The Livable Masterpiece
Buying historical architectural gems, whether homes or skyscrapers, is the latest trend among those with an eye -- and the wallet -- for the fashionable, big purchase.
By Brook S. Mason, Financial Times
Look out, King Kong. There's a new breed of creatures who aren't scaling buildings, but snatching them up. Mies van der Rohe skyscrapers, along with Modernist homes by such architectural icons as John Lautner and Gordon Bunshaft rank as the must-haves of a growing number of deep-pocketed, international collectors, who cut across the worlds of finance, film, fashion, media and real estate.
This designer obsession, which has been the talk of Hollywood cocktail parties for years, is lately developing into a global pandemic. The itch to own pedigreed 20th century architecture is part of a condition that could be called The Brand-Name Real Estate Portfolio Mystique. For the players, it's goodbye 18th century country manor, hello Modernist masterpiece.
"If the icon is there, they will buy it," says Barry Bergdoll, professor of 19th and 20th century architectural history at Columbia University. Azzedine Alaia, couture's "King of Cling," has a structure built by France's preeminent Modernist designer Jean Prouvé inside his cavernous Paris loft. But that's nothing: Robert Rubin, a retired Manhattan commodities and currency trader, recently bought a small prefab house by Prouvé. For purchasing, shipping and restoring the 1949 Maison Tropicale from Brazzaville, Congo Republic, Rubin dropped $1 million plus.
Manhattan real estate mogul Aby Rosen plucked up Mies van der Rohe's 38-story 1952 Seagram Building (Philip Johnson designed its Four Seasons restaurant), and the 1952 Lever House by Bunshaft of the power architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, not to mention other New York Modernist structures and Art Deco skyscrapers. Alexis Stewart, daughter of infamous taste maven Martha Stewart, recently put a celebrated Gordon Bunshaft house in the Hamptons on the market for $9.2 million.
Bergdoll notes that this feeding frenzy is a case of huge demand and dwindling supply: For every Modernist structure purchased, 20 have been destroyed.
If Rosen is one of the biggest of the big-name hunters, Lord Peter Palumbo, says Bergdoll, is the man who jump-started the craze by buying three acclaimed houses: a Le Corbusier residence in Neuilly, France, Frank Lloyd Wright's 1954 Kentuck Knob House, and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in Illinois. "Who, let alone a member of the English aristocracy, would buy a Mies building in a cattle ground?" he asks.
Not just any masterpiece will please collectors. In the parlance of real estate, it's still about location, location, location. When Palumbo sold Farnsworth House in December, it was auctioned at Sotheby's New York. Only two bidders battled it out; one was Rosen, who wanted to move it to the Hamptons overlooking a dune, and the other was a preservation group dedicated to saving the building. That trophy house went to the group for $7.5 million.
"But if the Farnsworth House had been in Manhattan, scores of buyers would have scrambled for it," says Nancy McClelland, one of the Manhattan art advisors who handled the sale. A case in point is the Philip Johnson-designed guest house, at 242 E. 52nd St., sold at Christie's in June 2000. "The price soared to $11.1 million for the two-bedroom house," recalls McClelland who then headed Christie's 20th century department. "A total of nine people fought over it."
In Los Angeles, far more than nine people are likely to put in offers on a 20th century designer home. Brand-name architectural collections rival couture wardrobes for the Hollywood set. Richard Neutra, A. Quincy Jones, Rudolf Schindler, Gregory Ain, Pierre Koening, even the home builder Joseph Eichler: These are the names to drop. And let's not forget Paul Williams. (Renée Zellweger recently sold her Bel-Air traditional Williams to Debra Messing.)
It's no coincidence that this town's most fashionable emigres are in on the game. Ex-Gucci superstar Tom Ford owns a Neutra house in Bel-Air, among other residences, and Benedikt and Angelika Taschen of the German publishing company bought Lautner's Chemosphere, a house that was famously used in Brian De Palma's "Body Double." Lautner's 1970s design sensibility is particularly appealing to youngish stars. Courteney Cox Arquette and husband David Arquette live in a Malibu beachfront Lautner. Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glazer also own a Lautner.
Of course, the celebrity appetite for splendid design is nothing new. Wallace Neff was known from the 1930s to the '60s as "architect to the stars." In the last couple of years, he has reemerged as perhaps the most high-profile-name architect to attract the new generation of Hollywood house hunters and gatherers. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston made news when they bought and extensively renovated the Normandy-style home Neff designed for actor Fredric March.
Actresses Jenna Elfman, Madonna and Diane Keaton are also Neffies. Elfman purchased — from Madonna — a Mediterranean-style home in Los Feliz built by Neff some 80 years ago. She bought another home by the architect from Keaton in 2000.
Keaton, meanwhile, bought a home by Lloyd Wright, eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright. Producer Joel Silver revitalized Frank Lloyd Wright's legendary Storer House in the Hollywood Hills in a painstaking, respectful restoration that took several years before moving on to another Wright design, an enormous plantation in the Carolinas.
The realty firm Mossler, Deasy & Doe in Beverly Hills has specialized in homes with famous architectural pedigrees for three decades. But interest has increased in L.A. in the last few years, says Crosby Doe, with the primary clientele being people in the entertainment industry — producers, directors, "people who see things visually." Last year the firm's sales topped $200 million.
Maintenance of landmark structures is no easy task. "Many Modernist houses were experimental, so often entire service units like heating need to be upgraded," says McClelland. Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for his leaky roofs.
Collectors also pick up period furniture and accessories that are appropriate for their buildings. In fact, the Modernist furnishings market is one of the hottest in the auction field. In December at Sotheby's New York, an Alexandre Knoll mahogany chair from 1947 soared to a staggering $680,000. "From five years ago, the number of collectors and prices too have shot up 200%," McClelland says.
Still, why the quest for the architecturally correct building by the right architect? Says Rosen, who spent a whopping $70 million-plus to re-sheathe the entire Lever House, "It's like living inside a work of art."
Brook S. Mason is contributing editor of Art & Auction magazine. His work appears here by special arrangement with the Financial Times. David A. Keeps contributed to this report.
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Buying historical architectural gems, whether homes or skyscrapers, is the latest trend among those with an eye -- and the wallet -- for the fashionable, big purchase.
By Brook S. Mason, Financial Times
- bill 9-02-2004 7:51 pm
Look out, King Kong. There's a new breed of creatures who aren't scaling buildings, but snatching them up. Mies van der Rohe skyscrapers, along with Modernist homes by such architectural icons as John Lautner and Gordon Bunshaft rank as the must-haves of a growing number of deep-pocketed, international collectors, who cut across the worlds of finance, film, fashion, media and real estate.
This designer obsession, which has been the talk of Hollywood cocktail parties for years, is lately developing into a global pandemic. The itch to own pedigreed 20th century architecture is part of a condition that could be called The Brand-Name Real Estate Portfolio Mystique. For the players, it's goodbye 18th century country manor, hello Modernist masterpiece.
"If the icon is there, they will buy it," says Barry Bergdoll, professor of 19th and 20th century architectural history at Columbia University. Azzedine Alaia, couture's "King of Cling," has a structure built by France's preeminent Modernist designer Jean Prouvé inside his cavernous Paris loft. But that's nothing: Robert Rubin, a retired Manhattan commodities and currency trader, recently bought a small prefab house by Prouvé. For purchasing, shipping and restoring the 1949 Maison Tropicale from Brazzaville, Congo Republic, Rubin dropped $1 million plus.
Manhattan real estate mogul Aby Rosen plucked up Mies van der Rohe's 38-story 1952 Seagram Building (Philip Johnson designed its Four Seasons restaurant), and the 1952 Lever House by Bunshaft of the power architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, not to mention other New York Modernist structures and Art Deco skyscrapers. Alexis Stewart, daughter of infamous taste maven Martha Stewart, recently put a celebrated Gordon Bunshaft house in the Hamptons on the market for $9.2 million.
Bergdoll notes that this feeding frenzy is a case of huge demand and dwindling supply: For every Modernist structure purchased, 20 have been destroyed.
If Rosen is one of the biggest of the big-name hunters, Lord Peter Palumbo, says Bergdoll, is the man who jump-started the craze by buying three acclaimed houses: a Le Corbusier residence in Neuilly, France, Frank Lloyd Wright's 1954 Kentuck Knob House, and Mies van der Rohe's Farnsworth House in Illinois. "Who, let alone a member of the English aristocracy, would buy a Mies building in a cattle ground?" he asks.
Not just any masterpiece will please collectors. In the parlance of real estate, it's still about location, location, location. When Palumbo sold Farnsworth House in December, it was auctioned at Sotheby's New York. Only two bidders battled it out; one was Rosen, who wanted to move it to the Hamptons overlooking a dune, and the other was a preservation group dedicated to saving the building. That trophy house went to the group for $7.5 million.
"But if the Farnsworth House had been in Manhattan, scores of buyers would have scrambled for it," says Nancy McClelland, one of the Manhattan art advisors who handled the sale. A case in point is the Philip Johnson-designed guest house, at 242 E. 52nd St., sold at Christie's in June 2000. "The price soared to $11.1 million for the two-bedroom house," recalls McClelland who then headed Christie's 20th century department. "A total of nine people fought over it."
In Los Angeles, far more than nine people are likely to put in offers on a 20th century designer home. Brand-name architectural collections rival couture wardrobes for the Hollywood set. Richard Neutra, A. Quincy Jones, Rudolf Schindler, Gregory Ain, Pierre Koening, even the home builder Joseph Eichler: These are the names to drop. And let's not forget Paul Williams. (Renée Zellweger recently sold her Bel-Air traditional Williams to Debra Messing.)
It's no coincidence that this town's most fashionable emigres are in on the game. Ex-Gucci superstar Tom Ford owns a Neutra house in Bel-Air, among other residences, and Benedikt and Angelika Taschen of the German publishing company bought Lautner's Chemosphere, a house that was famously used in Brian De Palma's "Body Double." Lautner's 1970s design sensibility is particularly appealing to youngish stars. Courteney Cox Arquette and husband David Arquette live in a Malibu beachfront Lautner. Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glazer also own a Lautner.
Of course, the celebrity appetite for splendid design is nothing new. Wallace Neff was known from the 1930s to the '60s as "architect to the stars." In the last couple of years, he has reemerged as perhaps the most high-profile-name architect to attract the new generation of Hollywood house hunters and gatherers. Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston made news when they bought and extensively renovated the Normandy-style home Neff designed for actor Fredric March.
Actresses Jenna Elfman, Madonna and Diane Keaton are also Neffies. Elfman purchased — from Madonna — a Mediterranean-style home in Los Feliz built by Neff some 80 years ago. She bought another home by the architect from Keaton in 2000.
Keaton, meanwhile, bought a home by Lloyd Wright, eldest son of Frank Lloyd Wright. Producer Joel Silver revitalized Frank Lloyd Wright's legendary Storer House in the Hollywood Hills in a painstaking, respectful restoration that took several years before moving on to another Wright design, an enormous plantation in the Carolinas.
The realty firm Mossler, Deasy & Doe in Beverly Hills has specialized in homes with famous architectural pedigrees for three decades. But interest has increased in L.A. in the last few years, says Crosby Doe, with the primary clientele being people in the entertainment industry — producers, directors, "people who see things visually." Last year the firm's sales topped $200 million.
Maintenance of landmark structures is no easy task. "Many Modernist houses were experimental, so often entire service units like heating need to be upgraded," says McClelland. Frank Lloyd Wright was notorious for his leaky roofs.
Collectors also pick up period furniture and accessories that are appropriate for their buildings. In fact, the Modernist furnishings market is one of the hottest in the auction field. In December at Sotheby's New York, an Alexandre Knoll mahogany chair from 1947 soared to a staggering $680,000. "From five years ago, the number of collectors and prices too have shot up 200%," McClelland says.
Still, why the quest for the architecturally correct building by the right architect? Says Rosen, who spent a whopping $70 million-plus to re-sheathe the entire Lever House, "It's like living inside a work of art."
Brook S. Mason is contributing editor of Art & Auction magazine. His work appears here by special arrangement with the Financial Times. David A. Keeps contributed to this report.
- bill 9-02-2004 7:51 pm [add a comment]