FLW House first time on Market in MPLS

[davids]

I just played around with the virtual tour: 226 Parklands Lane | St. Louis Park | Frank Lloyd Wright Home - Matterport 3D Showcase

There's a lot to admire there, especially the details like the lights and windows. It's actually a very simple layout, bedrooms strung along an inside hall on one wing, the kitchen and open living/dining room on the other (with a basement room below.)

The woodtone and floors have a real '60s feel to me, and not in a good way. Plus there's a lot of worn edges. I think it would take another couple hundred k to make it nice...

[Saab2000]

As nice as that house is, and it is nice for the right buyer, the location is crazy nice. It's just 2-3 miles west of downtown Minneapolis and is located fairly close to the trail that connects to all the other recreational trails in the Twin Cities.

I'm surprised the asking price isn't higher given the location and size of the property.

[72gmc]

I think it would take another couple hundred k to make it nice...

If you started with the pile of money you'd need to buy and maintain, and the plans for house and furnishings, but went to a modern builder using modern materials .... and had another pile of money in reserve ....

[Nierman]

Looks a whole lot like a small town Lutheran church I used to know.

[NYCfixie]

FLW homes are all beautiful. We should also note that building materials have come a long way since the majority of his homes have been built.

Think about if the contractors of the time could use Glulams - not one roof/vault would ever have sagged in any of his homes.


I need to win the lottery first but I would buy one of his homes in a minute. I would spend whatever it needed to restore/update/upgrade to make it last forever.

There is nothing like living art.

[wwsunn]

I rode past this house today on my lunch ride (it's about 1 mile from my office). Nice neighborhood, about 5 miles from downtown Mpls and about 1/2 mile from the lakes. During mid-summer, things sure look green in Minneapolis! As you can tell from the photos, the house is kind of a sleeper from street!IMG_2315.jpgIMG_2319.jpg

[vertical_doug]

A gropius-breuer house in Mass for the architecture nerds.

68 Moore Rd, Wayland, MA 1778 | MLS# 7253698 | Redfin

[zetroc]

Price cut today, from $1,495,000 to $1,395,000. Funny, if this was in the Bay Area it'd have sold already for $2m+.

[davids]

Price cut today, from $1,495,000 to $1,395,000. Funny, if this was in the Bay Area it'd have sold already for $2m+.

Stuff at the high end of the market (and that's still the high end in greater Boston) moves more slowly. I've been surprised to see a couple cool, intriguing houses near me stay on the market for a rather long time.

[zetroc]

Stuff at the high end of the market (and that's still the high end in greater Boston) moves more slowly. I've been surprised to see a couple cool, intriguing houses near me stay on the market for a rather long time.

Same here, actually - my theory is that if a millennial tech employee can't afford it on their $80k-130k salary, it'll sit, and I've been mostly right.

[sonicw]

A gropius-breuer house in Mass for the architecture nerds.

68 Moore Rd, Wayland, MA 1778 | MLS# 7253698 | Redfin

It's rare and a real gem, but I can't imagine the flat roof as being very ideal for an older house, especially in the northeast. There's lots of McMansions in that range in Greater Boston too.

[72gmc]

A gropius-breuer house in Mass for the architecture nerds.

68 Moore Rd, Wayland, MA 1778 | MLS# 7253698 | Redfin

The 99% Invisible episode "Photo Credit" is worth a listen for the bauhaus-inclined.

"In any case, right or wrong, Gropius kept making prints from Moholy’s negatives, kept publishing them, kept circulating them, and kept telling the story of the Bauhaus through her camerawork."

[davids]

It's rare and a real gem, but I can't imagine the flat roof as being very ideal for an older house, especially in the northeast. There's lots of McMansions in that range in Greater Boston too.

There's a couple older flat-roofed houses around Boston.

800px-Boston_backbay_brownstones.jpg maeda_19silver_met6.jpg

[sonicw]

The 99% Invisible episode "Photo Credit" is worth a listen for the bauhaus-inclined.

"In any case, right or wrong, Gropius kept making prints from Moholy’s negatives, kept publishing them, kept circulating them, and kept telling the story of the Bauhaus through her camerawork."

Wow, never knew about 99% Invisible. Any suggestions for other architecture/design focused podcasts and blogs?

There's a couple older flat-roofed houses around Boston.

800px-Boston_backbay_brownstones.jpg maeda_19silver_met6.jpg

Of course, brownstones and the classic three-deckers. Do the latter tend to be prone to water damage?

[BShow]

I can certainly see the appeal for both of the arcitectual gems in this thread... I'd enjoy a wak through, maybe attend a cocktail party in them, but I would not want to live in them. The FLW house - the interior surfaces (and exterior for that matter) are not appealing to me at all. I second, the notion that it reminds me of a church or a school, both inside and out, and in a bad way. The Mass. house looks slightly more appealing to me but is super dark and dismal, despite having massive windows - I felt a wave of depression, just flipping through the listing. That agent needs to be canned - Who stages listing pics of a house with huge amounts of natural light, on a rainy day?

[deano]

Looks a whole lot like a small town Lutheran church I used to know.

Tons of churches in the 60s & 70s like that. There was a big trend in that time too, of them looking like space ports from the exterior, like "System status: Awaiting transmission from God ...". Personally I like my churches to look as churchey as possible. Cool house though, and super cool tour. Like playing Myst or something.

When I lived in Frankfort, I lived around the corner from Kentucky's only FLW house. It was cool too, but seems like they're all a bear to keep historically current, but functionally liveable.

I wonder what that's like for a family to live in. Like, can you find your kids and stuff. I'm sure a techie who would buy that either wouldn't have kids or would install, like, kid-radar tracking devices or something.

[davids]

Of course, brownstones and the classic three-deckers. Do the latter tend to be prone to water damage?

My triple decker made it through the 110"+ 2015 winter leak-free. Of course, it's on a hillside so the blizzard-fast winds kept accumulation down.

roof.jpg