Sitting on a hill overlooking the Potomac River in McLean, Virginia, the home originally designed for Luis and Ethel Marden was featured in The New York Times Magazine. Completed in 1959, the Frank Lloyd Wright designed home is made of cinder blocks and includes a spectacular view of the river valley "through 80 feet of floor-to-ceiling windows"...
Purchased in 2000 by James V. Kimsey (the founding chairman of America Online), the historic home was repaired with historical accuracy by contractor Bailey C. Adams. Architect Richard Williams along with Robin Rose and Daniel Donnelly designed and furnished the interiors.
Be sure to check out the story and all the photos from The New York Times Magazine: Rear Window and slideshow.
Pics: Nikolas Koenig
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
wow. the stuff dreams are made of!
view little chimp's profile
What a great way to reuse this historic and beautiful house - I'll have to get myself invited for a nice long weekend!
view bepsf's profile
dreams indeed, it rarely gets better than that.
view radiobaby's profile
The article notes that Mr. Kimsey has "no interest in living in the diminuative structure..."
It's 2,500 square feet.
2, 500 square feet is "diminuative" now? Really? That's 5.5 times the size of my home.
I'm cranky.
view moira's profile
glad to see they have not ruined it and the furniture works perfectly
view LoriSF's profile
ha, he makes fun of his own enormous home, and then mocks this (as pointed out earlier) huge home??
Srlsy, agian AT is right behind my imagination. The horrible prices in seattle had me dreaming of cinderblock homes last night. Now this, this is how you do cinderblock.
Now, never in this house, but if you built yourself a modernist structure with block, wouldn't you be tempted to finish the interior... or paint it, for color?
I'm assuming all those expanses of beautiful wood would kill a budget, and my cinderblock house wouldn't have it.
view DahliaCactus's profile
p.s. the other FLW device i dream of is the waxed slate floors in fallingwater (to match the look of the exterior slate when wet) such a simple idea with such fantastic impact.
view DahliaCactus's profile
diminutive at 2500sq feet? I wonder what he considers "large?" My house must seem lilliputian; I love anything designed by FLW-oh lovely lovely.
view Rndrc's profile
and that's my parents' neighbor!
view art_brutale's profile
In our even tinier ;) 1,800 sq ft house, we have a half bath that has the same sink and fixtures as that shown in one of the images above, beautiful knotty pine walls in the room it is off of. I feel positively wealthy! We can dream, no?
view BruceS63's profile