1950s home ripped straight out of a magazine wants $410K

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Location: Bayside, Wisconsin

Price: $410,000

This International Style home in Bayside, Wisconsin, was ripped out of a page of a magazine—literally. It was built in 1955 as a near-replica of the Harvard Five’s John Johansen’s own Upside-Down House in New Canaan, Connecticut, for a young couple after the wife saw a feature on the home in a 1952 issue of McCall’s magazine and enlisted Milwaukee modernist architect Donald Grieb to recreate it for them.

“We wanted to live up with the trees, not under them,” Johansen said in the article. “We wanted the feeling of being suspended in space, so we put the living area upstairs and the bedrooms below.” Like the original design, the Midwestern residence also places the living areas on the top floor and the bedrooms on the lower level—hence the moniker. “Let us be here—on a floating platform at one with the landscape. Let us be a part of nature instead of intruding on it,” Johansen said.

In Bayside, the three-bedroom accomplishes the same. Now carefully and thoughtfully renovated in keeping with the original design, period-appropriate materials and colorways create an authentic midcentury home for the contemporary age. The flat-roofed wooden construction unfurls across 2,100 square feet, with an open-concept living and dining area running the entire length of the house. Here, walls of glass frame views of the yard, while new cork flooring complements a double-faced stone fireplace and wood paneling.

The redone kitchen, which is separated from the dining area by an open built-in breakfast counter and shelving system with blue panels, boasts vintage ’50s metal cabinetry and backsplash tiling. An office on the other side of the fireplace is located on this floor as well. A staircase with retro wooden handrails leads downstairs to where there are three bedrooms plus an office and a full bathroom (for a total of 1.5 baths).

Located at 9449 N. Regent Court, the half-acre property that also includes a screened porch, is offered at $410,000. Here’s your chance to live the modernist dream in Milwaukee.

Courtesy of Lori Foulke/Keller Williams