Mid-century Modern Communities
We love it when design minded people choose to create community. So when we recently heard about several mid-century modern design communities around the country we were all over it. Today’s post highlights 5 neighborhoods in the United States that share a common aesthetic, create an intentional environment and establish a sense of place. These communities also serve as catalysts to evolve the way we think and behave. They are extraordinary situations – most of them have their own community websites and some even have their own books on the architecture. Being the design geeks that we are, we could hardly stay in our seats when we learned that a couple of these communities organize annual home tours – sign us up! These are communities where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and we’ve got a lot to learn from them.
Hollin Hills near Alexandria Virginia (about 10 miles outside of Washington D.C.)
Established in 1949 and includes about 450 houses
Designed by Charles Goodman and developed by Robert Davenport
Archipreneur did a very nice job of covering it here.
You can purchase the book on Hollin Hills here
-thanks to Adam
[Photos by ChamayBleue]
[Photo by Chris McNamara]
Arapahoe Acres in Englewood, Colorado (south of Denver)
Established in 1949 and includes 124 houses
Designed and developed by Edward Hawkins
More information here
You can purchase the book on Arapahoe Acres here
-thanks to Justin
[Photo by ModMidMod]
Hilltop in Bellevue Washington
Established in 1947 and includes 39 houses
Designed by John Morse, Perry B. Johanson, Fred Bassetti, Paul Hayden Kirk, Wendell Lovett, Lionel Pries, Tucker & Shields, John Van Horne & Edward Cushman, Lee McRae, Richard Haag, Glen Hunt, Robert Chittock, Eckbo, Royston and Dean
More info here
You can purchase the book on Hilltop here
[Photo courtesy of UW Libraries]
Six Moon Hill in Lexington Massachusetts
Established in 1947 and now includes 29 houses
Designed by The Architects Collaborative (T.A.C.)
More info here
You can purchase the book on T.A.C. here
-thanks to Mike
Krisana Park & Lynwood in Denver Colorado
Established in the mid 1950s, Krisana Park includes 175 houses, Lynwood includes 80 houses
Desiged and developed by H.B. Wolff & Co., although the designs are said to be nearly exact copies of Eichler plans
More info here
-thanks to Justin
[Photos by ModMidMod]
There’s a number of lesser known mid-century modern design communities that are every bit as important to the overall movement.
-thanks to Aaron for these
Snake Hill in Belmont Massachusetts
Established in 1941 and includes 5 houses
Developed and designed by Carl Koch
Five Fields in Lexington Massachusetts
Established in 1951 and includes approximately 50 houses
Designed by The Architects Collaborative
Peacock Farms in Lexington Massachusetts
Established in 1952 and includes 68 houses
Designed by Danforth Compton and Walter Pierce
Kendal Common in Weston Massachusetts
Established in 1948 and includes 22 houses
Designed by Carl Koch, Robert Woods Kennedy, Walter Bogner, Hugh Stubbins, Carleton Richmond, and The Architects Collaborative
Brown’s Wood in Lincoln Massachusetts
Established in 1956 and includes 22 houses
Designed by The Architects Collaborative
Conantum in Concord California
Established in 1951 and includes 100 houses
Designed by W. Rupert McLaurin and Carl Koch
A very good article titled Hipsters in the Woods by David Fixler, FAIA covers these projects in more detail.
A huge thanks to everyone that contributed. If you’d like to be part of the BUILDblog research for topics such as this, keep a pulse on us via twitter.
25 Comments
Other Links to this Post
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uberVU - social comments — January 18, 2010 @ 1:27 pm
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A Mid-Century ‘Revolution’ in Hollin Hills and Beyond | Rubbish Clearance London - Stell Doors and Many Structural Materials — March 14, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
By mike, January 18, 2010 @ 12:28 pm
just to throw this on the radar, but san diego has a relatively high concentration of MCM houses, i don’t recall if there are any MCM ‘communities’ per se, but still some gems.
http://www.modernsandiego.com/
it will be interesting to see if current projects like Ordos 100 will endure like six moon hill, hilltop, etc.
By Yuri Artibise, January 18, 2010 @ 12:43 pm
Great collection, I’ll be sure to add these to my itinerary when I next visit these areas.
Alas, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my home town of Phoenix. We have a great collection of MCM communities, and a passionate Modern Phoenix neighborhood network, which hosts an annual home tour featuring mid century communities around the city.
This year’s tour will take place in April and feature Paradise Gardens, a 1960s subdivision that is the only example of tract homes involving the input of Arizona architect Alfred Newman Beadle.
More information on Phoenix’s MCM neighborhoods here: http://www.modernphoenix.net/neighborhoods.htm
More info on the hour tour here:
http://www.modernphoenix.net/hometour/index.htm
By Melanie / lushpad, January 18, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
Great post!I love mid-century modern architecture. I’m going to tweet it out!
By Andy, January 18, 2010 @ 3:24 pm
Great to see your recent posts on mid-century architecture. The thing I keep trying to figure out…Why are developers not building these communities now (aside from the current recession)??? I would personally love to live in a community of mid-century modern homes, especially if they were built to today’s sustainability standards. My gut feel is that it would be popular with a good portion of the Gen X and Gen Y population. Your thoughts?
By Shannon Stanbro, January 18, 2010 @ 4:12 pm
We are so fortunate to have great historic modern architecture in and around Denver!
Arapahoe Acres website: http://www.arapahoeacres.org
By Build LLC, January 18, 2010 @ 10:14 pm
@ Mike – love that modern San Diego link, tons of great photos, our fave is the Leisure Lab.
@ Yuri – thanks for the heads up on Paradise Gardens, very tempting…
@ Melanie – thanks for the tweet
By Build LLC, January 18, 2010 @ 10:35 pm
@ Andy – great questions, we’ve been scratching our heads all afternoon on the topic. Like you, we’d love to see some modern design communities pop up in our current time; in fact we’d like to be developing them, building them and living in them. This type of development seems to have new challenges in the 21st century and here’s what we think those challenges are:
1. MCM communities were planned very carefully within the landscape. Each home had a deliberate view (even if it was just local) and most of the time houses maintained privacy from one another. This requires more acreage than will pencil out with home loans / construction loans these days (just a guess).
2. MCM homes were modest. A 1,500 square foot home was an average size and these days Americans expect much, much larger homes with more amenities. We’re not saying we’re fans of the larger home, but the paradigm shift has definitely occurred. This might detract from the architect’s interest and may be more difficult to justify to banks, the public, and realtors.
3. The majority of American home buyers have more entitlement to land now. Everybody has to have a fence and defined lot which runs entirely against the philosophy of MCM communities.
4. The majority of American home buyers are nostalgic for times past. We no longer have that optimism of the future, hydro-electric dams, freeways, and “there’s a great future in plastics”. Too many American home buyers (and therefore banks) want scaled down French chateaus with lots of funny little roof peaks. A single flat roof would have the banks shaking behind their mahogany desks.
Before we get too cynical, there must be some other valid reasons out there…
By Andy, January 19, 2010 @ 3:16 am
All very valid points. Another reason we don’t see modern home communities may be that most of today’s planned communities try to appeal to the masses rather than focusing on a particular niche. Not everyone loves modern design as much as we do, so builders could be taking a substantial risk.
Regarding your comment about Americans needing larger square footage, I have hope that our attitude will shift as we begin to realize the value of efficient use of space and lower energy bills. False optimism maybe?
By Michael, January 19, 2010 @ 8:54 am
Another interesting MCM community is the Mar Vista tract in Mar Vista, CA. It was designed by Gregory Ain and consists of 52 houses on three streets. I drive through it every day and it’s really quite wonderful. You can find more information at http://marvistatract.org.
By Maureen Russell, January 19, 2010 @ 10:36 am
Arapahoe Acres and Krysana are very cool neighborhoods. Lots of inspiration when looking to redesign in mountain communities as well.
By Paul, January 19, 2010 @ 10:45 am
You missed Rush Creek Village in Worthington, OH.
http://www.worthington.org/about/rushcreek.cfm
http://columbus-ite.com/2009/04/14/rush-creek-village/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48357405@N00/sets/72157594558230010/
http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040829/news_mz1h29wright.html
By Matthew Daby, January 19, 2010 @ 12:21 pm
University Grove in St. Paul, Minnesota has a collection of MCM homes that are interesting. A bit of information here… http://www1.umn.edu/ugrove/
If you’d like pictures, I have some I can send you–just send me an email.
Also, maybe not neccesarily MID CENTURY modern but MODERN CONTEMPORARY…Kessler Woods in Dallas is a pretty great community. Info here…
http://www.kesslerwoods.com/
By JF, January 19, 2010 @ 4:07 pm
Denver has a great mid-mod community, along with Arapahoe Acres and Krisana Park, there is Arapahoe Hills and Applewood in the surrounding suburbs. Check out http://www.modernindenver.com for more.
By AJ, January 27, 2010 @ 9:27 pm
Ellendale (1955) is the name of a 10-phase housing development in the Friendly Neighborhood of Eugene, Oregon. The original phase featured a modern, ranch-styled, tract house built with mid century post & beam construction. About 50 were built by Pacific Builders Incorporated.
By Steven Plouffe, February 2, 2010 @ 11:31 am
I was aware of Hollin Hills and plan on going down for this years tour but knowing some other communities in other destinations will have me contenplating my next trip!!!! Rochester NY does not have entire areas of mid-century homes but we do have some great ones scattered about.
Here is a link to a flickr photostream of Rochester’s Alcoa House that was designed by Charles Goodman: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22021175@N02/sets/72157603542788454/
By Kent, February 8, 2010 @ 11:31 pm
I have a 1953 book in my collection called “Before You Buy A House”, by John H. Callender. It includes photos, floor plans and some site plans from many of these planned developments, including Hollin Hills, Dillon Woods (Ohio), Arapahoe Acres, Mar Vista, Channing Park (Eichler), Norwood Village (Bellevue, WA), and others. Great reference if you can find a copy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moderns-r-us/3429819702/
By Gretchen S, April 6, 2010 @ 11:30 am
Fantastic post! I have several links to other communities and individual homeowners’ blogs on my blog.
We are also doing the first-ever Sacramento Mid-Century Modern Home Tour on June 26, 2010. See http://sacmcmhometour.blogspot.com/
By Todd Walsh, April 13, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
Great post & photos.
Michigan has several MCM communities: The Acres/Galesburg Country Homes and Parkwyn Village near Kalamazoo. The Acres is one of few FLW-designed communities. Parkwyn is just a few miles from The Acres, and also features Wright designs.
Lantern Hill in East Lansing was designed by Hugh Stubbins, Jr.
Many homes in Midland by Alden Dow.
Ingersoll Village in Kalamazoo with homes by Edward Durrell Stone, Stubbins & Dow.
And, there are a great number of MCM homes in Ann Arbor by George Brigham, William Munschenheim, etc.
We (the State Historic Preservation Office) have started Michigan’s first attempt to find, catalog, and tell the story of the state’s MCM architects and architecture.
By Vintage Looks, December 31, 2010 @ 1:47 pm
I’ll take one of each please
By Scott & David, June 20, 2011 @ 2:47 am
Fantastic post – a great collation & resource! We live in Edgcumbe Park, Crowthorne, Berkshire UK which is a midcentury award-winning development with a community approach to its layout and design. It was considered ‘ahead of its’ time when it was constructed — film director François Truffaut picking a ‘Type 60′ bungalow (like ours) to feature in his 1966 cult classic film of Ray Bradbury’s ‘Fahrenheit 451′.
After having restored & renovated the property (and living in it for nearly 4 years) we’re selling and have produced a booklet summarising the development’s history as well as presenting the property for sale.
Have a look here & do click through to the brochure: http://www.bungalowindustries.com/EdgcumbePark
Great blog, by the way!
Scott & David
By Tom, September 29, 2011 @ 7:08 pm
Here’s a good source for Mid Century Modern House Numbers that are made from recycled
aluminum that are also reasonable priced. http://www.moderndwellnumbers.com
By Build LLC, September 30, 2011 @ 7:22 am
@Tom -those are sharp, thanks for the link.
By Richard D., November 29, 2011 @ 7:33 pm
If only they were affordable.
I am available for adoption by any owners.