Trailblazer who shook up the old order
IT was the summer Prime Minister Harold Macmillan declared we’d ‘never had it so good’ and a certain Elvis Presley was shaking us up with Jailhouse Rock. If that doesn’t signal we were entering modern times in 1957, I don’t know what does.
Britain was emerging confidently from post-war austerity, with rationing coming to an end three years before.
In the Scottish Borders, a sign of the times was appearing ‘on a sea of green grass’ near Selkirk that would shake the architectural establishment.
The Klein House was designed by celebrated architect Peter Womersley for renowned textile designer Bernat Klein.
The property would turn on its head the established concept of what makes a home. Shelley Klein, who lived there as a girl, later remarked: ‘I was rather annoyed that I didn’t live in a Victorian house like all my friends did.
‘They seemed far more interesting to me when I was little. It’s only now that I really appreciate how beautiful this building is.’ The Klein House is being sold by the original owners’ family for the first time since it was built 60 years ago.
The four-bedroom house has been given a rare Category A listing by Historic Environment Scotland and is trumpeted by the selling agents as a ‘mid-century masterpiece’.
For mere mortals, however, this ‘modern’ house may resemble the fictional home of the Tracy Brothers, whose Thunderbirds puppet series was popular at the start of the 1960s. Check out the smoking chimney atop the flat roof. Would that slide away to allow Thunderbird 1 to take off?
Womersley was influenced by Californian ‘case study homes’, cheap-and cheerful accommodation designed for millions of US soldiers returning from the Second World War.
While the concept may be basic, the finish of The Klein House is anything but. The frame is makore, an African hardwood famous for the rich pink and golden colours it generates. The open-plan main living space has a sunken central floor area and floor-to-ceiling windows.
Panelled African hardwood walls include indigbo, rosewood and walnut, with flush-hidden doors leading to bedroom suites.
The luxury theme is maintained through the use of polished obeche wood on the ceiling, travertine and tiled flooring and bespoke fitted furniture.
The house was designed to double up as commercial accommodation, suitable for hosting business meetings. As a result, it is ‘essentially a rectangle, subdivided into eight-foot modules’.
The selling agents proclaim the fact that the kitchen still contains the original units.
But ask yourself this: If you were not moving into an A-Listed house, would you be happy with a kitchen that’s 60 years old?
Priced at £795,000. Contact The Modern House, London. Tel 020 3795 5920.