and what-have-you

Architect Rudolph Matern — sometimes working with architects Herman York, Samuel Paul and others — was responsible for the design of tens of thousands of suburban homes during the US’s post-WWII residential construction boom. He sold architectural drawings for single-family homes via ads in local papers, blueprint catalogs, and model home exhibitions.

Here is his design G-92, a circular vacation home with four extruding wings, advertised in 1967 –

The literal centerpiece of the house was its sunken circular lounge, “a kind of combination living room, family room and what-have-you” –

As far as I can ascertain, the design was never built.

a concrete mushroom

Designed by architect George Bissell in 1963, this house was a demonstration model for a nationwide association of cement companies. It was meant to show that concrete homes were modern, inexpensive, fashionable, and easy to maintain.

A “concrete ‘mushroom,’ of unsurpassed strength and stability,” said the house’s advertising brochure, “it is a major step forward in the development of minimum-maintenance housing, as well as a satisfying esthetic achievement.”

The first house in the new master-planned community of Laguna Niguel, in Orange County, California, it was visited by thousands of people when it was first built. All concrete and glass, with a floating, scalloped concrete roof, it was unlike any other house in the neighborhood, either before or since. While it didn’t spark a craze for round, all-concrete homes, as its developers may have hoped, it did manage to find sympathetic owners who didn’t tear it down or renovate it beyond recognition.

stranger in a strange house

Noted science fiction author Robert Heinlein designed and built this house –

Together with his wife Virginia, Heinlein lived in the house for 20 years, from 1967 to 1987.

A news article from 1985, calling it a “futuristic round house,” said that its 80 feet of book shelves displayed Heinlein’s own works, translated into 29 languages. It also noted that the author, “whose writings advocate space exploration and open marriage, has filled his home with photographs from the U.S. space program and artistic renderings of lithe women.”

The house is located in the Bonny Doon neighborhood of Santa Cruz, California.

 

halfway to infinity

Jack Lenor Larsen, a pioneering textile designer, designed and built a round house in East Hampton, NY, in the early 1960s –

The house was inspired by his 1961 trip to South Africa, where he saw some of the traditional round houses of the Ndebele people. In an interview conducted years after he sold the house, Larsen described his design process, and some of his thoughts on living in the round –

[W]ith a round house, you can make a compass out of a piece of string, and Win and I said, “Well, here’s the main house; here’s the guest house; there’s the studio and tool garden.” Rounds and rounds and rounds – obsessively round …

Round rooms are very interesting, because you define space by corners and a round room is halfway to infinity. It does have a floor and ceiling, but it was special.

 

a map of the last remaining space ship houses

Shaped like the Hollywood idea of a flying saucer, the Futuro is a prefab, portable, fiberglass-reinforced polyester plastic vacation home –

Somewhere between 80 and 96 Futuros were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but at least eight have been demolished. Atlas Obscura has put together a map of every known Futuro House left in the world.

 

rotating round house for rent

There’s an open house on Monday at 19 Harkle Road in Novato, California: the iconic, rotating round house that overlooks Highway 101 –

Designed and built by Sam Harkleroad in 1963, the house “rotates 320 degrees at the flip of a switch.Using motors scavenged from washing machines, Harkleroad, an imaginative builder of oddball homes, created a house that would spin slowly, “keeping the sun shining in the living room every day as long as possible.”

And as the real estate agency’s ad explains, “if you wish to change the view you can move the house.”

The house and its ever-changing view can be yours for $3,000/month.

bolinas round house

A recent photo of the Bolinas round house, which seems to be uninhabited –

And, just down the hill, its round studio –

 

a live-in piece of furniture

The round house in Bolinas, California, is or at least was a masterpiece –

I have to admit that I’ve seen very few photos of it, and those that I have seen are nearly 50 years old. Yet the house still exists — one can find it on Google maps — and if it looks the way it did in 1966, it’s one of the most beautiful round houses in the country.

The happy result of a multi-year collaboration between architect Robert B. Marquis and woodworker Art Carpenter, the house’s owner, it showcases Marquis’ structural knowledge and Carpenter’s love of wood. Begun in about 1958, when Carpenter moved to Bolinas from San Francisco, the house wasn’t finished until 1965. “It was completely hand built,” said Carpenter’s son Tripp, who grew up there; every shelf, doorknob, table and counter was custom designed and made by hand.

meyer on the market

An innovative, expressionistic ’60s-era round house is now on the market in Oakland –

Built by local architect Leon Meyer — who designed a number of other round structures in Oakland and elsewhere — the two-bedroom house has a playful zigzag roof, a large yard, and spectacular views.