Front Elevation: Art House
Owning an architect-designed home is akin to living in a work of art.
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“Buyers have a design consciousness that did not exist before,” says Mossler Deasy & Doe broker Brian Linder, a licensed architect and contractor who lists his properties on his own web site, www.thevalueofarchitecture.com. According to Linder, many of his firm’s clients consider themselves conservators of important works of art. “It’s a passing-of–the-torch thing,” he says. “They make an effort to find the next caretaker of their home.” A case in point is Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House No. 21 in Los Angeles, which came on the market just after the Maslon house, a Richard Neutra masterpiece in Rancho Mirage, Calif., was razed in 2002. (The Maslons sold the home to a “preservationist” who quickly bulldozed it, causing a public uproar.); function voidFunc() { } voidFunc();)
A Paul Rudolph–designed home in Sarasota, Fla., owned by
realtor Martie
Lieberman. (Click image to enlarge) Photography
by William S. Speer
“The Case Study No. 21 seller said, ‘I have to put a price on this house to prevent it from being sold for land value,’ ” Linder recounts. “He wanted to keep it out of the hands of predators.” The 1,320-square-foot home sold for $1.58 million—or $1,200 per square foot (the neighborhood average is $400).
While the work of 20th-century masters—Neutra, Rudolf Schindler, John Lautner, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Thornton Ladd, Paul Williams and Wallace Neff—put Southern California on the global design map, other regions in the nation are experiencing a similar demand for architect-designed homes. Says Dallas broker Douglas Newby: “Today’s buyers want couture architecture. Design trumps square footage.”
Jan Horn, Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate,
310.777.6200, www.janhorn.com, www.coldwellbanker.com
Martie Lieberman, Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate,
941.724.1118, www.modernsarasota.com, www.floridamoves.com
Richard Stanley, Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate
323.906.2417, www.richardstanleyrealtor.com, www.coldwellbanker.com
Douglas Newby, Douglas Newby & Associates
214.522.1000, www.significanthomes.com
Jolynne Ash, DreamStreet Real Estate
888.475.4040, www.jolynne.com
Scott Jarson, Jarson & Jarson,
480.425.9300, www.azarchitecture.com
Marmol Radziner & Associates,
310.826.6222
Mike Deasy, Mossler Deasy & Doe, 310.275.2222,
www.architectureforsale.com
Brian Linder, Mossler Deasy & Doe, 800.684.8862,
www.thevalueofarchitecture.com
Bill Kirk, Sotheby’s International Realty, 561.659.3555,
www.palmbeach.sothebysrealty.com
Susan Blabey, William Pitt Sotheby’s International Realty
888.252.7488, www.williampittsir.com
