Wednesday, August 3, 2011

MCM Jim Alexander on Oregon Trail

Awhile back I had the opportunity to tour and consult on a potential remodel project in Wyoming, this one a sweetly suprising Jim Alexander designed MCM tucked in the western neighborhood labyrinth of Wyoming.  The house has had a few additions, similar to the other Jim Alexander house featured here a couple years ago.  This one had come and gone, and come back on the market again, if we were 5-8 ahead of where we are now, we may have jumped on this one ourselves considering the reasonable price and Wyoming school district.


The house is sited high from the road one house away from the corner lot with a heavily wooded backdrop, especially helpful to the long slate of floor to ceiling glass.  From the road the house looks small with the carport alongside a later extension of the private area containing the bed and bath rooms.

From the corner of the lot, where the secondary parking is, you can get a glimpse of the overall house with the flat carpot roof juxtaposed against the sloped open volume.  Yes, it was love at first sight.

A carport is something we lack at our house, and I always raise the jealousy level to heightened when I see something like this with the integral storage.  These boxes also serve as a screen wall to the living space you enter into beyond.

I almost forgot to mention this house was teasingly featured back when we toured some Atomic Indy folk, I had never got to see the house up close.  Appropriately, this house has its house numbers front and central on the vertical wooden cladding.

The moment between the flat carport roof and the sloped house roof allow a brief peak into the heavy tree canopy above. 
From the back yard looking toward the street, you can see how the house is composed of two long narrow tubes.  The screened in porch and associated roof and the room behind it were late additions.  I'm totally into the sloped roof overhang profile and note how awkwardly narrow the site for this house is, there is barely a side yard along the deck and a small grass area out back, leave it to the modern mind to lay out a house on such a site.

Although the side yard is small, the two decks are lushly discreet from the neighboring houses and make the most of extending the interior living to the outdoors.  Some of the glazing has been upgraded to insulated double pane.

I nice little swan sculpture in the side yard came with the house.  Just a bent ribbon of aluminum becomes MCM lawn art.

Inside, a brick fireplace greets you, complete with a Jere 'Birds' sculpture with a killer operable aluminum bullet light fixture.  The fireplace tools are mounted permanently to the brick wall to complete the composition.

An original white double cone sconce on the interior wood paneling at the entry, drool.  This light is just too freakin awesome.

Last but not least, is the dining light, of which I cannot name the designer, anchors the dining space, hovering all atomic like from the high ceiling.  Beyond the drab kitchen (yes it needed my upgrading design skills), with the living room beyond.  A nice post and beam Alexander special, and just down the street from my Laramie Trail kitchen project no less.