Tasteful Friends: Oberlin...uh..."Contemporary"...

The heating bill in Oberlin, OH is probably 60K per year

Looks like something built to be "glamorous" by a B-list soap actor who scored one good paycheck. "Malibu's a bit out of reach, but we can afford 'edgy and sophisticated' in Oberlin, Ohio!"

Obviously not someone with a job in the town.

Crypto-colonialist contemporary. This house wounds.

I kind of like it, but not the carpeting or the bright colors in the kitchen and bath.

I love it. I know I shouldn’t, but I do.

The stained glass lamps -- what is that style called? -- in the office are out of place.

It needs to be hit by a tornado to give it an indoor/outdoor vibe

Gaaah triangle guy

My own problem with many contemporary houses, too much wasted space. This is a big house — 7,000 square feet — but only two bedrooms. It's just not practical for most people.

The huge windows provide lots of light and views of the four seasons passing by. It looks fairly secluded and quiet. The price is amazing for that amount of house and yard. The flooring upstairs is dismal.

The proportions of the rooms seem off. Someone's attempt at post-modernism. I wonder if it's meant to be passive solar. It looks like its a little too close to a humdrum subdivision and some sort of institutional use. i

I fucking love it. I would rob a bank to buy that house.

R9 They sure look fancy! They could be French so maybe the style is Lampé?

Or, R7.

Ugh, no. Even the yellow feels cold.

“Distinctive…”

An unusually accurate property description.

I wonder about drainage--it looks like it's on a slab without a crawl space. No basement or clear foundation.

How…barren…the garage seems like the most approachable place in the house.

Also, are the cars part of the deal?

If not, why are they featured? (Oh, the owner must have a micro dick.)

Is the kitchen upstairs?

That won’t do.

I loooooove the wood floors. The kitchen needs a Molotov. The carpet is a crime against humanity. I promise you intractable depression comes with this house. But for some reason, I agree that overall it feels good, at least on the bottom floor.

All this to say, you will never be able to sell it.

I like the stairs.

It has stairs? I'm out.

I thought I wouldn’t like it, but I do.

It looks like there are a lot of peaceful, quiet spaces in the home. I like sparseness and white walls with big windows that look out into greenery.

Some of the easily replaceable details are bad… like that purple bathroom counter thing. And that skewed-line bar(?) in the living room.

I actually like the yellow kitchen.

I’d want to see it in person, but my interest is piqued.

It looks like the setting for a dramatic bloody murder scene in an 80s Italian giallo.

If I had the money I'd be tripping over my own feet to get that house. I LOVE weird/unique architecture and I can't imagine you could even build a custom home that intricate for anywhere near what they're asking for it (even in Ohio).

Brutalist. People who created buildings on university campuses loved that style for a while.

Is it designed by Art Vandelay?

This is the brutalist music building at Oberlin.

I wouldn’t classify this house as brutalist

It looks like a set from Woody Allen’s Sleeper.

I’m not against it, though.

This isn’t brutalist. It’s more of an effort at deconstructivism a la Gehry, Libeskind, early Zaha Hadid, etc. The exterior of the house is pretty cool, IMO. The interiors are hideous. Sometimes a good architect gets paired with a terrible interior designer. This might be one of those times.

It's a very conventional and conventionally underwhelming house -- with, here and there, some angles grafted onto it.

With 7000sf and two bedrooms, I expected some interesting spaces, but no; it just looks like connected basement rec rooms.

All that money, all that space, all that "architecture" and it's a shabby dump.

It's a nice piece of land...I wish the interior was as interesting as the exterior. The living room is OK. But overall it's too clinical for my taste. I get minimalism, but the single piece of furniture floating in a huge room is a bit depressing.

No doubt Graduates from the College had it built in accordance with their "Vision".

Brutalist? I suppose it's in Nantucket as well?

[quote]WTF is O.C. doing in Ohio??

Being woke.

The God-awful bathroom floor tile is straight out of the '90s despite the house being built in 2004. It's hard to believe that the same person who commissioned that house to be built also chose that FUCK-ugly flooring. And don't even get me started on the "art" on the bathroom walls.

One tidbit from the description on realtor.com:

[quote]The sensuous kitchen has cabinets made by Ferrari Co., so it is a true Ferrari yellow!

It’s full Ohio on the inside.

I’ll bet the acoustics are great and the roof leaks.

There’s no reason to it. No sense of flow. Pretty on the outside—squeezed-in on the inside.

The crumpled, used looking towel in the bathroom shatters the illusion.

It looks like a house from A Clockwork Orange.

The bamboo garden is a little ambitious for Oberlin.

Well its different, I'll give it that. Ugly, but different, unlike a lot of modern houses that all look much the same. At least its not all bare concrete, that would make it uglier still. A lot of wasted space if it only has two bedrooms - and why three bathrooms? Surely three bed and two bath would have been more logical?

I actually kind of like the yellow kitchen strangely enough, but the rest of the house could do with more colour

It will appeal to those who like this sort of thing. I am not one

It looks like a Lutheran Church. Inside and out.

I never would have guessed 2004. MCM pop art yes.

Pyle indeed.

It is most certainly NOT Brutalist. I kind of like the house, it has potential. The interiors are terrible. But with some cosmetic updates (kitchen, bathrooms and flooring) it has potential to be a cool house. The views of the woodland just outside are wonderful. The macro and micro location is terrible.

The ferns in the center of the floor secretly control the humans.

I’m confused.in most of the photos it looks like the owners have already moved because of the lack of furniture.

But then the cars are still in the garage.

It reminds me of the house in Ex Machina (which is actually a hotel somewhere in Norway). I loved the bathroom and while the rest of the house wasn't terrible, it was just kind of...meh. Oberlin is south of Cleveland and very much in the snow belt. I wonder what the cost/maintenance is for maintaining a "non-standard" (if you will) house like that. Years ago, a friend of mine lived in a circular house (his Dad had big ideas without the $$ to back it up) and structurally speaking, it had problems.

Oh dear. It looks like a space ship that crash landed into a tornado. Inside, I guess I like the flooring. Oh boy.

R53: The snowbelt starts East of Cleveland in the suburbs that are about 20-25 miles out, along Lake Erie and inland over a series of hills. The areas to the West are flatter and get much less snow.

Looks like the setting for an episode of Black Mirror.

With some small changes I think I would like this house. Number one the kitchen cabinet colors are little interesting that would have to change. I do not think the decor chosen in terms of furniture matches the architecture of the house. Thank you for the post OP, this will provide an incentive to play the Powerball and stand behind the questionable people in line at the Royal Farms counter.

I've met a handful of people who went to Oberlin College as undergrads and they are among the most intelligent, considerate (and maybe a bit odd) people I know. Ohio. Who knew?

Oberlin students are in Ohio, they are not of Ohio.

The interior décor is awful, but the house has character. I suspect only by walking through it are you going to get any idea of what the flow of space is like.

The lamps are Art Nouveau and clearly reproductions.

The house itself is Constructivist.

The music building is New Formalism - not Brutalism.

The kitchen is interesting. I wouldn't choose that treatment, but it looks like top-notch construction.

Like the wooded site.

Looks like the owners have pretty much abandoned the ground floor. I wonder why.

I don’t understand why the kitchen is on the second floor. Steel door in the kitchen appears to have outdoor access, but the terrain looks flat. Stairs from garage or elevator.

R61 (and others): For whatever reason it isn't being properly staged. Either the old owners left behind a few things or the realtor has no idea how to fill the space---maybe both. Oberlin is a small town and a local broker would have no experience with anything remotely similar.

The lot (2 acres) is surprisingly long and narrow, with a row of other houses closeby. I can't tell if there's another house about 100 feet through the trees in the other direction. If not, I would really want to buy that lot, too.

I like the arty newvo lampés.

It was built by a couple who were musicians (Hus=professor at Oberlin, Wife=Cleveland Orchestra) and allegedly has perfect acoustics. The husband died not long ago.

On the market for awhile. And there's a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian next door.

It’s not poorly staged. It’s not staged at all. They built the downstairs as a concert recital/entertaining space. Very idiosyncratic. At least there’s an elevator to the kitchen.

Dreadful. Nearly a million dollars, and in Ohio, yet.

You don’t want to go back there…

I hate it. But also weirdly kinda love parts of it.

It makes me feel all weird.

The kitchen floor should be shiny black rubber.

[quote]I've met a handful of people who went to Oberlin College as undergrads and they are among the most intelligent, considerate (and maybe a bit odd) people I know. Ohio. Who knew?

Ohio has always been rural, of course, but it had these small, charming university towns that were like a little oasis in the middle of amish country. It makes me sad to look at Ohio today & see what a hateful, depressing place it's become

The design/layout is a little [italic]too[/italic] specific to the original owners.

From a distance it looks like a collapsed heap of drywall.

R72: You know nothing of Ohio. It isn't very rural---most people live in cities and it became a center of heavy industry over100 years ago. The Amish don't live very close to most of the college towns. I'm guessing that you're one of our Coastal people and don't even know where you live very well.

It’s a nun’s habit!

A nun’s habit!

How much do you think it would cost to build such a place?

Why did two middling musicians have such money? Family money?

Middling musicians? Oberlin has a highly respected Conservatory. The Cleveland Orchestra is world renowned. Even low profile symphonies get highly skilled musicians.

Highly skilled yes but poorly paid. Just shows where our priorities are.

I chose my words unwisely. I meant middling as not stars who make high salaries. How much could a professor of music at Oberlin make? 200k a year? It just seems like an expensive, bespoke house but I suppose two middle class salaries might have been sufficient.

[quote]I've met a handful of people who went to Oberlin College as undergrads and they are among the most intelligent, considerate (and maybe a bit odd) people I know.

Why thank you!

Savings, some financing and maybe a trust fund or an inheritance could have bought the land and paid for the improvements.

improvements? It was custom built was it not?