Tour: ‘The Home of Tomorrow’ in Portland, Oregon
The Bauhaus-inspired architects assembled the pre-fab in two days in 1959.
Today, a tour: a preserved mid-century in Portland that was also featured on the Hulu show, Shrill. Thanks to Arlyn Hernandez and Sonia Oñate-Rickett for their contributions.
Tour: ‘The Home of Tomorrow’ in Portland, Oregon
Words by: Arlyn Hernandez
Photos by: Sonia Oñate-Rickett/@go.flatland
“Our house is the ‘Weird Barbie’ of the street,” writer Abby Morgan tells me of her Portland, Oregon, mid-century home she’s owned with her graphic designer partner for a little over two years. Abby's got the kind of cute-meets-cool haircut that’s as architectural as the pitched ceiling line I can view through the edges of her Zoom. Light seems to be everywhere.
“All of the rooms throughout the home have these clerestory windows, so light really travels front to back all day,” she says, unknowingly reading my mind.
You just don’t find these kinds of thoughtful details in today’s new builds, which is precisely what attracted Abby to the 1,600-square-foot, three-bedroom house built in 1959 (you may also recognize it as the parents' home on Hulu's Shrill). Prior to purchasing, the “home itself was a concept commissioned by the development company Wedgwood Homes and was called the ‘Home of Tomorrow’. It’s the only one in our neighborhood that looks the way it does,” she says.
“The developers hired William Fletcher and Donald Blair, two architects really early in their careers, who were inspired by Bauhaus and Piet Mondrian," Abby continues. "As for construction, it was all about innovation. They developed the idea for the house and it was assembled on site over the course of a day or two,” she says.
WHAT.
Looking at the cornflower blue and red metal frame, the sheets of glass, and the origami-like roof, it’s hard to believe that a roughly 48-hour period is all it took to erect the striking structure. “Does that mean the house is prefab?” I ask her, and she confirms. I go on: “It doesn’t look it, but does it feel prefab?”
Abby immediately looks up and chuckles. “Sometimes, yeah. The roof especially. It’s made of metal with no insulation. When it rains, which it does a lot here, it’s loud so it’s tough to have meetings with all that sound!”
While the home itself is as mid-century modern as MCM gets, the airy interiors are an artful mix of mostly primary colored contemporary pieces and graphic rugs. Take, for example, the original floating fireplace which looks perfectly congruous with the Taidgh O'Neill chair (a new piece by a contemporary designer). It's Abby's favorite piece right now: “It rounds out the look and feel of the living room with its playful proportions and color palette."
Nearby, I spotted some interesting paint-splattered rocks by artist Aaron Elvis Jupin stacked high around a planter — what's up with those? “My partner runs a gallery," Abby tells me, "and often the artists are coming from elsewhere so we tend to be either the purchasers of the art as is the case with the rocks, or [we're] the ones who store it. It’s not as bad as it used to be but yeah, we store a lot of random stuff…” Abby says, trailing off. Except to me, it doesn’t feel random. This couple feels like the types to have all kinds of cool connections; and that their design choices are made in tandem. Everything fits together stylistically like a fresh Jenga stack — but without feeling overly designed, almost as if they bought the house fully furnished. (They didn’t, by the way.)
Hearing Abby walk me through the layout of the residence and how they use the spaces, I wonder how much is original and how much has changed over the years. Apart from a handful of windows that were swapped out and a cork floor added to the living room by a previous owner, “for the most part, it’s all been kept as-is,” she notes. “There are things we definitely want to change, but it’s all so nostalgic and has been this way for so long that there’s a lot of pressure for us to keep it the same.”
With their carefully curated furniture and everything that comes along with living in the 21th century, perhaps this is unknowingly what the original developers had in mind when they pictured what a home would be "tomorrow."
Keep up with Abby Morgan’s cool house @abby.girll.