Tasteful Friends: The Very Midcentury NJ Home Richard Meier built for his parents

My Dentist's office is in a professional building that looks just like this

From 1990 to 2004 I lived a few houses down the street and would walk my dog past the house almost everyday. Not once did I ever see any sign of life in that house. There were cars parked there sometimes but often just void of life. I was not even aware of the owner's name at the time. It was a weird weird looking house and didn't fit the neighborhood. Connie Francis lived on the same street and she was a very sweet and kind lady, albeit a bit quirky. I moved back into the city after that and hardly get back that way, but the house looks unchanged after all these years.

Unbelievably creepy. it has Overlook Hotel vibes.

This is not Meier's best work and of course it wouldn't be as it was one of his first commissions (cited to be his very first with his own practice). I do love it nonetheless and would kill to have it replicated for myself somewhere else (California for instance) - with different flooring and finishes. The kitchen is particularly dreary as it stands. Features like the gorgeous entry courtyard and walls of glass are timeless; the mess of can lights and obtuse built-ins (like that terrible free-standing bar in the huge but poorly utilized dining area) are not. Updated and refreshed it could be astoundingly beautiful. His use of high ceilings and clerestory windows are stunning. Overall, t's an amazing space - thank you OP.

Were his parents Bettina and Max?

I love it. I could live there easily. The gardens need a lot of TLC.

I can’t wait until the mid-century fad to be over.

This Sunday's "Living In" feature in the New York Times was Essex Fells. Bitches commented that it's an all-white town with no commercial district. If you don't like it, don't move there.

There's a reason I hate Richard Meir's work and this rare venture into color, such as it is, doesn't dissuade me.

I don't completely hate everything about all of his early domestic work. Douglas House in Michigan of 1973, and Smith House in Darien of 1965-67 (foto), for example have a compactness and sculptural quality that are striking externally (if shit inside), but his vast villas and commercial work is terrible. Again and again and again.

R2 Connie's house on Holton Lane was last sold in 2018 for $1,732,500. Built in 1963. Taxes $26,981.

I’m too paranoid to live with sliding glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows.

I absolutely love the interiors and how they feel. Lots of light and space and a very gracious feeling to it all. The exterior, however, leaves me cold.

R12, I agree. The exterior looks too commercial/financial, but the interior is gorgeous.

[quote]The exterior looks too commercial/financial...

It does, R13, like a branch bank. Where is the drive-in teller window?

I caught that too R8

Though that's pretty much the comment on every town they feature, along with bitching about how expensive it is.

It's as if they don't get who the NYT core audience is, and/or they believe that every town should have a racial and ethnic balance that reflects the US...unless the town in primarily minority, in which case white people moving in is a no-no. So hard to keep up.

It looks like a commercial/institutional building from the outside. Just meh on the inside. The c. 2010 updates just add to the lack of any character.

This house is trash compared to the quality Chicago work of John Wellborn Root.

I love Mid-Century Modern (go ahead and hate me, DL.), but this is too white, and the exterior is absolutely dreadful. I need more wood, more color in my version.

I know of two other Brutalist building which are similar— a rectangular block with a staircase contained within a kind of cylinder at the side.

But the cylinder here has no staircase but provides an ominous space over the conversation area.

This imitation-Corbusian house needs some decoration—

Livable but the midcentury decor would have to go.

I like the interiors a lot (though there's a bit too much brick) but the exterior looks sad to me.

Imagine how many times they’ve replaced windows because of golf balls. They had to build that semi-circle just to protect A Art for Christ sakes.

Yes, exactly. It's definitely influenced (too much) by Brutalism, R19.

I like other Meier works and classi mid century design overall, but this is horrible. Hate both that exterior and the interior.