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.
Laura's Last Ditch--Vintage Kitchenwares says
The Meyer-May house in Grand Rapids give FREE tours! Woo-hoo, love that price. It’s not probably significant enough or modern enough to make the map, but if you’re in the Grand Rapids area, it’s worth seeing.
pam kueber says
We will definitely add it, in the next update. We just missed it…
Laura's Last Ditch--Vintage Kitchenwares says
I checked what’s in Michigan, and seeing the Dow house made me remember the time, as a teen, when my mom, a real estate agent, took the family to look at the Gerber mansion (the baby food people). I can’t find it online now, unfortunately, because I’d love to see it. It was in mild disrepair at the time, but it had all kinds of neat details, and I bet now that I appreciate the Mid-Century Modern style, I’d love it all the more. As a kid, I just couldn’t get over the gift wrapping room and that the house had an elevator–and the biggest couch I’d ever seen.
pam kueber says
Note to file: Carolyn on FB tips us to FLW’s Auldbrass in Yemassee, South Carolina. Only FLW plantation design…. open for tours every other year. Next tour dates are Nov. 2-3, 2013
Atomic Amanda says
Great job, ladies! Sad that there aren’t as many of these houses / musuems in the Southeast.
You should include the 1933 World’s Fair Homes of Tomorrow collection at the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. They are only open once a year, but the story behind the relocation and preservation of the houses is fascinating.
http://www.nps.gov/indu/historyculture/centuryofprogress.htm
pam kueber says
Woah! I need to go see this tour! THANK YOU! We’ll add…
Kim Campbell says
I have been to #20. *sigh* to die for!
Diane says
We’ve been there too, loved it!
Amanda says
This house may be a bit too old or “kitschy”, but there’s the Christmas Story house in Cleveland, OH.
http://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/
Terri Polick says
Thank you so much for this information! You ladies did a lot a work complying this information and I really appreciate it.
Portfan says
Love this! You should consider adding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hanna House at Stanford University. I toured it back when it reopened to the public in 1999 and would definitely consider it an influence on mid-century modern design. http://hannahousetours.stanford.edu/
pam kueber says
Thanks, Portfan, we will check it out! I suspect there may be more jewels like this on college and university campuses that are open for tours now and then….
Carole says
I see that the Gordon House made the list. It has quite a history, not only of being the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Oregon, but also of how it came to reside at it’s current spot (Oregon Garden). Cool.
Jan says
It’s so cool that at least a couple are in Ohio! This is not really a house museum either, but has anyone tried to locate any of the Formica houses that followed the 1964 New York World’s Fair in your area (they were called “World’s Fair houses”)? I have the list that was in the Formica House fair brochure, but it only lists city, builder and decorator. There’s one listed in Akron, Ohio, which is only about 10 miles from me, but I have no idea if any of those records were kept. Would be really great if some of them were actually open as museums!