Welcome to Icons Only, a series about loving restorations of historically significant homes.

For Sarasota, Florida, architect Max Strang, the opportunity to restore the home of modernist architect Gene Leedy was the culmination of a lifelong calling. Strang, whose namesake architecture, interiors, and landscape firm has offices in Sarasota, Winter Haven, and Miami, was raised in a Winter Haven home designed by the Sarasota School of Architecture founding member, and spent his childhood visiting the house that Leedy designed for himself and lived in for more than 60 years. (Strang’s parents were close with the Leedy family.)

The Gene Leedy House is one of 11 in the Craney Spec Houses Historic District, a collection of modular homes built by the architect between 1956 and 1958 in the Florida modern style that Leedy and other early Sarasota School figures—among them Paul Rudolph, Ralph Twitchell, and Victor Lundy—pioneered during the post-World War II housing boom. (The stretch of Winter Haven is known colloquially as “Leedy Land” or “Leedy Row.”) At the time, Leedy and his peers’ use of open floor plans and exposed framing, as well as louvered windows and sliding glass doors that let in natural light and cross breezes, was considered radical in residential architecture. Leedy’s own house exemplified many defining characteristics of the burgeoning regional style, from its mix of concrete, warm wood, and floor-to-ceiling glass to its open layout and cantilever overhangs; elements that both integrated the architecture with the local climate and offered protection from the elements (which, in Florida, include heat, rain, and mosquitos).

While Leedy’s designs played a big role in Strang’s childhood, it wasn’t until Strang left Winter Haven to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville (Leedy’s alma mater) that he realized the profundity of the architect’s influence. “What was interesting is when you are surrounded by all Leedy’s architecture in this small town, it was normal,” he says. “[When] I went off to college I really missed being in a town that was surrounded by great architecture.” It was that revelation that led Strang to enroll in architecture school, and when it came time for his professional internship, the opportunity to work with Leedy was the obvious choice.

Leedy and Strang’s working relationship and friendship lasted the remainder of Leedy’s life. In 2017, the pair partnered on what they called a “reissue project,” entailing updates and restorations to the Craney Spec Houses. After Leedy’s death in 2018, Strang continued on the project and, with the support of Leedy’s family, purchased the architect’s longtime house in Winter Haven, as well as his nearby office, which since the mid-’50s and early ’60s, respectively, doubled as his de facto laboratories.

“We just had to put on our thinking cap and ask, ‘What would Gene do?’”
— Max Strang, architect

According to Strang, Leedy started making changes to the residence long before he stepped in to restore it. “Gene was tinkering with the house for fifty, sixty years,” Strang says. “He changed the materials of the flooring and, at one time, painted all the doors black. He added new lighting and the A/C. Every time he needed a new bedroom for a kid or a grandkid, he would add it on because the beauty in this was it was a modular design. He did the same not only for this house, but for the other remaining homes on the street. Those all evolved and adapted as the needs of the families evolved.”

By the time Strang purchased the Leedy House, he says the 1,500-square-foot structure “was in bad shape and needed a lot of help.” He was determined to restore the well-worn residence into something reflective of Leedy’s architectural legacy, but struggled to narrow down what exactly that looked like considering his mentor’s decades-spanning career: “A challenge for this restoration [was], ‘Okay, what do we bring this back to? Can we bring it back to the 1956 thinking or the ’80s?’”

After consulting with the Leedy family, Strang decided that his efforts would be best spent trying to restore the home to its original design. Or, at least as close as possible, knowing that there would be certain limitations, such as supply chain disruptions impacting access to certain materials, or changes in energy-efficiency practices or building standards that would necessitate slight departures from Leedy’s midcentury approach.

“We just had to put on our thinking cap and ask, ‘What would Gene do?’ We ended up changing the floors back to the original cork flooring,” Strang says. “When we got the house, I think there were eight different types of track lighting fixtures all scattered throughout. So we asked, ‘What’s the one most appropriate here?’ We did something that was kind of different and put in more cable track lighting to highlight the fact that he was obviously enamored with [it] his whole life.”

Though the single-story home’s original construction—with glass sliding doors in most rooms for open air flow and roof overhangs to shield windows from the sun—was already remarkably energy efficient, it didn’t meet the needs for modern living in Winter Haven, where summer temperatures can reach over 100-degrees Fahrenheit. The town’s location in the central part of the state protects the area from the many of the environmental threats historic buildings face around coastal Florida—issues Strang and other members of Florida preservation community are deeply familiar with.

One update Strang felt confident making was the addition of a belowground pool in the yard. More challenging, however, was adapting the mostly uninsulated midcentury to a modern air-conditioning system, especially since it was designed, in essence, to appear insulation-less: “It is more challenging to air-condition a glass box,” Strang says. “It’s the energy code that’s one of the more challenging and ironic aspects of reissuing homes like this…those walls of glass that really made it feel so much grander than the square footage actually is.”

Strang says he considers the home’s restoration a work in constant progress. The roof, originally wood slab, will eventually have to be replaced to fix the insulation problem. In the meantime, it’s been treated with a reflective white coating to help lower the energy bills. The walls inside the original house were paneled in Honduran mahogany, but Strang says the material has been impossible to find, so his team used a substitute wood paneling until the real thing hopefully eventually comes onto their radar.

Of course, Strang also took on the challenge of restoring the nearby 1961 office building that Leedy created for his Winter Haven firm. The two-story structure features floor-to-ceiling walls of glass, a spiral staircase, and a flat roof with a dramatic overhang. It’s also a prime example of the precast concrete designs that would become a signature for Leedy, particularly the exposed “double tee” load-bearing structure resembling two connected T-shaped beams. Strang calls it “one of Florida’s best buildings,” adding, “When you hear people talk about passion projects, this one certainly is one of those.”

Strang is currently using the Winter Haven office as an outpost for his firm. The Leedy House, meanwhile, has been decorated to reflect its midcentury glory, with original Herman Miller furniture and many of Leedy’s personal items and photographs scattered throughout. Through the organization Double T, founded by Strang to celebrate Leedy’s legacy, architecture aficionados can visit the house for monthly tours and design salons, with other public programming regularly announced on the organization’s Instagram. Leedy’s papers are archived at the University of Florida, but Strang hopes to soon partner with architecture and preservation university programs around the country to establish Winter Haven-based fellowships for students interested in Florida modernism.

When it comes to appreciating Leedy’s designs, Strang says, “The most effective way is getting people inside them. It’s one thing to look at them in a book or magazine, but to fully understand and realize the ingenuity of these midcentury homes and why they just feel so good to be in—you got to visit them.”

More Icons Only stories:

The Coveted Midcentury Community That Residents Banded Together to Preserve

One of Two Neutra Homes in Montana Is Restored as a Part-Time Residency

Project Credits:

Architect of Record (Restoration): STRANG / @strang_design

Builder/General Contractor: Alan Ulch Construction

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Icons Only: Who Better to Restore Two Hallmarks of Gene Leedy’s Legacy Than His Longtime Protégé?