Voenix Rising

Inspired by this link over at Mostly Words, I started thinking about houses that inspired me when I was a teenager; inspiration that led in no small part, to my career in architecture.

The first of these were what eventually became known as Villa Spies in Sweden:

(Click on any to embiggen)

Villa Spies is quintessential late 60s/early 70s future chic. The majority of the photos above came from the magazine where I initially saw it and fell in love with the place: House Beautiful (January 1972). I had a heck of a time tracking it down after all this time. The only clue I had in my rapidly fading memory was it being in one of the magazines my mom subscribed to, and it arrived before we moved to the house where we lived during my high school and college years. That helped narrow it down considerably, and  I eventually located it at the Phoenix Public Library and then set about obtaining my own copy. (How did we survive before the internet?)

The second home, the Woolner House, crossed my path about the same time. This one was harder to track down than Villa Spies because I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it in one of my mom’s housekeeping magazines or in one of my dad’s architectural mags. Like Spies, I eventually tracked it down in one of my mom’s old mags at the Phoenix Public Library, but stupidly forgot to record exactly which magazine it had been in, so obtaining my own copy is going to be more trouble than it’s worth. I also seem to remember a completely different photo spread than what I found at the library, so it’s entirely possible it was covered by more than one publication.

 

I also found quite a few pictures online…

 

As well as finding a small spread in Architectural Design…