Just Listed - Open House Sunday March 25, 2007 12-2PM

5 Demar Road, Lexington, MA 02420

1956 mid-century modern Techbuilt home, designed by Carl Koch, Lexington, MA

The mid-century house at 5 Demar Road, Lexington, MA, is full of architectural features and private wooded views. Designed in the international style of Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house principles, this pre-fabricated house by designed by the architect Carl Koch, founder of Techbuilt Architects. This model house created a showcase of modern living, and was entered in a design competition to showcase new Frigidaire kitchen appliances. The house features one floor living and an architecturally-designed furniture system of “shelf units.”

Year Built..........1956

Rooms..............7

Bedrooms.........4

Baths................2

Living Area........2,051

Lot Area.............31,182

Offered at $599,000

Exclusively marketed by John Tse

Carlson GMAC Real Estate

1775 Massachusetts Avenue

Lexington, MA. 02420

C: 617-851-3532

jtse@carlsonre.com

Techbuilt, Inc Architects, founded by Carl Koch who studied under Walter Gropius designed and developed this residential development in west Lexington.  Ideas from the garden suburb, principles of pre-fabrication, systematic design, pre-fabrication, open planning, and sensitivity to site conditions; were all aptly applied. 

Most of the houses were based on the same typology, a split level house that adjusted itself to the specific site condition; whereas 5 Demar Road differed; a showcase piece, which was entered into a Frigidaire appliances competition in 1956.

The (form – three dimensionality?) strongly influenced by the international style as well as the Usonian houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, organized the house under a single sweeping flat roof emphasizing the horizontality and orthogonal sleekness.

In fact, the roof plan cantilevered on the same plane creating a carport, housing the automobile, an essential element of the suburb. The exterior walls, designed with maximum transparency in the communal spaces, created interplay with interior and exterior realms recalling the innovative glass box international style homes; which celebrates the verdant environment.  

More privacy was planned for the exterior elevations of the bedrooms, the windows placed with a sill height of 30”, designed from a system of repetitive wood panels, operable aluminum windows and fixed glass lights .

The layout split the house into an open plan of the communal spaces and a wing with the bedrooms and bathrooms.  The hearth, “the center of the house”, a principle of Frank Lloyd Wright, is incorporated in this design. The core elements symbolically the vital organs include not only the fireplace, but also the utilities; the oil burner, the hot water tanks as well as the refrigerator and oven, originally sheathed in wood planking. Around this hearth, the kitchen, dining room, living room and entry atrium spaces flow into each other. The children’s areas originally were designed with sliding doors which opened up into a common playroom.  

The construction of the house uses conventional wood frame techniques and is simplified with a concrete slab foundation.

Innovations abound in the detailing. The new kitchen appliance prototypes from Frigidaire were planned especially for the competition entry.  The oven, eschewing the conventional under counter configuration, is planned at counter height, originally with double swinging doors.  Futuristic and sleek lined foldable stainless steel stove top units grace the kitchen counter.

The designers went so far as to offer system furniture made out of wood and masonite panels with sliding doors.  Even the children’s playground equipment was not forgotten, a “jungle-gym” designed with the same rigor out of repetitive and logical system elements; five 8’ semi-circle 1”galvanized steel tubes.

Sensitive landscape elements, wood fences for screening, and a concrete paved terraced gave a completeness to the well executed design.