Retro CoMO

Do you have an extra $735,000 lying around?  Want to buy the coolest house in the entire town of Centralia, Missouri (population 3,774)?

You are in luck.

I am not exaggerating about this being the coolest house in town.  It is located at 543 Jefferson Street, which is the main thoroughfare, in the middle of town but on four acres.  The house has 8 bedrooms and 9 bathrooms (7 of which are full and 2 partial) in 9,937 square feet.  I think it even has a ballroom!  It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1979 (here’s a copy of the nomination form with a ton of information).  It was built in 1940, and is technically in the Art Moderne style rather than Art Deco, though it could also be considered the International Style.

It was built for F. Gano Chance, son of A.B. Chance, the man who owned a factory in town that employs a large percentage of the town’s population to this day (though it is no longer owned by the Chance family).  It has been known as the Chance Guest House because it is still owned by the AB Chance Company, and has been used as a guest residence for visitors to the factory as well as parties, but is also known as Chatol (a combination of Chance and Toalson, Mrs. Chance’s maiden name).

On page 20 of the DNR form above is a blueprint layout of the house, and these pictures were taken from the real estate listing.  It looks like that ballroom was probably originally the room with the indoor pool, but the pool is no longer operational.

The square footage of the house is 2.63 times the population of the town!  You literally could have a party and invite the entire town and they could all fit into your house.  (Not comfortably, but some of them might not show up, and others will spend their time outside smoking anyway, so it would be fine.  Do it!)

Have I convinced you yet?

Centralia is about thirty minutes northeast of Columbia.  Full disclosure: my parents have lived in that area since 2000, so I have been driving by this house for the past nine years, usually longing for a better glimpse inside.  Centralia is a very nice town with a good school system, and totally within commuting distance from Columbia, Mexico, and Moberly.  Actually, my dad regularly commutes between Centralia and Jefferson City, so there’s that too!

You should buy this house.  Then you should read my blog to find some cool furniture to put in your awesome house.  And then you should invite me in for a better look so I can post pictures to this blog.  That’s what you should do.

It’s been a slow week on local Craigslists (though that art deco desk in Holts Summit was posted again- now $14! that’s a $1 savings!), and one of my favorite retro blogs is having a big week, so I want to direct you over there.

Retro Renovation is a pretty great site, with a blog and a Flickr and a very dedicated webmaster in Pam.  The tagline for Retro Renovation is “Love the House You’re In!” which is very inspiring especially on weeks like this week, which is themed Save the Pink Bathrooms.

Both of my grandmothers have very 1950s bathrooms.  My maternal grandmother’s master bathroom has a turquoise toilet and sink with a pretty yellow tile pattern, and my paternal grandparents had a pink bathroom that was almost untouched until they tore out the bathtub a few years ago to put in an accessible one (they are getting older), while the hall bathroom has fixtures that are a kind of warm brown color with matching tile.  And they both have kitchens with 1950s cabinets and in-wall vintage ovens that still work.

It’s so sad when people buy vintage homes and then tear out 40-year-old bathrooms & kitchens to put in updated styles that don’t match the architecture and will look dated in 5 years or less.  I understand it if the fixtures are nonfunctional, or even if, like my grandparents, you want to put in something that is necessary for your advancing years, but tearing out otherwise functional fixtures is really wasteful.

Case in point: an amazing art deco house in Centralia, Missouri, is currently for sale.  My parents live just south of Centralia, and saw the inside of this house at a party a few years ago.  My mother raved about the vintage kitchen and bathrooms.  When the house went on the market, I went looking for the listing so that I could see the images from the inside.  And, of course, they’d torn out the vintage kitchen and bathrooms and replaced them.  I’m sure that the realtor thought the house would be more marketable with updated kitchen/bathrooms.  And perhaps that’s true, especially as the house is probably the biggest house in that town, and costs $735,000, which is probably more than any house in that town has ever sold for.  But if I had the $735,000 to buy that house (and I so would), I would want the vintage fixtures.  If I wanted to update, I would want to do it my own way, not just Generic Updated Granite & Stainless.

But maybe that’s just me (and everyone else on the Retro Renovation website).

Meanwhile, I live in a house built in 1994, and I am always thinking about how a future owner, 30 years from now, will like certain “vintage” elements to my house, like all the ridiculous orangey oak that is everywhere.  I would love to paint it all crisp white, but I am concerned that that future owner would slap my hand.  ”Why did you do that to your gorgeous vintage 1980s oak?” they cry.  So currently I live in a 1994 house with a lot of mid-century modern furniture and 1980s oak.  I am nothing if not an enigma.

(I should do a post about that house in Centralia since the house is still for sale and the pictures are online.)

Anyway, the point of this post (I’ve digressed) is the amazing resource that is Retro Renovation.

It doesn’t stop with bathrooms; Pam posts about all kinds of things, from vintage and reproduction light fixtures to textiles to appliances.  She’s got the scoop on where you can get a replacement vintage pink toilet for your own house!  She is also dedicated to getting retro design pictures (new photos of vintage design, vintage photos, and vintage advertisements) into her Flickr photostream, which makes for great browsing.

Pam also has a killer blogroll- I haven’t even checked all of the blogs that are listed on her site yet, because most of them are great reading.

So take a look at Retro Renovation.  Love the house you’re in, especially if you’re lucky enough to live with pink bathrooms.