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Turning up the MCM Charm with Atom Stevens

19 min read MCM homes are so charming! And MCM expert Atom Stevens agrees. We’re talking about unique period details, historical insights, and preservation tips for mid-century gems.

I’m so excited to dive into the history of design in mid-century homes with none other than Atom Stevens, MCM history buff and Cliff May expert. Atom and I chatted a while ago and he’s back to share even more of his mid-century expertise. 

Atom’s passion for mid-century homes shines through in everything he does, from helping people buy and sell these gems to diving deep into their historical significance. He believes that knowing the history of a home adds immense value, making it feel more like a cherished heirloom rather than just a piece of real estate.

We delved into the design elements of mid-century homes that translate well for modern families, particularly the clear division between living and sleeping spaces. This design feature not only provided privacy but also catered to the social dynamics of the 1950s. Families could entertain in the (open) living areas without disturbing the kids sleeping in their rooms – a perfect setup for post-bedtime gatherings.

Atom and I also talked about a group of homes in the Denver neighborhood of Sunset Lanes with that all sport what we think of as a not so great modern feature – cookie cutter floor plans. Every house in this neighborhood has the exact same floor plan. Despite this repetitive plan, these houses all look different from the outside thanks to varied window packages and placements on the lot. Some homes even boast mountain views, preserved all these years thanks to clever urban planning!

Our conversation also touched on Atom’s personal journey of uncovering the history of his own home, which led to a broader exploration of his entire neighborhood. His passion for history transformed his real estate career, allowing him to share these rich stories with clients and neighbors alike.

In a world where homes are often seen as mere commodities, Atom’s approach brings a refreshing perspective. He emphasizes the importance of architectural integrity and how original features can add significant value. His advice? If you’re renovating, try to preserve the unique elements that make your home special.

Whether you’re a homeowner, a potential buyer, or just a mid-century enthusiast, Atom’s insights are a reminder that our homes are more than just places to live – they’re pieces of history, filled with stories waiting to be told.

In Today’s Episode You’ll Hear:

  • Which “new” features builders saw as selling points in the early mid-century. 
  • How these features have informed home building and selling ever since. 
  • When having a “cookie cutter” house is a feature not a bug! 

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Read the Full Episode Transcript

Della Hansmann 

At this point, you’re listening to the mid Monroe model podcast for more than just ran out tips and tricks you like a history deep dive. I do too. So today we’re both in for a treat because I’ve got a conversation with Mr. MCM. History deep dive himself, Atom Stevens.

Della Hansmann 

Atom and I are going to be talking about a particularly cool micro neighborhood of Denver, sunset lanes, where every house has the exact same floor plan, but it’s an amazing plan. And they all look different on the outside, then he’s going to share some stories about the way that his work as an amateur historian, affects his process of helping people buy and sell mid-century homes.

Della Hansmann 

And the way that knowing more about the history of a house being purchased helps make his buyers feel more like they’re getting not just a commodity, but a home, something that they can steward and hand on to the next generation with happiness and, and a sense of connection.

Della Hansmann 

I always love to chat with Adam, because I’m guaranteed to learn something new, about mid-century homes history about Denver, and to find some fun new connections between those things and my existing understanding of this great era of houses.

Della Hansmann 

Hey there, welcome back to mid mod remodel. This is the show about updating MCM homes helping you match a mid-century home to your modern life. I’m your host Della Hansmann, architect and mid-century ranch enthusiast, and you’re listening to Episode 1805.

Della Hansmann 

By the way, if you want to know more about Adam, and the great work he does documenting, promoting, and matching people with mid-century and modern homes, you’ve got options, you could follow him on Insta digging more deeply on his second Instagram account specifically about the RV Park made her head and Denver. Or check out a pair of episodes where he and I chatted a few years ago about becoming the historian for your own home and about Cliff Mae and his influence on modern Denver. That would be episodes 1103 and 11.

Della Hansmann 

And four, find links to all of those great Adam resources on my show notes page at mid mod dash midwest.com/ 1805. Here we go.

Della Hansmann 

Mid-Century homes have so many clever design features. And one of them is just the way that they organize their spaces. Today, let’s talk about how sleeping spaces and living spaces play out in a mid-century house. And we’re gonna do some history here. Let’s talk about how houses were changing and specifically how the idea of sleeping versus living spaces was changing in Denver in your area of specialty and expertise around the 1950s.

Atom Stevens 

Yeah, so in Denver, but I think this was true across the country. Yeah, builders were the whole homebuilding landscape was changing. It was going from little builders building four or five houses on a block to homebuilding becoming a huge business to actually the idea of homes and neighborhoods being built, becoming merchandise homes were marketed, advertised and sold as a product more so than just being an individual one off building on a block.

Atom Stevens 

And that really changed how homes were designed. And, you know, part of it was trying to figure out how to mass produce them, but also trying to design something that the buyer wanted, every builder was competing against each other, to try to have the better design. And so I have this huge collection of advertisements. And I love to go through and see what the bullet points are on, you know, what features home builders thought were important. And one of the builders that comes up and one of those bullet points that comes up on a lot of advertisements is, you know, clear divisions between living and sleeping areas.

Atom Stevens 

And when you look at how both traditional and mid-century, modern homes were laid out in the 1950s, most of them if not all of them had some kind of very clear division between living and sleeping areas, which I think is great, because there was this notion, you know, these homes were and you know, as an agent, I’m not supposed to talk about families and how they relate to real estate. But in the 1950s builders were building homes for families. And the idea was alright, you’re an adult, you put your kids to bed, you still want to hang out with your friends or neighbors. There’s that need to have that clear division between those two spaces.

Della Hansmann 

And it was kind of a social life at home moment in time to for reasons good and bad. In the culture. A lot of it was sort of racism and redlining and things like that. But people were for many reasons wanting to entertain in their homes, live in their homes and have social lives in their homes.

Della Hansmann 

And yeah, having that separation was really important. If you think about it in comparison to like, a bungalow from the 30s. Those often have sort of bedrooms, slotted in around the other spaces to fit into the footprint. Yep. But that’s much less the case in mid-century homes. And before we started recording, you were telling me about a neighborhood that had a really thoughtful division of those two spaces that was even thinking about building an acoustic privacy with a layout.

Atom Stevens 

Yep. So there’s a group of homes up in the Denver suburb of Westminster. It’s like We have 99 houses that were built by a builder who actually just offered a single floor plan. And these are actually unusual because from the outside, not all of them look like mid-century modern homes, but they actually are. Because when you get inside, they actually have very open plans and living areas, vaulted ceilings and walls that don’t go all the way up to the ceilings.

Atom Stevens 

And so they’re actually really cutting edge houses, even though they don’t look like it from the outside. And they were also designed by an architect, and we know who the architect is he was he actually went to school at MIT and Harvard. So like he was a big deal. But he designed this really efficient floorplan three bedrooms, one bath, and he set it up so that the living area in the sleeping area if you if you’re thinking, if you look at it, the way architects look at it, which I know isn’t how normal people look at things.

Atom Stevens 

Yeah, you realize he had actually planned this house in two separate pavilions in a way. And so the living pavilion was what I call it had it’s had a living room, a kitchen and a dining area, and then a hallway that connected the front door in the back door. That was actually meant to provide cross ventilation. So you’d have a screen on both of those, and you open the door and you get cross ventilation. But it also acted as a way of circulating through that main living area, there’s a hallway.

Della Hansmann 

And glass in both of those doors, it’s bringing you right through into daylight immediately as you do

Atom Stevens 

That, too. Nice cross ventilation and daylight and circulation. And then in parallel to that. So there was an opening in the hallway in the side of the hallway, that then went into another hallway that ran in parallel to that, that served the bedrooms in the bathroom. And I think the big idea was that in that opening, you could put like one of those wood folding walls that were common in the 1950s. And you could really, acoustically close it off, although I haven’t actually seen any examples with those installed.

Della Hansmann 

Do you but they have all been removed? Or do you think it was like an optional add on that most people didn’t choose?

Atom Stevens 

My guess is maybe it was an idea that the architect had that maybe the builder. That’s something that’s the big thing. It’s not just a little three foot opening, it’s more like a four foot opening. So it feels like it was sized for something like that to be put in. So in that separate hallway, had a set of closets that wasn’t originally meant for laundry, although some people put their laundry in it eventually.

Atom Stevens 

But it was just that row of closets in the hallway provided storage. And then it provided access to the three bedrooms. But what it also did is particularly if you had that folding wall and you had it closed, it created an acoustic buffer between that living area and the bedrooms on the other side, nice.

Atom Stevens 

And then the one bedroom, the largest bedroom that actually touched the living room wall. That bedroom had its closet on that wall, which also provided an acoustic buffer between the living area and the sleeping area. And so to me, when I look at that floor plan, there’s a very clear division between those two areas.

Della Hansmann 

Yeah. And that really lets you live sort of a life that operates on different time schedules in the house very effectively and gives you all of the benefits of an open plan social area, without feeling like there’s no sound private space in the house. Nice. Well, if you really believe in your floorplan, you can replicate it times 99 And just offer it as the answer. Yeah, that’s an interesting type of confidence.

Atom Stevens 

But I’m not the only example. You know, we actually have several examples here in Denver. Both of traditional and mid-century modern homes were a builder built with a single floor plan. And so in the case of that neighborhood sunset lanes, it was a single floor plan, but there were several different window packages.

Atom Stevens 

And the houses were placed on the lot in different ways. So when you go down the streetscape, it’s not the same row of the exact same house actually look different as you go down the street, because some have their front door facing the street, some have their front door off to the side, just based on how the house was dropped on the lot.

Atom Stevens 

And then some of them had whole window walls that face the street. And others had just little clear story windows or a row of smaller windows and a lot of them were trying to take advantage of mountain views that actually existed in the neighborhood.

Della Hansmann 

Got it? Did they still? Or was that a relic of the past?

Atom Stevens 

They actually, believe it or not, this is one of the very few neighborhoods where the mountain views actually still exist. And that has to do with a railroad right of way and an open space that’s to the west of that neighborhood, which has prevented anything from blocking their views. So it’s actually really rare to find that.

Della Hansmann 

An amazing hidden gem, when we post this we will have to put some photos of that neighborhood and what that is into the story to go with it.

Atom Stevens 

Yeah and I also have a friend who he is he owns a house there, and he’s renovating his house. And he’s been putting videos of his renovation on YouTube. So I’ll have to give you what that what his account is.

Della Hansmann 

I’m just going to go out on a limb and assume any friend of yours is probably doing a fairly historically sensitive update with our project.

Atom Stevens 

It’s a, what you might call a restovation, the combination of renovation and restoration.

Della Hansmann 

Well, and maybe this is a topic for another conversation, but I think that that choice to make that separation between sleeping and living was a relic of or a representation of the social needs of its time. And as our social situations change, our houses are also being updated and modified to sort of meet, meet now and meet the future and sort of last longer and more decades of family.

Atom Stevens 

You know, having raising kids of my own, and living in a mid-century home that also has a pretty clear division between living and sleeping areas. I really appreciate that design element. It’s something that stood the test of time.

Della Hansmann 

Yeah, it’s a good it’s a good setup for post bedtime. lifetime. For family home, yeah, excellent. Well, this has been fun. Let’s do it again, very soon.

Della Hansmann 

You can love your house without knowing a lot about it. But when you know some more of the background, who lived there before, who created it, who built your neighborhood and why it can give you so much more depth.

Della Hansmann 

So today, I wanted to just ask you a little bit about your experience of sharing stories in history with people who are in homes who are looking for homes, and how that seems to change the way they feel about houses that might be theirs, or that they already have made their home.

Atom Stevens 

Yeah, this is this is a part of my daily, daily life as a real estate agent, and in this specialty. It started though, way back before as a real estate agent. My wife and I are now in our 20th year in our home. Wow. We’ll be in December, we’ll be celebrating 20 years. And about eight years in, I started you know we had we didn’t know anything about our house, we just thought it was cool.

Atom Stevens 

But I had heard Inklings around the neighborhood that there was this guy named Cliff May who may have designed these houses and things like that. Just one day, I decided I was gonna go hunting to see if like there was really a connection. And so I went to the library and I started digging through the old newspapers that were on microfiche, which is actually the only way you can still access the Denver Post to this day, which is crazy. And I actually ran across advertisements for my home.

Atom Stevens 

And I was like, This is amazing. This is like a thing. And then I read the advertisement and man 1950s ad copy is just the best. It was a good sell me a house any day. But it like it really covered all the things and like you know, all the things that you hear about mid-century modern design, where like it’s about indoor outdoor connection and things like that, you know, half of half of it.

Atom Stevens 

You wonder is this just people looking back and going? Well, I mean, these are the things we observe about how they were designed. Was that really the program? Was that really what they were doing? And sure enough in this ad, it called it out this home designs that connects the indoors the out of doors, and I’m like, Man, that’s so cool. Oh, that is no I went fell down the rabbit hole. Not only did I discover the story of my home, but I discovered the story of my entire neighborhood.

Atom Stevens 

And I even have this interactive map and Google Maps now that shows all of the builders in the neighborhood on the map. There were more than 10 builders in my neighborhood. My neighborhood is actually a huge subdivision has 4300 houses in it, which is massive, all mid-century all built between 1954 and roughly 58. And all of these different builders are building this neighborhood at the same time.

Atom Stevens 

And so I’ve learned the story of all these builders and I’ve shared it to my neighbors. And most of the people are like I had no idea. That’s who built my home. I had no idea that I lived in the Norman model or whatever, you know, because again, we’re marketing.

Atom Stevens 

We’re marketing houses now. So this is merchandising houses, model homes have the different model gnomes have names, or they have model numbers or then you learn like, oh, this builder also built homes in another neighborhood and like, now I can go see what my model look like over in that town.

Atom Stevens 

And like all of these things give the home’s context. Yeah. And then you learn the story of the builders and a lot of them have interest stories of their own. And suddenly your home has a history has something to take pride in something that like, when you have friends over, you can be like, let me tell you something about my house. And it’s more than just a house, then.

Della Hansmann 

Yeah, it’s a connection. And you know, one of these earlier chats, I was talking with Susan Hala of makeup mid-century, who’s lovely. And we were talking about the idea of, yes, we’re homeowners, it’s property. It’s also our spot our identity right now. B

Della Hansmann 

But when you live in a mid-century home, you do not You’re not the first person. We are not the first people who lived in mid-century homes anyway. And so there’s this sense of legacy. And in a way, there’s also a sense of stewardship, that we’re part of a progression of history, somebody else is going to live in these houses later, as long as we might hope to hang on.

Della Hansmann 

I don’t want to burn this house around me like a Viking ship. And so that sense of like, where you fall in the timeline, and what people wanted in the past, and even marketing coffee, that’s fascinating that that indoor outdoor concept is not something we have made up.

Atom Stevens 

Its not something we made up later was really a selling point of these houses.

Della Hansmann 

I think it makes us feel like it’s more or more part of our community with our house. And that’s so devoid, I mean, you are in the business of helping people to purchase homes. It’s a commodity, it’s a shelter. But it’s also part of our identity.

Della Hansmann 

And I think it’s part of something bigger, and it’s really nice to be able to give them along with information about mortgage rates and school districts to also help them sort of connect to the history of Denver and the history of wherever you are looking for a house and that house.

Atom Stevens 

That’s it was certainly examples like the cliff Mae homes like I live. People realize that these are historically significant homes, even though we’re not in a landmark district or historic district or anything like that, we probably could qualify as one. But then that means that people will actually pay more for a house that has its original architecture.

Atom Stevens 

And so he’s fortunate earlier this year to sell a house here in the neighborhood that had never sold before. The Home Builders bought it in 1954. And they lived out their entire lives in that home. And their children hired me to sell the house. And you know, they had done a few things like they had put carpet down on the oak floors, and they changed the bathroom at one point.

Atom Stevens 

But otherwise, from an architectural standpoint, architectural historians use this term architectural integrity, or describing how original a historic piece of architecture is. It had extraordinary architecture and integrity. It even had its original roof, which unfortunately, ended up being an issue because the insurance company for the buyers didn’t want to cover it.

Atom Stevens 

So we actually had to change it. But it was actually in great condition. It was the original tar and gravel roof that had been put on the house in 1954. And it was still in good condition even though the insurers didn’t want to cover it.

Della Hansmann 

Oh man, if that isn’t our modern condition, That’s so frustrating, right? It’s not broken, because you can’t put a category on it because it right older than your categories.

Atom Stevens 

So typically, most real estate agents would be like, Alright, I’ve had I have a house here that really hasn’t been updated in 70 years. So we’re going to have to aim real low on the pricing, right. But when you really know your product and know what you’re selling and realize that people will pay more for architectural integrity. Yeah, we listed the house for much more than you would have normally listed a house that hadn’t been updated in seven years, and people were willing to pay it, because they recognize the story of the home.

Della Hansmann 

And that is the thing that you should know if you are a real estate agent, or if you are trying to sell a home.

Atom Stevens 

Or even if you’re a homeowner, and you’re thinking of renovating.

Della Hansmann 

Right.

Atom Stevens 

Architectural  integrity has value.

Della Hansmann 

As someone who has searched for homes and as someone who often chats with people who are looking for a home to fix up I am trying to help them capture houses that have not been updated that perhaps the people who are selling it don’t even realize what a feature that that is and get value for it.

Della Hansmann 

But I would still encourage people to spend to get a house that has not been damaged that has not had overlay that needs to be rolled back or choices that may have affected structure or that lost original good features. It’s it really is it.

Della Hansmann 

Yeah, it maintains value and increases value I think to have that connection to what the house was originally. Even if needs must means that you have to do some tweaking to meet insurance regulations for the roof or if you have to make some modifications to fit the way your lifestyle is going to happen the house but if you can preserve anything or everything about the original house, you are preserving value in it.

Della Hansmann 

And that’s, that’s a really important message you only get when you understand the history. Absolutely. And then only a real estate agent who understands the history and believes in it can appropriately pitch to people.

Atom Stevens 

So that’s yes, it’s a big deal.

Della Hansmann 

Well, I love that that is such an example of what to do that comes with not just the sort of virtue of its nature, but also a price tag that benefits so that’s great. Yeah, fantastic. Well, I like the idea of people coming into a house, they might just like it because they think it looks cool, but also being gifted by someone who has helped them find it that loved it. History, some of the background and then you can always go forward when I’m helping my master plan clients or my ready to remodel students learn more about their house.

Della Hansmann 

I’m talking about things like you need to know its dimensions. You want to know what materials are going on. You want to know about previous renovations, but you can also become an expert in your house just by learning its history and taking a trip to the perhaps microfiche section of your local library.

Atom Stevens 

Yep. Ideally, a lot of cities fortunately benefit from actually having their newspapers on services like newspapers.com or I forget the other one newspaper archive.com. If your city has newspapers on there, I recommend paying for a subscription for a couple months and digging up everything you can about your neighborhood.

Atom Stevens 

And you know, they have a search engine, everything is indexed. It’s not like on the microfiche. It’s basically like, roulette, we’re gonna unpack, we’re gonna put in a month and see what we find.

Della Hansmann 

It is a labor of love. And I really salute you for taking it out. I’m lucky because I think we’re going to talk in a future talk about the Parade of Homes. And Madison, as well as syndrome for has a really good Parade of Homes. And Madison also has a long standing Parade of Homes started in the mid-century has some amazing advertising literature that I can go visit in person at the local Builders Association office.

Atom Stevens 

Oh, nice.

Della Hansmann 

And our local paper is digitally archived. So I can go see the advertising spreads from the dates of the Home Parades.

Atom Stevens 

That’s great. Usually those the advertising for those parades is over the top. It’s the best advertising.

Della Hansmann 

And it’s everything because it’s like the house builders, but also like electricians are advertising their services and the latest products.

Atom Stevens 

And all the various products and appliances things. Oh my god, how many mid-century ads have I seen where the garbage disposal is the headliner?

Della Hansmann 

Right?

Atom Stevens 

The waste king garbage disposal.

Della Hansmann 

In The 1952 Parade of Homes, the things they are advertising are like, the bathrooms have mirrors and a vanity by the sink. And I’m like, the bar is so low.

Della Hansmann 

But yeah, it was fresh. It was exciting. People were excited about it.

Atom Stevens 

Exactly.

Della Hansmann 

That sounds like a different topic. So, um, I think we should just get back together again and do this again.

Atom Stevens 

Sounds great.

Della Hansmann 

So what do you think about the concept of being a curator, a steward of your home rather than just its owner, I’d love to hear what you think. So reach out on Instagram or send me an email share your thoughts.

Della Hansmann 

As a lover of all the qualities of mid-century homes that you, me and Adam share. It’s great to appreciate those two love those original mid-century features when we find them. And even though sometimes we do need to make changes to our homes to the house for a different shape of family for a new generation for the way that we live in our houses in modern times, the more we can preserve those original features and qualities, the better.

Della Hansmann 

So speaking of if you want to be able to visualize the original modern features of Sunset Lane houses, we talked about those in the first half of the episode, I have links find them and the transcript for this episode on the show notes page midmod-midwest.com/1805.

Della Hansmann 

And I hope that you will find someone you want to recommend this episode to because the concept of really appreciating our houses. The concept of being a curator for a mid-century house is something that more people can get excited about. And when people know and love more of the history of their homes, their homes and those original features become more valuable or important, more preservable to them.

Della Hansmann 

So enjoy this moment to share and the mission of passing on Allah for mid-century design and I’ll catch you next week.

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