Tasteful Friends: Untouched MCM time capsule in Chicago suburbs

That is a whole lot of ugly. I thought there would be some cool features, but I thought wrong.

And I feel it's very odd that there are zero pics of the yard (except the front facing ones at the beginning).

^ yep ugly as, just big trees on all the corner boundaries. Google Earth.

I actually love it, for the most part. I'd get rid of all the green-gold and try to make the bedrooms cozier, but I love the kitchen and the rooms that have more windows. I do like a period piece.

Oh my. Looks in great condition. Looks a lot like a Wick home I lived in from the early 80s, Armstrong linoleum and all. But mine had sculptured gold carpet. You’d have to go with vintage MCM look in this but a little more pop than all that beige.

So it will be touched for the very first time?

I love the basement! Those floors. Gives me crazy intense nostalgia childhood feelings.

I like it. Take me to the bar.

There are not enough pictures. What’s the second chimney? Is that a range hood in basement for grilling indoors? I’d like a complete picturing of the basement. And what’s that weird little entrance next to the dining table that looks like a half door?

The bathroom counter looks like sliced meat

This house is older than Madonna by a year.

Boomer spawning grounds.

It looks like somewhere John List or John Wayne Gacy or some other murderer would live.

The town itself isn’t bad but it’s really a mixed bag. Public schools aren’t the best and mild gang issues. That said lower crime than many desirable Chicago neighborhoods while being geographically closer to downtown Chicago than some of them. Fun fact, probably one of the last towns over 50k to get a Starbucks. It’s not a cookie cutter place, that’s for sure.

It's OK. But for nearly half a million? No thanks. You can do a lot better.

Berwyn had very blue collar roots....I think all that housing was for young families factory workers etc when it was first built.

It has a bit of a 50s suburb look even today.

For several years at Market Days there was always a booth - some group was always trying to get gays and lesbians to move to Berwyn. I wonder how successful their campaign was......

The nice thing about Berwyn is that its existence is like bug spray to Trumpers. Many of them fled areas like this when “undesirables” moved in and most of these types had to leave Chicago because not much else at the same price point or demographics was available.

Swank for the 50s.

Ugh.

Berwyn!?

Oh, hell yes. A good paint job and some beautiful MCM furniture/rugs/textiles is all this puppy needs. Looove to see midcentury homes like this respectfully preserved. I will cut the bitch that attempts to renovate this property.

There seem to be an alarming number of train crashes in the area. I think these people attended an open house and drove straight into that train.

Love it, but what's with the kitschy, garage door, maple leaves? That's what scrapers are for. I prefer atomic stars or even Canadian geese cut outs.

Doesn’t Svengoolie live in Berwyn?

R21 I swear it was once a week when I lived in Chicago. Aside from the obvious suicides - which were usually people throwing themselves on the tracks - the cars always seemed to be dumb assholes that tried to rush across the tracks to beat the train. Never a good idea.

[quote]It's OK. But for nearly half a million? No thanks. You can do a lot better.

$375K is not "nearly half a million."

I really like it. I grew up near Berwyn. I wish I could go back home, but it's so expensive and more dangerous than ever.

r23, I'm not sure, but that was always a big joke on his show, "BERWYN????!!!!"

The bathroom color choices are the same of my grandparent's house in Canoga Park, CA. *shivers*

r21 Excuse me ma’am, not to be disrespectful or rude but could you please take post down. That is my sister who was killed by a metra train. And it this post is very disrespectful. Idk who you are or if you even know her but I need you to take this down please.

That’s not how any of this works.

R26 Berwyn is dangerous?

I thought that was Cicero

R12, John List lived in a big 19-room Victorian mansion. It “mysteriously” burned down a year after the murders. One of the rooms had a dome designed by Tiffany. John didn’t realize that when, broke, he decided to murder his entire family. Theory is, had he known that, he could have sold the house and made some decent cash.

The wall oven in the kitchen looks like original equipment. It must take 18 hours to roast a Thanksgiving turkey in it.

I love it!

I'd change the dinette/dining room into a Great Room. Love the floors in the basement and that wet bar!

This is the kind of house that will definitely draw the "the buyer can't update a THING!" kind of loons.

BERRRRRWYYYYYNNNNN!

Looks well built. I love wood paneled walls.

This is not MCM.

I found a video of this on instagram which shows it in better detail.

ok, the video converted me. The listing photos aren't great/enough, and the video shows much more detail.

I like it now.

It's ugly but it's extreme nostalgia so I dig it. Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman!

"Dad's Helping Hand" paddle. Kinky!

r28, was your sister's name Penny?

On the one hand, whoever owned the house clearly took excellent care of it.

On the other hand, you have to wonder about the electrical and plumbing, as well as whether it has asbestos or other now known, but previously commonly used, carcinogens in the materials.

Just sayin-looked at the black Victorian in NY the other day-was interested and it was cheap w/ large lot but needed so much-forget it.

My parents house in Los Angeles looked very similar. It was built in that same late1950s, but no basement.

Also, my friend's house had a simlar feel.

Aw for the good ole days.

Chicago? lol. Good luck.

[quote]No updates since 1957

Talk about damning with faint praise.

r46, it's not Chicago, but the suburbs.

I bet that house has lead paint. It’s a total gut job. Bringing that house up to date would cost a fortune.

Joanna Gaines would spontaneously combust in there.

Please keep R49's grubby little HGTV paws off this house.

R28 - the article says no one was killed.

Unlike this case.

R15 - that's funny because my brother is gay and he moved to Berwyn last year. He has 5 gay and lesbian friends who moved to the area in the past 10 years.

Berwyn is gayest town in Illinois after Chicago, Evanston and Oak Park.

I grew up in a slightly newer, less fancy tract house like this one and find it funny that people now market them like some amazing Case Study masterpiece instead of the builder-grade lower middle class commodity product that they were.

The process of gutting it is just going to release toxic particles. Better to just put your ugly grey vinyl tile over the asbestos tiles.

Pretty cool old house, and I love the patterned lino/ tiles in the kitchen area, would definitely keep those. Although the rest of the house isnt my style like 20 I would want to see it preserved

Sometimes time capsules are just working class mediocre.

Neither did the 1970s do any favor to the 1957 kitchen.

R47- Is the 1957 DeSoto Fireflite Sedan 🚘 still parked in the garage?

The dining room is inadequate. I realize it's a lower middle class home, an open floor ranch, but this is kind of sad.

My sister retire and bought a more luxurious ranch from the late 40s which is still a very fine home now. An upper-middle class version with better materials across the board, the this tasteful friends example.

Her basement rec room is untouched except for a modernized kitchen. It's enormous so they have a gym, and laundry and places for each to pursue their hobbies. But the bar is like the one in this home, untouched by time. Nobody has used it for decades. It's a dead, haunted feeling space, and I hate it. I like how my sister preserved a lot of the original flavor of the ranch but updated here and there so it feels fresh and welcoming in 2024. She needs to rip out that bar.

That’s too much for Chicago!-‘’You outta be ashamed of yourself’’

I wonder what it smells like.

I grew up in a home with the same pink sinks (not the counters), pink toilet, pink fridge, oven, counter tops in the kitchen and a black, pink, white and gray speckled linoleum floor. Our table was the Tulip table by Eero Saarinen. I loved the house and it was also built in 1957 and was sold as is.

You did not keep the Eero Saarinen table, R64?

I don't want a house that I can afford.

I took my folks Eero Saarinen Tulip table and chairs to my college apartment. Then I moved across the country and it sat in storage for years until my brother adopted it and has used it for decades. They are indestructible apparently.

OP, you've posted several of these erroneously labeled threads. You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of design and architecture. Not EVERY building from the mid 20th century is an example of mid century modern design.

I'm not the OP. And you sort of have a point R68, but it's dripping in condescension, as you well know. Pedestrian design and even industrial tract design from the "mid-century" did incorporate elements of the recherché or "high" "mid-century design" playbook. Such as open concept, which this house features.

I did keep the table and chairs, r65. Life happened at that table.