happened. Maybe add a disco ball and see how it feels.
Hey, thanks for the feature! One note though, I’m not the listing agent on the property, I’m actually a buyers agent for it.
I love the fact that this home is getting so much attention though, hopefully it will sell very quickly to someone who can appreciate the style and retro-coolness!
I would have never expected the interior from that exterior. Love it all except for the carpeting.
Someone posted in the comments about the pink bathroom, which led me to your pink bathroom site and retrorenovation a few days ago! I was appalled at the comments on It’s Lovely that were dissing this fabulous time capsule!
I just noticed the Revere-ware pots and pans in the kitchen and the aluminum cake plate lid on top of the fridge — exactly the same as my mom’s! So apparently you *can* go home again.
Loved the voting post today. I think that’s a great way to quickly see what others feel should and should not be done to our own homes. Way to shake it up Pam! Love the house, too. The colored fixtures in the pink and blue bathrooms are to die for.
The wallpapers! Especially the bathroom wallpapers… they are perfect! Love love love it!
Fun game!
I’m obsessed with checking the results…. alas
I love that living room! I have smoked mirrors in my 70′s house too! I need those lamps! The hanging bottle is cool !
The poll – what a fantastic idea! Such fun!
Maryann
Love the quiz!
Turquoise perforated dropped can lights in the kitchen = wow. That kitchen is one for the books.
And the cabinets, eh! Knew you’d love ‘em, 52pbnj!
I think I’d lose the vertical blinds in the kitchen – just roll them out on the office chairs!
…um, “working from home”?????
I had to come back and look at these photos again.
Why? Because I opened a Restoration Hardware catalog (not sure how I got on their mailing list) and it was ALL GREIGE! Even the oak furniture has been bleached to remove all warm, golden tones. Flipping quickly through 62 pages of catalog, I think I saw one green curtain. Everything else was greige or brown. So blah!
I’m feeling better now, though, after a nice long look at these bathrooms.
Good heavens. What are people thinking? Greige is so…not right! I’ve heard several of the catalogs have gone greige. How depressing. However, I am happy to be a member of the Colour Revolt.
This is too funny! I went into RH today to pick up a paint sample of Butter for my kitchen and I asked the sales woman what people’s response has been to the new floor set and merchandise. She said it has been mixed but mostly positive. Then she asked me…I said it looked awful but then again the paint sample was for my kitchen and needed to go well with my avocado appliances! I can only imagine the comments when I left! Thank goodness for all of you folks! It is nice to know there are others like me out there who are standing firm against the GREIGE!
Pam,
That was so fun! Hope we can do it again.
You’re the best.
What a terrific place (with some slight modifications for someone who simply doesn’t do well with a lot of busy in her environment)! And it is SO CUTE on the outside! Just charming!
Pam, this has to be one of the most fun polls I have ever taken.
Love the exterior of this house- and the bathrooms, of course. It would benefit from a complete decorating re-do as a storybook, a la colonial 50′s with hardrock maple furniture with thin tufted chair pads with ties in retro “early American” fabric, a few brass eagles (LOL!!) overscaled chintz draperies, hooked rugs, a little knotty pine, perhaps- and period appliances.
When can I move in?
Thanks a lot Jeff! I just voted to keep everything as is, but guess what: you are SPOT ON! Yep, I’m right there with ya!
Thanks for the vote of confidence!!
I have seen so many beautiful homes in the midwest with just such a interior- and somewhere I have a shot in one of my books with a kitchen sporting a scotch plaid wallpaper ceiling, knotty pine cabinets, single sheet midnight blue linoleum floor with the coved base and inset white border, stainless countercap edges, copper hammered hinges and a round, scalloped pull-down breakfast table light, awwwww, and of course, hardrock maple windsor charis around a baluster form pedestal table.
Love is a many splendored thing!
I am so in love with that kitchen, especially the wallpaper and cabinets and stove.
A little off topic, but I kinda love the agent’s sense of humor. After the listing’s initial summary, which, like many real-estate descriptions, is in ALL CAPS, there’s a link that says “click here to stop the yelling.” Total win.
haha, I’ll have to go look at that! a good sense of humor (along with a compassionate heart) may be the most important thing!
WHAT???!!! I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE WALLPAPER!
I like the exterior.
What a wonderful find in Bowie! This home has so much to offer with its original dark green cement fiber shingle siding in tact, white wooden original shutters & original high quality kitchen & bathroom fixtures. Love the wooden pivoting shutter doors also in the living room & closet doors.
This post has brought back a lot of memories for me & the Levitt & Son history. I grew up not far from this area in northern Virginia. Fairfax county has a development like this one called Greenbriar. It was built a little later with over 2,500 homes from 1966-1971. I had a good friend who had this model home called the Ashley in our neighborhood,,,,,,spent a lot of time in the upstairs large dormitory style bedroom listening to records. Our house was called the Georgetown & was a 2 story 4bed center hall colonial. My parents lived there from 1974-1997 when my Dad retired & moved to Fla. Levitt built so many great communities through the decades.
A great place to call home & this particular house seems to have a great yard & nice landscaping to boot….Enjoy!!!
Am I the only one who saw that mural in the living room????? It’s the bomb!!! I would so keep that, and the smoky mirrors. Put in a few more hanging plants and I’m there!
i saw that mural!
i agree with someone else who said some things were more 70′s than 1963 – i’m thinking the mural and the mirror tiles, for sure?
Eeeeek! I believe the grey laminate fronts on the kitchen cabinets are exactly the same as my all-laminate dinette set that Pam tried to help me identify three years ago —
http://retrorenovation.com/2008/03/20/magbot-shows-us-her-awesome-all-formica-dinette/
Since these cabinets are in Maryland, and reader Ronn Ives found a similar desk in Virginia, and my dinette was found in South Carolina, there must have a been a fabricator (Lincoln Industries?) in this area doing the grey laminate. Man, how I wish I could find a kitchen like that!
Some people just have no imagination or style. How can they want to smash it up? Remodelling is fine but at least salvage what is already there.
http://lovelylisting.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/01/24/funny-real-estate-how-can-you-afford-not-to-oh-my-god-this-url-is-getting-long/
My parents house is similarly lost in the past. They were hungry children during World War II and, as a result, they never get rid of anything that’s still good. Remodeling is not a concept they understand.
My mother HATED the wallpaper in their house when they bought it in 1971. The paper is still there. Because “it’s still good.”
(Deep sigh.)
LOL!!!
My mom said the same thing about the blood-orange formica countertops, avocado appliances, and “wood” patterned olefin kitchen carpeting with names of spices and herbs written all over it.
When it was out of date in about a year after it was installed in 1974, I suggested replacing it (at age nine!) and she said, it was still “good.”
Until I showed her my friend’s mom’s kitchen down the street which looked like something out of Star Trek, and she was hooked on the remodeling bug from then on!
The wallpaper in the kiten/dining area is Ok & true to the period, but it’s used too much. It should have been used only in the dining room, with something else in the kitchen. Copper backsplash? Diamond-quilt stainless backsplash?
hey don’t be dissin’ that wallpaper, i adore it
Kitchen: I love chrome and formica but all the furniture needs to go. Try some 50′s blonde wood furniture like Heywood Wakefield or Paul McCobb that will pick up the brown/beige in the wall paper. There are even wood chairs with vinyl aqua seats, although that’s not necessary. I have two – a Thonet chair and some other unknown maker. The verticle blinds on the sliding glass doors need to go also. Something a little more 50′s would be better.
Pink bathroom: Light weight and light color fabrics will make the bathroom feel less clostrophobic. White was very popular in the 50′s.
Blue bathroom: Lose the towels and the birds. Try some solid color towels that match the colors in the butterfly.
The majority of each of the rooms is great. Just needs to have some things replaced that look like were put in the following decade (smoke mirror tiles). then just spruce up things that can be “polished” up. This is a fun idea with voting!
The bathrooms could use some vintage/retro chalkware. They have lots of it on Ebay – fish, seahorses, mermaids…
Awesome to see Bowie, MD featured here!! – My parents bought a 3 bdrm colonial in 1965 – I grew up there. My neighbors had the Cape Cods – like the one your guttin/keepin. .. And like all Levitt colonials – we had pink guest bath, blue master bath, and yellow 1/2 bath. We had a pink phone and pink refrigerator, but wood cabinets in the kitch. LOVED our home – in the “C” section… Bowie is made up of streets put in Alphabetical groupings : K section, W section, B, S, O, I, M, V, Y… you get the idea. It was the greatest place to grow up in the 60-70-80s, too bad Kathie Lee (Epstein) Gifford won’t admit that! Glad there are people still out there who are nostalgic – Bowie is filled with a lot of history and loved by those who grew up there! *Oh and the community pools were the best!
Yes the pools still are the best!!!! BBT (the one by the stables) just celebrated 50 years… It was great the dj played music through the years…I have been taking my kids for a few years now and the older ones hang out there with friends, making memories.
I’m so jealous! My parents have a 1970′s home, seeing how it looked back then, with the shag carpeting all dark cabinets, yellow and avocado green appliances, the wallpaper in the bathroom was even more amamzing. I cant even put it into words how much I love the 60′s and 70′s its depressing how when people see a house like that today they want to renovate the hole thing to crappy modern nonsense.My parents unfortunately did the same thing they changed everything around the 90′s when I was little so I dont even remember any of what it looked like before. When I start looking for a house I want to find one that still has the 70′s charm and nothing changed!
Sorry I’m so late to the game (almost two years, no big deal) but I had to share my love of this!
I just moved to Bowie into a rancher, and I’m so glad to see that some people keep their retro awesomeness! My home was mostly “updated” (I use the term loosely since the previous owners kind of half-a$$ed it- pergo instead of hardwood, blinds that don’t fit, appliances which are newer but were probably the cheapest on the market) but what look to be the original floor 1-inch tiles in the bathrooms and the yellow fixtures in my guest bath (save the toilet) remain.
I’m so glad others are keeping their retro flair – if my mother had her way, most of it would be gutted, I’m sure! I just want to turn my old and unappreciated yellow bathroom into a great place : )
Thanks for sharing!!