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.
MCM is Grand says
THANK YOU for this fun and educational post! It’s very easy to use and I have to admit the minutes slip by during this virtual “cross country’ trip! I bet years from now, we will see Pam’s house on the list … 🙂
Devin says
There’s one in Maine – the Wilhelm Reich Museum in Rangeley. http://www.wilhelmreichtrust.org/museum.html
pam kueber says
Thanks, we’ll check it out and add it to the new version of the map!
Ruth says
Been to the Pope-Leighey House in Northern Virginia. This lovely place has luckily survived two moves to avoid the constant growth and development in the area. Wish we had some more to visit in VA and south, but this is easy to get to. If you’re headed down the east coast just south of DC you will see signs for it located on the interstate exits.
Aletha VanderMaas says
The Meyer May House is a FLW house you can tour in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s fabulous!
Badger says
You’ve left off 2 FLLW beauties…Cedar Rock in Quasqueton, IA and the Seth Peterson Cottage in Lake Delton, WI. Both absolutely worth the trip. And as important forerunners to Modernism, The Charnley House and Madlener House in Chicago. Sometimes, those come as a 2-for-1 package in Chicago.
Leeann says
For those of you in the Mitten, Cranbrook School is doing a Michigan Modern exhibition…they have a lot of interactive info on their site.
Lorina says
You should add the Kreeger Museum in Washington, DC. It’s a museum now, but it is a former residence designed by Philip Johnson.
http://kreegermuseum.org/about-us
pam kueber says
I’ll check it out… but I think that this particular list will focus on true historic house museums — homes still furnished to show the way that people lived. Thanks, though, looks like a great space!
Sarah says
Oak Ridge, TN–the Secret City built nearly overnight by the U. S. government during WWII–features a 1940s house museum at their American Museum of Science and Energy:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/mar/22/little-piece-of-history/
pam kueber says
Good one! Thanks! And the Secret City — fascinating story!
Sarah says
How about Mission 66-era NPS buildings?v(http://www.mission66.com/mission.html ) They’re rather endangered now but Petrified Forest in AZ is trying to undo many years of insensitive changes to the Neutra-designed complex. Many have already been destroyed, like Neutra’s Cyclorama building in Gettysburg that was just demolished this past winter.
pam kueber says
Nope. Good one (and we did a story on this before) but this list is focusing on RESIDENTIAL architecture.
Jennifer says
Park Forest, Il – 1950s house museum
http://www.parkforesthistory.org/museum-home.html