Circa 1955
With all the romanticism about mid-century modernism, it's fascinating to crack open a time capsule and see how people really decorated their domestic spaces back in the mid-twentieth century: Check out this real estate listing or a house in the Hill neighborhood of St. Louis, built (and decorated) in 1955—and not lived in since.
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The story of how the house's main floor has come to be untouched (except for 28 Thanksgiving dinners), is probably as prosaic as it sounds; the current (and only) occupants have lived on the lower level of the house since it was built. Take the online tour, and you'll notice no Heywood Wakefield credenzas or Arne Jacobsen chairs, but the kind of anonymous knockoffs and knotty pine that one could've purchased at Sears-Roebuck back in the day. (When future real-estate agents unveil an un-lived-in early-21st-century gem, they'll find plastic DWR Eames rockers and Michael Graves cork-pullers from Target.)
David A. Greene
Dave has contributed to Dwell since its inception. He's a CalArts dropout, a former art critic for The New Yorker, and a producer of comedies on TV. He lives in, and writes from, Los Angeles.
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