We wrote about this house last March and now the promised photo shoot has been published on Zero Energy Design’s web site. Go see the great slide show and read details about the project.
One stumbling block for fans of regional Modern houses is that they are generally located in the outskirts of suburban towns, which is certainly the case in Lexington, with the concentrated neighborhoods of Five Fields, Peacock Farm, Six Moon Hill, and Turning Mill all scattered around the town’s borders. We have a few more centrally located Mid-Century Modern houses, for example, a couple of Ira Rakantansky designs and a couple of other interesting Mods on Hill Street. But the bulk of our inventory remains a good distance away from the town center and require driving for most purposes.
Lexingtonions have seen far more than our share of the tear-down phenomenon, which has been going on fairly steadily for close to twenty years and has recently seemed to tick up, at least judging from activity the past year or two on the town’s busier roads. Almost all new construction has been in the traditional “Colonial” vernacular. Grant Street, a street that runs into Mass. Ave. in the center, with the post office on the corner, is a main route along the informal borders of Meriam Hill and Saddle Club, two neighborhoods that are highly desirable to most buyers and residents. Most of Grant Street is within walking distance of the town center, Fiske Elementary, and Diamond Middle School. So having a new Modern house, striking in design, is set into even more dramatic relief sited next to the brick Georgian house, the property of which was sub-divided to create the building lot for this house. Of course, it was not the work of a developer taking a risk on a new design for profit. This was built by what we call “end users,” custom construction for the current owners. I don’t imagine for a second that everyone in town will agree, but we think the house looks perfectly at home in its siting. One would not flinch to see the varied styles in the Los Angeles area, but it is obviously far less common here.
