Readers: This is how timeless midcentury modern design IS DONE! What a fantastic amazing mind-blowing find: After the New York Times story ran last week, I was contacted by a realtor who has listed for sale a 1962 house in Montclair, New Jersey — with original interiors, still in place, by the renowned and super important midcentury interior designer William Pahlmann.
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These interiors are a veritable primer — a treasure trove of inspiration and ideas — about how to create stunning — yet timeless — interiors for your midcentury home. Linda, the real estate agent, writes:
Hi Pam,
I loved reading the article in the NYTimes! I’m a Realtor in Montclair NJ and have a house listed that is the most amazing home that I have seen in 25 years of real estate. Built by the owners in 1962 and decorated by Wiliam Pahlmann, a Manhattan decorator w/a newspaper column in the ’60s. The house is exactly as decorated when new… It looks as if it was done yesterday! The jelly beans in the bowls in the living room are color-coordinated to the “summer” slip covers and they will change with the season!
-Linda
Now, I must admit: Until I received this email, I didn’t know anything about William Pahlmann. I am sure that students of interior design must study him. But his name does not seem to be mainstream widespread like many of the most famous architects from back in the day. By the way, I find this to be true time and time again — the names of many professionals who were incredibly influential in the world of interior design and consumer goods in the postwar era have faded — and it’s time that they are resurrected! Another of my goals!
I started to do some online research, and quickly found that Pahlmann was incredibly important in the history of interior design.
He is credited with launching the “eclectic style” that, for the most part, permeates our culture today.
That is: Mixing modern pieces with vintage and exotic pieces. I think these interiors are ALL incredibly livable. And, they look as current Today as ever!
I will write more about Pahlmann coming up. He is someone We Need To Know!
Sigh.
Heidi Flenner says
What a way to start my Friday! Inspired by gorgeous designs. Thanks Mr. Pahlmann!!
Beth Putnam says
What is the plant stand in the orange living room?
JKaye says
Looks like a blue elephant to me (if I’m looking at the same object you are wondering about).
Calli says
So does all the furniture come with it? With a house that big it would take a while to recreate all the rooms.
pam kueber says
nope
Kersten says
Can.Not.Breathe.
Oh goodness. How I’d love to have seasonal slip covers! (Heck, I’d be satisfied with seasonal throw pillows!) I keep looking for the bowl of jelly beans. I would really like to know what hung on the ceiling of the green couch room. Looks like some fixtures were removed from the ceiling. I bet they were cool.
pam kueber says
Yup. Breathtaking. Hi Kersten!
kathy hora says
i thought maybe the holes in the ceiling were recessed can lights with eyeball trims? hard to tell in the picture, but i’d sure like to know too!
And you know? I think i’ll just mosey on over to Jersey with my checkbook….hahahaha! dreaming on!
CarolK says
Could those be some type of ventilation? I recall a mid-century ranch that had the air conditioning vents in the ceiling. The room with the plaid sofas looks like it has little fans in the ceiling.
Tina says
Wow… gorgeous! And whoever lives there could sponsor a swim team!
Karen Dzendolet says
About my comment, meant to write, “we didn’t study mid-century modern designers/decorators in school…”
Ann-Marie Meyers says
Sadly, the interior design program was just dropped from our area technical college.
I was thinking they should require Realtors to take a course in period style. It is amazing how confused they get, or how they seen to not even care. I was shown a Prairie style home that was labeled a Craftsman/bungalow. And I lost count of the number of MCM’s in great shaped that were considered “fix-er-uppers.”
Dallas Big Haired Realtor: “Now, I want to warn you, the kitchen is a bit dated, but just imagine it with granite counters and stainless steel appliances. I will be gorgeous!”
Me: “It’s great just as it is. Does it have a pink bathroom?
FWBHR: “NO, thank God, they re-did the bathroom and added a whirlpool and a separate shower. It’s all in travertine. Y’all are gonna love it.”
Me: “No, I think I have seen enough. Maybe something else.”
FWBHR: “Well, I have a darling Craftsman bungalow I can show you in Fort Worth, but nobody wants to live in Fort Worth.”
Snide comment I didn’t make: Somebody must want to live there. It had the largest population increase of the major Texas cities in the 2010 census.
Natalie @ Chadwell Chronicles says
I think you need a new realtor! 😉 I have one if you are interested. I told him what we wanted and he helped me find it – and that included a bathroom with colored tile.
We live in Dallas too. The untouched bathrooms and kitchens are hard to come by, but if you keep looking and waiting…you will find one!
And Ft. Worth has a lot of awesome older homes. And personally, I think Ft. Worth has a lot more to offer than Dallas…even though I live in Dallas. Ha.
Natalie @ Chadwell Chronicles says
Oh and we have a Aussie/Corgi. =) Lots of things in common here.
Karen Dzendolet says
A great write-up, as always. I’m a big fan of this period and this site! And, as an interior designer, we didn’t study designers/decorators in school (I did a career change and graduated in 2006). I think that as mid-century design has become more popular, designers like Paul McCobb who were popular at the time, but fell into obscurity as the century wore on, are now enjoying much deserved popularity.
Thanks Pam for great photos, too.
-Karen
BungalowBILL says
That house and that color is great. Once again I am validated in thinking that New Jersey is the true style and taste capitol of the world!
pam kueber says
You may well be right, BB.
Fiona says
I am generally rabidly anti-wallpaper. But I *LOVE* that cheery kitchen wallpaper. Gorgeous house!!!
pam kueber says
Fiona! Fiona! Fiona! You are in the house of the most rabidly pro-wallpaper woman (me) in the world! 🙂
daniel says
+1 (for the general wallpaper love). i can’t wait until it comes back in style for everyone else. even plain coloured wallpaper works better than paint. pam— have you been to colonial williamsburg? many of the really elabourate and luxurious homes of the mid-1700s had solid colour wallpaper— the colours are so much more saturated and do not fade like paint. they still make the wallpaper there the same way it was made in the 1700s.
linda Blackmore says
You can’t really be mid century without wallpaper. It was in all the houses of that period and even before.
pam kueber says
YES
Ann-Marie Meyers says
Wallpaper has gotten so expensive, though. I think for most of us, the best we can do is use it to accent one wall, and use paint in the rest of the room. I was thinking of that in my kitchen, but my kitchen is so tiny, there isn’t a full unbroken wall in the entire room. Tile, anyone?
pam kueber says
Watch ebay – some great deals, still, for vintage wallpaper, if you watch like a hawk. Also check old-timey paint and wallpaper stores in your area — you might just find some last rolls there.
Pat Wieneke says
Maybe if you paper one wall and paint the others the background color of the paper. You will get that look but same some money. Also, if you pick one that doesn’t have a long ‘drop’ so there is none wasted. There are always odd rolls in the paint/paper shops, too that you can use.
If you really can not live with that old paper, do what my daughter did. She uses it to wrap gifts in. You have to return the wrapping paper to her, though, and are apt to get the same one next year, too.
This works best with the more modern strippable papers.
Zoe says
Sorry, I have to disagree. I have seen some really wonderful mid-century wallpapers on this site thanks to Pam, but I am living in my parents’ mid-century modern ranch house which was built in 1947 and added onto in 1965, and I can attest to the fact that not one room in this house was ever, ever, EVER wallpapered. All of the walls were white, from 1965 on. At one time, the nursery was painted pale mint green, but when I was born, my room was white.
No wallpaper anywhere! And yet the house is most assuredly mid-century modern. There is no other style it could be remotely considered.
Lauryn says
I ADORE that kitchen wallpaper (and am not always the biggest fan either!). It instantly takes me back to my childhood, when everything in my life had to be big and bold and colorful and all about flowers! I just love it.
Josephine says
Fiona – thank you. For a minute there I thought I was alone. I do NOT like wallpaper. Yuck.
I was lucky to have bought a 1948 house that was wallpaper-free. However, being in California, it had it’s own issues. Somewhere along the way, they textured the interior walls w/stucco that looked like exterior walls. Would have been easier to remove wallpaper. Took a lot of work to fix those walls.
Sandi – I am in your shoes. Husband wanted SS/granite in the kitchen. Lost the battle on that. Sigh. I’ve had to incorporate the retro things I love w/the new. At least I’ve got the retro look in the bath with B/W hex tiles.
BlueJay says
What a beautiful house! It’s so bright and cheerful, yet nostalgic and warm at the same time. Take that greige nation!! 😀
pam kueber says
YES! Take THAT, Greige Nation, is RIGHT!