I know I often say this, but this 1976 time capsule house for sale in Salem, Oregon, listed by Ty Hildebrand, may be my favorite 1970s time capsule house ever! Thanks to reader Wendy for this time capsule tip! The lines and angles of the house are amazing. The setting and views, too. The house appears to be in amazing, move-in condition — I wouldn’t need to change a thing! And, given that I am the world’s #1 lover of wallpaper, I am in heaven. I spoke to Ty on the phone on Friday, and he told me that the original homeowners used a decorator in Portland, Oregon, who was known for her genius with wallpaper. He also says the wallpaper is so strongly adhered that prospective buyers still looking at the house are considering stucco-ing over it (gasp! horrors!) rather than removing it.
I will bury that thought deep away in my psyche and instead say: Hooray: 40 terrific photos — captured by Cal Curths of HD Open House — sharing this slice of high-style 1976 design, still here for us to admire.
From the listing:
- Year built: 1976
- 4,207 s.f.
- On 3.31 acres
- Two bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
- Three fireplaces
- $550,000
And so I diverge: On Commenting:
So here’s the deal, dear readers: It’s beginning to seem like America is running out of time capsule houses from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s — and that time capsule houses from the 1970s are now popping up all over. This transition is going to mean a lot of wallpaper (often with matchy-matchy pinch pleats) … crazy-wonderful tile … bittersweet kitchen countertops… and burnt orange, rust, and lime green shag carpet. The 1970s are my favorite era, because designers pushed things to the limit. They pushed things beyond the limit. However, I know a lot of folks cannot get their eyes around 70s style (yet. Buwahahaha, my evil-righteous plan is to change that). But, I do ask this: Given my commenting rules, which center on civility aka The Golden Rule, I ask that if you don’t like (e.g. if you h***) the wallpaper, or whatever, that you simply skip that in any comments. I do not approve, or delete, comments that are critical, when such criticism is not invited. I ask permission to feature all these time capsules. We are, therefore, invited in. So let’s all be super courteous — comment as if we are standing in the home with the original owners — grateful and gob-smacked for the opportunity to see these wonders! Thank you for your understanding!
Let’s take a look at some of my favorite spaces:
Above: That family room (?) with all the gleaming woodwork, colorful yet soothing (yes: soothing!) wallpaper, matching pinch pleats, and cozy carpet — complete with marlin — perfection!
Above: Yes, a kitchen like this, with high-quality wallpaper adhered to the walls — and the ceiling — so it doesn’t fall down, is my dream. I love this flooring, too.
Above: The sunken living room is lovely. And I love all the main rooms of the house seem to have views in multiple direction. Love me the rusty-orange carpet… the Flintstones rock wall… and note the lacquered ceiling int he dining room. Hmmm…. Are all the walls in this space lacquered?
Above: I think this is a bedroom. Rust carpeting! And that wallpaper! And that fireplace!
Above: I think this is the bathroom that does with that bedroom. But, it could also be off the kitchen — note the floor. I spy wallpaper on the sixth wall (e.g. the ceiling) in this room, too.
Above: The other bedroom, with coordinating bathroom.
Above: A wet bar tucked somewhere. In bittersweet. Be still my 70s heart.
The slide show has more photos — takes on all the exterior angles… the dramatic foyer… and the sweeping views. All that said, once inside, I’d crank up P Funk and never leave the house.
So what do you LOVE about this house, dear readers?
On a scale of 1-100, where are you on digging ’70s design so far?
Link love:
- Ty Hildebrand and his team.
- Photos by Cal Curths of HD Open House.
- See all our Time Capsule stories here.
Barbara says
Again…,Pamela, you hit the ball out of the park.
Having all the furniture out of the rooms sets our imagination on fire! It makes those rooms look BIGGER!
However, if I can’t fill-up these big rooms, I’ll just go buy more!!
I would not change one thing in this home. I might even lie to friends who stop by and convince them about my impeccable taste in decorating.
P.S. These great photos of the home makes me feel like I’m the one walking through the house.
Thanks so much Pamela! What a treat!
Jay says
Yes a real “Tour De Force”…. Nice! Maybe it’s just me but there seems to be design aesthetic similarities between this gem and last week’s time capsule. This house is flooded with natural light, I can envision large potted plants. I have been in many old and historic homes with grand center halls and stairs but never a modern one. I agree, this wallpaper makes the house. I give it a 99.9; we are running out of true time capsules; when I peruse the NYT what you get for $$, houses from the 50-70s have been granitized, no trace of the original.
SUZY Spence says
Tour de force, hot damn!
Carolyn says
I had to chuckle at the “vacuum marks” in the carpeting – the pile is beyond ankle deep to knee deep!
After watching “Clean Lines, Open Spaces” on PBS and a couple of shows of MCM roots and development, maybe we’re still “too young” to appreciate what the 1970’s was doing (not sure we’ll ever get old enough to get the ’80’s/’90’s!) Design has cycles, ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes. A few brave souls put themselves out there and it’s weird until everyone jumps on the bandwagon. When it becomes mundane, there are little spikes until another few brave souls push the envelope (please note I’m not saying the already overused “disruption.)
I know realtors live off their sales but seriously, if someone suggests stucco, you should give them the bum’s rush out the door and out of town! This is how Victorians got all carved up beyond recognition!
Ranger Smith says
Wallpaper inside the closets in the green bedroom. Now THAT ladies and gentleman is fierce! These people were serious about attention to detail. No cutting corners in this house. I think that probably reflects on how the entire house was designed and constructed.
Ethan says
I wouldn’t change a thing. I especially love the spiral staircase and the green bedroom(s).
Michael says
I would move in TODAY! What an exceptional treasure. It would be such a shame if it fell into the hands of the HGTV crowd.
Amarissa P says
LOVE this beautiful home! I think the rust and green bedrooms are absolutely perfect!
Debbie in Portland says
Despite having been a pre-teen/teenager in the 70’s, I am not, as a general rule, a fan of 70’s architecture and decor. But all that woodwork, all of that natural light, all of that rock and a fireplace in a bedroom…OK, I really kinda love this house. I think my favorite thing is the lighted bathroom vanity. I can just picture myself standing in front of it to do my theater make-up!
Did Ty mention if he knew who the architect or builder is? I live in Portland (50 miles north of Salem), and my dad was a builder. I’m interested to know if it’s anyone I’m familiar with.
ineffablespace says
This comment is probably more about the present time than it is about the past, but it comes from looking at time capsules.
I think the post-millennium era is at least partially going to be recognized by cheap, ill-fitting window treatments. If any of these elements actually survive to become time capsules, that is. But I think that future time capsules may be less representative of the middle of the market in the future. The survivors of this era are probably going to represent only the high end of the design market–so they won’t be fully representative of the era.
To some extent that probably describes many of the 1960s and 1970s time capsules we see, and perhaps the majority of time capsules we will see from the 1980s and beyond. Because unlike the 1950s to early 1960s design market where people in the middle still did actual design schemes with matching drapery and wall coverings and thing like that–because they were available–these things became the territory of the semi-custom and custom market in the 1980s and beyond.
A much higher level of design Intent became available to the masses and at the lower end of the market in the 1980s, but a lower level of design Quality became the norm across most of the markets except at the very high end. In the 1960s and 1970s you could go to Sears and outfit a room with sturdy good quality bedding and pinch pleat drapes that might not exactly be Architectural Digest, but it was cohesive and good quality. Now, you can go to Walmart and get something that mimics Architectural Digest, but is essentially disposable in terms of quality. So there are good and bad aspects to what’s going on with design in most segments of the market except to what’s happening at the mostly inaccessible top of the market.
So, in contrast to what we used to see, to go back to window treatments specifically, we now see large and expensive houses with lots of big windows, with essentially non functional narrow strips of cloth on most of the windows. And design television has played a part in promoting this as the way it should be. I think this is a situation where something becomes legitimized much in the way of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
And, the less people who actually get people to fabricate drapes for them or upholster for them, the rarer and more expensive it all becomes.
So, more and more, I think time capsules from the1980s and later, full of original, high quality textiles and things like that are going to represent a much less-typical, higher end segment of the market than earlier time capsules. The typical decor from that time forward became less expensive, less of a commitment, and more disposable than ever before.
pam kueber says
I agree: My sense is that the mass of today’s homeowners are afraid of window treatments — just as they are afraid of using real color, they just don’t know what to do. I understand. Also: Both can be problematic if they become too “personal” given the need, often, in the U.S. to move because of job changes. The loss of one job for a lifetime had a profound affect on American residential design, too.
If you are afraid: At least get quality wood or aluminum Venetian blinds. Those are classic. I like those Hunter-Douglas fabric thingies that you can work like Venetians, too; but for a contemporary house, not a Retro Renovation. Hey, even honeycomb shades are better than the single panels — I agree with you on those: Just say no.
Coinkadinkally, my 70 yards of interlined pinch pleats are going up today, in about two hours! I was spray painting new traverse rods this weekend. Woot!
ineffablespace says
I agree that social forces including job-change related moves have contributed a lot, but I don’t know that the relationship is particularly direct–because people seem to have more interest in, and spend more time and money on “home improvement” than they did during the periods we are looking at for time capsules. So I don’t think that it is people do not have or do not want to spend the money on things they may have to leave behind in a few years, I think they are just spending it differently.
I grew up in a small town that had a booming economy with headquarters for several small, but international companies. The town was in transition when I was young, and the companies as they were expanding were also poised to no longer be headquartered in a small isolated town, and the power was moving elsewhere.
As it was, the transient people were higher level management people and physicians at the local hospital who would move there because they saw great earning potential with low cost of living –only to find out that they hated, or their wives hated, living in a small isolated town.
So this is a demographic that traditionally “Decorated” –higher income people who had to entertain and such. So, they did, and even though they knew –at least in the case of the executives–that they may not be there for ten years, they decorated for themselves, especially if it was a new house (there was a housing boom in the 1970s).
But on the other hand, if they moved and sold the house with the custom drapes and coordinated wallcoverings and such, and it was relatively new–the next occupants would tend to work with it. And some of my parents’ friends who lived in the older houses (~1900-1930) decorated around drapes and rugs and wallpaper that were sometimes decades old, if there was nothing physically wrong with it. I never knew Anybody who refinished a floor because they thought the stain color was dated or anything like that. My parents knew one woman who replaced a perfectly functional kitchen with a new one when she moved in, and later replaced it again (without changing anything about the plan or how it functioned) just as a matter of redecoration. The prevailing opinion was that she must be awfully bored, and that maybe she had too much disposable income. Now people do this all the time. I participate in a forum where people are moving into houses built in 1999 who are saying they need to redo the kitchens and baths because they are so terribly dated.
Now, houses are not decorated for you, they are decorated for some anonymous future buyer in case you have to sell. And if you move into a house, to some degree people treat the house by the Scorched Earth policy. Anything at all personal or left behind by the previous owner must be treated as if it’s contaminated, and disposed of.
So I don’t think it is that people are not spending $1000 on custom window treatments for a single window because they don’t have or don’t want to spend the $1000. Because they are spending $40,000 on a kitchen or $20,000 a bathroom and then making sure it’s decorated first and foremost for others approval. So it’s not about the financial commitment, it’s about something else.
Carolyn says
ineffable space – my hope is that the youngsters coming up will have the choice to pick up these homes before they’re “wrecked”. The R’s of Reduce, Re-use, Recycle that’s been drummed into their heads, seeing how disruptive climbing the corporate ladder was to family life, etc.
And it could be they’re danged sick and tired of sterile – remember in the 1920’s – ’30’s when it was “scientific”? – and cookie-cutter – gimme some personality and quirk!
Jay says
Pam, please share photos of the drapes for Friday roundup.
Marie Gamalski says
Pam…. my mother would LOVE you… she felt the ONLY drape was a fully lined, pinch pleat on a traverse rod. I agree, but finding a seamstress or drape maker is getting harder and harder and very expensive. I really hate the “modern” curtains (I won’t even call them drapes) that are available, they never hang properly and people just “grab and shove”, no traverse rods…. makes me shudder, I could just see my Mom, she’d faint if someone touched, never mind grabbed her silk satin peau de soie draperies! Keep bringing us the love Pam????
pam kueber says
Thank you. Pinch pleats on traverse rods are Everything (of course: Make sure the cords are done safely; consult with pros on that one!)
yellow says
Ineffable space, I appreciate your perspective on this and find it all very interesting. Thanks for sharing it here.
It also kind of puts a new light on why my Mom would sew curtains and sometimes bedspreads from decorator fabrics we’d go to the city for, back in the 80’s, as that was the only way we as a middle class home could get a cohesive and more unique decorator look, as you said, that was more easily achievable in decades past.
Jay says
Ineffable, you raise some good points. Just the other day I was wondering where you would get ready made pinch pleat panels. I bought some for my last house back in the 90s from Sears. Off the shelf stock American made and finely tailored. The big box stores with cheap imported goods that are meant to be disposable seem to be the norm. People seem to get tired of stuff pretty quick. Heck middle America stores like Sears and Penny are shutting down. The hometown department stores of my youth are gone, they used to be a ready source of stock and custom window treatments. Young adults today do not know what quality goods are, which we took for granted. I think that’s why thrift shops have become so popular; the vintage quality.
pam kueber says
JCP had ready-made pinch pleats last time I looked. I don’t know how the quality compares to back in the day.
I’d also take a look at Country Curtains…
Hmmmm…. I need to do an update story.
My installer just left the house a half hour ago. My made-to-order pinch pleats are up, and I adore them. Story to come.
Jay says
Thanks Pam! I do occasionally receive CC catalogs, I’ll have to check them out. So many of the Sears and Penny stores have closed in the malls around Philadelphia. The SE PA area was over-malled and they are now drying up for total retail. The malls are now taking on entertainment/recreational and healthcare tenants to draw in people or being torn down for new construction. I know I could find a custom draper but dag gonnit I want to be able to go into the stores and buy that stuff that used to be there. Phooey!
Kristin says
I just recently outfitted a 10 foot window with JC Penney pinch pleats, and then a few months later picked up estate sale pinch pleats to swap out when the mood strikes (and when I’m feeling up to cleaning and hemming them all, oy, but they’re gold beauties!). Anyway, I would wager that the vintage ones are about twice as heavy as the JCP ones (Royal velvet supreme lined curtains, not the thermal ones) but the JCPs still do a fine job of keeping the cold at bay, and hang beautifully on my double traverse rod with pinch pleat sheers. It’s a south-facing window so I love how easy it is to open and close them to warm the house during the day, and keep the warmth in at night.
pam kueber says
I think pinch pleats on traverse rods are so incredibly functional and easy-to-use — we open and close ours every day, both are lovely moments.
Kristin says
I always feel very dramatic about it, annnnddd behind curtain number 2! Or like they’re stage curtains and there’s a scene waiting behind them.
Carolyn says
I can’t comment with authority on pinchpleat drapes but have gotten clothes from Haband.com (you know, old people clothes!) that were of pretty good quality. these are poly/cotton unlike fiberglass my mom bought (probably thru Monkey Wards)
http://haband.blair.com/p/chelsea-pinch-pleat-thermal-drape-set/112220.uts?is=Y&store=18&count=500&intl=n&q=chelsea+thermal+drapes&keyword=chelsea+thermal+drapes
Lilly says
Per Jay’s question about pinch pleats. If you want good quality I would find a custom drapery shop with a good reputation and have them made. You could also do these yourself. There should be some DIY construction info on line. They look complicated but are actually quite straightforward. You do need the top band interfacing and would have to hand tack the pleats but it is do-able.
I worked one summer during college in a custom drapery shop in CA making pinch pleat drapes.