Historic house museums aren’t just for Early American revolutionaries, pioneer settlers or Victorians any more. Yes, as appreciation for mid-20th century architecture has grown, so has the number of historic house museums. Kate and I have been working for several weeks to research and prepare what we believe is the first conclusive list of mid-century and modern historic house museums that you can visit and see. In the USA. In your Chevrolet, even.
Our list includes 59 mid century and modern house museums. A number of these are iconic, architect-designed “mid-century modern” masterpiece houses. But we also were somewhat liberal in including other early- and mid-20th historic houses that played key roles in the evolution of mid century residential architecture and the “modern” way we still live today. There are quite a few houses by Frank Lloyd Wright that fall into our “extremely influential” but not really “mid-century” category, for example.
Houses generally become “historic” for one of two reasons (or both): (1) Their architecture is special, or (2) Someone historic lived there. Reflecting this, the houses in our roundup are there for a variety of reasons — and we believe this diversity helps illuminate the story of mid-century America. In addition to the houses that are important examples of mid century and modern residential architecture, our list includes celebrity houses where Elvis, Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong lived… a number of “biographical” houses including from Russel Wright, Georgia O’Keefe, and Jackson Pollock and Louise Krasner… There are two presidential estates… and we dug and dug and dug to find two Lustron houses open to the public! We take the research all the way to one “post modern” house, a 1982 design by Frank Gehry. Don’t be harassing us, please, if you don’t like the way we sliced and diced the list; be nice; we were trying to show the love for 20th century modern and modern-esque houses that haven’t quite made it onto others’ formal lists yet. Also, we started to get cross-eyed after a while of hashing what’s “in” the list and “what’s out”. We kinda wanted to be done already.
If so, please let us know!
with lots of “bonus” photos you won’t find on the house websites
by clicking here.
Chaucea says
Would be great to see a map of locations for entire MSM “historic district” neighborhoods. Often these neighborhoods have tours where a number of the homes are open for viewing. 🙂
Lauryn says
And it’s down the rabbit hole she goes … what a fabulous list! Thanks, Pam and Kate!
pam kueber says
yup. rabbit hole, that about says it!
vegebrarian says
I see the 1950s All Electric House is not to far from me…might be fun to include on our next road trip! Thanks for the great list!
KCmule7 says
I live in Waldo and have been to the All Electric House. it is very very cool. I could have spent all day in it but the tour is only in 30 minutes long. I’d love to go back again.
Robin says
Though it is not a mid-century modern house, you should consider adding the Reitz Home Museum in Evansville, Indiana to the list. It is a beautifully preserved Victorian house built in the French Second Empire style. http://www.reitzhome.com/
pam kueber says
well…. no Victorian houses on our list, Robin. Only mid-century and modern!
Chad says
Kind of a prehistory of mid century residential architecture, the Hard Times tour at the Tenement Museum in New York shows low income apartments from the 1870’s and 1930’s, and the more recent one kinda puts postwar housing and values in context. And substandard as the place is, there’s still something sweet and charming about it.
http://www.tenement.org/
pam kueber says
I’ve been there — a fascinating tour!
Chad says
and as a follow up to that, a mid century era rendering for public housing:
http://sceti.library.upenn.edu/pages%20/index.cfm?so_id=4335&pageposition=24&level=3
It really is a happy design! And I say this even though I think it was a horrible mistake to rip apart 19th Century urban neighborhoods.
Justin says
Here is another place in Spring Green, WI. It is the House on the Rock. Has a doll collection and a carousel collection.
http://www.thehouseontherock.com/index.htm
Robin, NV says
I was going to mention House on the Rock too! The house itself is a kick – sort of a 60s/70s fantasy, a real swingin’ pad. Last time I was there was in the late 80s and I’ve wanted to go back ever since. It’s also featured prominantly in American Gods by Neil Gaiman. A fantastic book.
Linda Blackmore says
This is not technically a house museum, as in it is not totally preserved in it’s original state, but it was one of the most awesome stops we made on a trip to Oregon in 2009. We just happened upon it, as it is in the middle of nowhere in Boise City, OK. You’ll see from the picture the huge iron dinosaur is what caught our eye. The house was designed in 1947 by Bruce Goff, and there is a lot of the original design intact, as well as a considerable amount of information and pictures of the building of the house and Bruce Goff and his other designs. It has been expanded to include all kinds of artifacts and everyday collections from the area, and I guess all over. It is well worth a stop if anyone is in that area. It is not crowded(haha)and is very reasonable. It is the Cimarron Heritage Center.
nutella says
This may pre-date your time frame, but the Greenbelt Museum is located in a house built by the federal government as part of a planned community in 1937. The home is furnished and maintained as close to period as possible.
http://greenbeltmuseum.org/tours/
pam kueber says
It’s perfect for our list! We will add it at the next update. Thank you, nutella!
Brini says
There’s a wonderful short film about this community. It’s called The City and was made in 1939. It has great glimpses of both the urban blight of the time and the idyllic life of the Greenbelt community. It has an original score by Aaron Copland and is narrated by Morris Carnovsky of Group Theater and Hollywood Blacklist fame. It can be seen in its entirety here: http://youtu.be/cag7q8QlHY4
Robin, NV says
I haven’t had time to dig into the list yet but this is SO great! Makes me feel like taking a road trip.
The Clark County Museum in Las Vegas has an entire street of houses dating from the 1930s-1950s. None are what I’d call high MCM style but they’re all authentically decorated. Some highlights include worker’s housing from Boulder Dam and the Henderson Magnesium plant. There’s also a cabin from a motor camp, a 1950s camper trailer, and a 1930s “Tudor” style house decorated to the hilt in awesome 1950s style. I blogged about it here: http://www.atomictraveller.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html
pam kueber says
The Clark County Museum is on the list! We probably got this tip from you at some point. Thanks!
Robin, NV says
Hah – oops, so it is. Well anwyay, I posted a bunch of photos.
I was momentarilly distracted by a guy running by in a Felix the Cat costume. Seriously. I work on a military base and joggers in cat costumes are not something you normally expect to see. I’ll have to post my grainy, Bigfoot-esque photos on my blog.
Robin, NV says
Public spaces and commercial architecture are another thing that folks can check out for viewing mid century resources. They’re often taken for granted but there are some neat spaces out there. One of my favorites is the Washoe County Library in downtown Reno. It was built in the mid-60s and is very “sci-fi meets Hanging Gardens of Babylon.” It has “floating” reading platforms suspended over 3 stories of open space. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many good photos of it on the internet. I’ve been meaning to go take photos of it along with some other great MCM spaces in Reno like the Pioneer Theater and Fleischmann Planetarium. I also spotted a Brutalism-inspired motor lodge last time I was downtown.
Debbie Ellis says
Tours of the John Frank, founder of Frankoma Pottery, Bruce Goff designed MCM home. tours.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Frank_House
pam kueber says
Great one! Thanks for the tip, Debbie, we will add it to the list when we do the next update!