Can Houses Be Sold Like Art? Neutra Kaufmann Home Sells For Less Than Expected

Can Houses Be Sold Like Art?

$15 Million Sale at Christie's Is a Milepost, But Some Experts Are Cautious
By Christina S. N. Lewis, with photos and links provided by yours truly

In a closely watched test of the concept of selling a house as art, a restored modernist home in Palm Springs, Calif., fetched $15 million this week at Christie's prestigious evening sales -- a record for a home sold at an art-house auction.



Given the cloudy economic forecast and sluggish real-estate market, the sale price of the Richard Neutra-designed house thrilled Christie's officials. Real-estate brokers had put the value of the two-acre property and house, completed in 1947 for Pittsburgh department-store magnate Edgar J. Kaufmann, at roughly $9 million. (Overall, the evening sale was considered a success, with a Lucien Freud painting fetching $33.6 million, the highest price ever for a work by a living artist.)


Above: The Neutra-designed Kaufmann home in Palm Springs that sold at auction for $15 million (to see more pics, go here)


Above: Benefits Supervisor Sleeping by Lucian Freud sold for $33,641,000 and Establishes auction record for a living artist

But some devotees of midcentury architecture, a style characterized by horizontal lines, open floor plans and minimal embellishments, were dismayed. The sale price ($16.8 million with the buyer's premium) was at the bottom of Christie's estimate of $15 million to $25 million, and the auction didn't generate the level of competing bids some expected. "It was kind of disappointing," said Bridget Restivo, a real-estate broker who is involved in historic preservation. "I thought there would be more interest, cachet, excitement." Michael LaFetra, a Los Angeles-based preservationist who has restored and sold a number of significant midcentury houses, says the low number of bids could indicate the modernist market is peaking.


above: Actor, producer and home preserver Michael LaFetra stands in the hall of a Rudolf Schindler home in Sherman Oaks. LaFetra hangs on to architecturally significant houses until he can register them as landmarks.

The buyer, who wished to remain anonymous, is a foreigner with homes in Europe and the U.S. who has an interest in 20th-century architecture, design and art, according to Joshua Holdeman, Christie's head of 20th-century art and design, who oversaw the sale. The buyer also agreed to purchase an adjacent orchard on a third of an acre, bringing his total outlay to $19 million.



Above: Todd Eberle/Wright Auction House The Louis Kahn-designed Esherick House in Philadelphia, set to be auctioned Sunday


Above: Located in Chestnut Hill, the one-bedroom house has a custom "sculpted" kitchen by woodworker Wharton Esherick and is in virtually original condition.

Only a handful of "collectible" houses have gone to auction since 2000, yet the gambit will get another test Sunday when Chicago auction house Wright offers up a Louis Kahn-designed home in Philadelphia for an estimated $2 million to $3 million. Located in Chestnut Hill, an upscale neighborhood, the one-bedroom house has an undulating, "sculpted" kitchen by woodworker Wharton Esherick and is in virtually original condition.

And next month, Sotheby's will auction the Artek Pavilion (shown below), a 130-foot-long, 16-foot-wide exhibition structure designed in 2007 by contemporary Japanese-born architect Shigeru Ban, at an estimated $800,000 to $1.2 million. The auction house believes the structure, which takes a construction crew a week to assemble, could serve as a good private-museum space.



Above Artek Pavilion Photos by Paul Petrunia, more in their Gallery

Some homes sold as architectural masterpieces have exceeded their estimates. In 2003, the National Trust for Historic Preservation paid $7.5 million, including the buyer's premium, for a Mies van der Rohe-designed glass box-style house near Chicago, over its $6 million estimate.



Above: In 2000, an Asian-influenced 1950 Manhattan townhouse designed by Philip Johnson for Blanchette Rockefeller sold for $11.1 million with the premium -- more than twice its $5 million estimate -- at Christie's. In 1989, the home had sold at a Sotheby's auction for $3.5 million with the premium, well over its $2 million estimate.

A few years ago, some preservationists worried that auctions would allow individuals to buy modernist masterworks and then alter the houses by moving them or creating inappropriate additions. Instead, design enthusiasts say, auctions have proved a boon by raising broader awareness of the style.

ON THE BLOCK

A sampling of houses designed by modernist architects and sold at auction (prices include buyer's premium)

Kaufmann House by Richard Neutra
Palm Springs, Calif. $16.8 million on May 13

Maison Tropicale by Jean Prouvé
Modular $5 million in 2007

Case Study House No. 21 by Pierre Koenig
Los Angeles $3.1 million in 2006

Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe
Plano, Ill. $7.5 million in 2003

"I am a big supporter," said Christy MacLear, co-leader of the modernism initiative of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "It creates this unbelievable awareness about modernism and enhances its value." But the practice may work only for landmark properties designed by an architect of national significance, auction officials say.

In October, the Wolfson Trailer House in Dutchess County, N.Y., designed by modernist pioneer Marcel Breuer, sold at auction in a single bid for $1 million (hammer price), its low estimate, according to Richard Wright, the owner of the Chicago auction company. However, the buyer never visited the unusual two-bedroom house, which uses an attached aluminum 1948 Spartan trailer as its kitchen, and the sale subsequently fell apart. The house still is owned by the original sellers. Mr. Wright, citing legal issues, declined to elaborate.


Above: The Wolfson Trailer House

"The price was modest and the property was modest," said Mr. Wright. "In the future, I will only do historically important properties." The house's co-owner, David Diao, says: "I'm just as happy it didn't go through. I think he got it at too low a bid." The property now is on the market for $1.5 million.

The high prices being paid for some modernist houses viewed as art seem a continuation of the booming contemporary-furniture market. Prices for limited-edition contemporary furniture have zoomed to hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece. And the art world increasingly is recognizing the house as an art form. In July, New York's Museum of Modern Art will open an exhibit of prefabricated homes.

To pitch a house as a masterpiece, auction houses often create unusual catalogs. Christie's Kaufmann house brochure was delivered in a clear Lucite box with a cork bottom referencing the home's cork floors in the bathrooms and kitchen. It was sent to 500 key clients enclosed in a cashmere bag.

Wright's hyper-stylized catalog for the Kahn house in Philadelphia features quotes by some of contemporary architecture's biggest names, including Zaha Hadid, Richard Meier and Annabelle Selldorf. The Sotheby's catalogue for the Farnsworth house was bound in metal with a clear plastic cover, a reference to the home's glass box style. The catalog quotes a 1951 letter Philip Johnson wrote to Mr. Rohe after visiting the house: "There is no way I can tell you how much I admire the architecture."

Kaufmann House To Be Auctioned By Christies. Care To Bid? There's No Shipping Costs...

Above: The Kaufmann House, a 1946 glass, steel and stone landmark built on the edge of Palm Springs by the architect Richard Neutra, has twice been at the vanguard of new movements in architecture — helping to shape postwar Modernism and later, as a result of a painstaking restoration in the mid-1990s, spurring a revived interest in mid-20th-century homes.

NY Times By EDWARD WYATT
Published: October 31, 2007
PALM SPRINGS, Calif.,

The Kaufmann House, a 1946 glass, steel and stone landmark built on the edge of this desert town by the architect Richard Neutra, has twice been at the vanguard of new movements in architecture — helping to shape postwar Modernism and later, as a result of a painstaking restoration in the mid-1990s, spurring a revived interest in mid-20th-century homes.

Now the California homeowners who undertook that restoration hope Neutra’s masterpiece will play a role in a third movement: promoting architecture as a collectible art worthy of the same consideration as painting and sculpture.

Those owners, Brent Harris, an investment manager, and Beth Edwards Harris, an architectural historian, are finalizing their divorce, and plan to auction the Kaufmann House at Christie’s in New York in May. The building, with a presale estimate of $15 million to $25 million, will be part of Christie’s high-profile evening sale of postwar and contemporary art.

Commissioned by Edgar J. Kaufmann Sr., the Pittsburgh department store magnate who had commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright about a decade earlier to build Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, the house was designed as a desert retreat from harsh winters. Constructed as a series of horizontal planes that seem to float over glass walls, the house seems to absorb the mood of the surrounding desert.

Auctions of such midcentury landmarks have become more common in recent years. In 2003 Sotheby’s sold the 1951 Farnsworth House southwest of Chicago, designed by Mies van der Rohe, at auction for $7.5 million. In June Jean Prouvé’s 1951 Maison Tropicale (seen below), a prototype for prefabricated homes for French colonial officials stationed in Africa, sold at Christie’s for $4.97 million.


Above: Jean Prouvés Maison Tropicale on Long Island, sold to a private bidder

Such auctions are bringing a new level of scrutiny to a form that, little more than a decade ago, attracted so little notice that the Kaufmann House was being offered for sale as a teardown.

Still, such sales sometimes draw criticism from preservationists who would prefer that the houses be tended by a public institution or trust that guarantees continued access for architecture students and scholars rather than sold to the highest bidder. (The Farnsworth House, now open to the public, was bought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, while the Maison Tropicale went to a private bidder.)



The couple behind the restoration, Brent Harris, an investment manager, and Beth Edwards Harris, an architectural historian, are finalizing their divorce, and plan to auction the Kaufmann House at Christie's in New York in May. The building, with a presale estimate of $15 million to $25 million, will be part of Christie's high-profile evening sale of postwar and contemporary art.

The Harrises also bought several adjoining plots to more than double the land around the 3,200-square-foot house, restoring the desert buffer that Neutra envisioned. The Harrises “were visionaries in their own way,” said Joshua Holdeman, a senior vice president at Christie's. Asked how it felt to be close to selling the property, Dr. Harris blinked away tears. “Oh, it’s horrifying,” she said. “But we did our time here. There will be other things.”

But Dr. Harris, who worked toward her doctorate in architectural history while restoring the Kaufmann House, said she believed an auction would further the preservationist cause.

“It’s an odd thing, but the more money this house goes for, the better it is for preservation in my point of view,” she said on Monday while giving a tour of the house to a reporter. “I think it will encourage other people who have the income to go out and get places like these to restore, rather than just looking for some pretty palace somewhere.”


Photo: Tim Street-Porter

The Kaufmann House is one of the best-known designs by Neutra, a Viennese-born architect who moved to the United States in the 1920s and designed homes for the next few decades for many wealthy West Coast clients. His buildings are seen virtually as the apotheosis of Modernism’s International Style, with their skeletal steel frames and open plans. Yet Neutra was also known for catering sensitively to the needs of his clients, so that their houses would be not only functional but would also nurture their owners psychologically.

When Brent and Beth Harris first saw the Kaufmann House, it was neither a pretty palace nor an obvious candidate for restoration. Strikingly photographed in 1947 by Julius Shulman, it stood vacant for several years after Kaufmann’s death in 1955. Then it went through a series of owners, including the singer Barry Manilow, and a series of renovations. Along the way, a light-disseminating patio was enclosed, one wall was broken through for the addition of a media room, the sleek roof lines were interrupted with air-conditioning units, and some bedrooms were wallpapered in delicate floral prints.


Photo: Tim Street-Porter

The house stood vacant for several years after Kaufmann's death in 1955. Then it went through a series of owners, including the singer Barry Manilow, and a series of renovations. A patio was enclosed, one wall was broken through for the addition of a media room, the sleek roof lines were interrupted with air-conditioning units, and some bedrooms were wallpapered in delicate floral prints.

In 1992 Beth Harris, an architectural tourist of a sort, scaled a fence one afternoon to peek at the famous house while her husband discovered a for-sale sign in an overgrown hedge.

“It quite clearly was at some risk of being severely modified by whoever was to buy it, or potentially demolished,” Mr. Harris said, recalling his first glimpses of the house.


above:Constructed as a series of horizontal planes that seem to float over glass walls, the house seems to absorb the mood of the surrounding desert. Photo: Julius Shulman and Juergen Nogai

In Palm Springs, increasingly dominated by faux Spanish estates, Neutra’s Modernism “wasn’t the prevailing style,” Mr. Harris said, and the Kaufmann House “had been for sale for at least three and a half years.” He added: “No one wanted it. And so it was a gorgeous house, an important house, and it was crying out for restoration.”



Auctions of such midcentury landmarks have become more common. In 2003 Sotheby's sold Mies van der Rohe’s 1951 Farnsworth House for $7.5 million. In June, Jean Prouvé's 1951 Maison Tropicale sold at Christie's for $4.97 million.

After purchasing the house and its more than an acre of land for about $1.5 million, the Harrises removed the extra appendages and enlisted two young Los Angeles-area architects, Leo Marmol and Ron Radziner, to restore the Neutra design. They sought out the original providers of paint and fixtures, bought a metal-crimping machine to reproduce the sheet-metal fascia that lined the roof and even reopened a long-closed section of a Utah quarry to mine matching stone to replace what had been removed or damaged.


Photo: Tim Street-Porter

Without the original plans for the house, the Harrises dug through the Neutra archives at the University of California, Los Angeles, looking at hundreds of Neutra’s sketches of details for the house. They persuaded Mr. Shulman to let them examine dozens of never-printed photographs of the home’s interior, and found other documents in the architectural collections at Columbia University.



The Harrises also bought several adjoining plots to more than double the land around the 3,200-square-foot house, restoring the desert buffer that Neutra envisioned. They rebuilt a pool house that serves as a viewing pavilion for the main house, and kept a tennis court that was built on a parcel added to the original Kaufmann property.

The Harrises “were visionaries in their own way,” said Joshua Holdeman, a senior vice president at Christie’s who oversees the 20th-century decorative art and design department. With the renovation “they created a whole new public awareness of midcentury-modern architecture.”

Describing the results of the restoration in The Los Angeles Times in 1999, Nicolai Ouroussoff, now the architecture critic for The New York Times, said the house could “now be seen in its full glory for the first time in nearly 50 years.”



The pending sale is bittersweet for the current owners, who said they planned to give a portion of the proceeds to preservation groups. Asked how it felt to be close to selling the property, Dr. Harris looked back at the house, blinking away tears. “Oh, it’s horrifying,” she said. “But we did our time here. There will be other things.”
Click here to go to Christies Auction site.