Triangle Modernist Homes

Architecture in the Blood

My original interest in real estate had nothing to do with selling homes or becoming a Realtor but from my mother’s father, my grandfather,  Aldoph Otto Budina, who was an architect.  Although my siblings don’t necessarily agree, pictures of him when he was the age I am now, look eerily familiar…like me with hair.

Nobody called him Adolph…it was always AO or Bud. Grampy (to us) was a man of few words but still managed to make a mark in the world. From his library I have a biography of the famous architect Louis Sullivan, who my grandfather worked for in New York, that mentions him several times. Thumbing through it a few years ago I found a letter folded between the pages from Sullivan to my grandfather full of affection and good wishes.

Grampy didn’t talk much about these things but from what I could piece together, he ended up in Richmond where my mother met my father at a USO event at nearby Fort Lee during World War II. It was because of his association with Sullivan or another prominent architect of the time by the name of John Eberson, that he was on the team that designed the Central National Bank building in downtown, a building with a strong resemblance to the Empire State Building. He also worked on the Lowes Theater in Richmond which has now been restored and is known as the Carpenter Performing Arts Center.

When he decided to settle in Richmond he became the in-house architect for a company known as Neighborhood Theaters. A few years ago, just for fun I googled his name and to my great surprise learned that he is credited with the design of theaters all over the map. At least two in Richmond, the Byrd and the Westhampton Theaters are still in operation and still very beautiful.

Oddly, when he started his own firm,where he worked well into his eighties, he did a lot of less glamorous jobs, like bottling plants, that were big brick boxes but apparently paid pretty well.  Most of his notoriety outside his profession came from his role as part of the Richmond Planning Commission that planned the construction of the Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike, which was until about 25 years ago a toll road and is now part of I-95.

His hobby was woodworking and when he approached retirement a contractor gave him a huge pile of walnut left over from a project that he spent the rest of his life turning into furniture. The first  project we ever did together was a bookcase.  I was at a point in my life where I would have been satisfied with unfinished planks and cinder blocks. He had other ideas and what I learned primarily during that exercise was how with patience you can put together something both beautiful and functional.

When I was a young boy I always imagined that I would follow in my grandfather’s footsteps but I drifted into athletics and when I was offered a scholarship to college I was firmly discouraged from opting for such a demanding program as architecture.

The point of all this is to say that when I come across something like the beautiful Triangle Modernist Houses website I get a little wistful. One of my clients actually pointed it out to me and I soon discovered that it was founded by George Smart, a local business consultant and coach who I was acquainted with casually from my days in public relations. George too seems to have architecture in his bloodline and the site is clearly a labor of love.

What I didn’t inherit from my grandfather was his very traditional and ornate tastes. Back in the 70′s I developed an interest in solar homes and he produced a book from his library that was published in the year of my birth, 1945 with designs for solar homes in southern climes. Regrettably I’ve lost track of the book but I recall that most of the designs would now be called mid-century modern. Because of my interest he set about designing a dutch colonial solar home. To me this was almost an oxymoron but he saw it as a way to incorporate solar panels in a traditional roof line. He died with the design still on his drafting table and, of course, the home was never built.

My tastes run much more in the direction reflected on George’s website. I’m not sure how I developed that taste but a close neighbor and  friend in Richmond had a long open ranch that I loved and probably fits the category. I can also remember in the early 70′s my brother lived in Reston when it was new and shiny and a great place to look at modern residential architecture. It’s hard to explain but the cathedral ceilings, vast expanses of glass and open floor plans have always made more traditional designs seem claustrophobic in comparison. The proximate cause of my getting a real estate license was to save some commission on two townhomes I renovated and flipped in Pebble Creek in Durham.  These contemporaries were designed by Durham architect Judge Carr and built in the mid-seventies.  I’m a man of many careers but in many ways those renovations were among my most enjoyable professional activities and the closest I’ll ever come to picking  up my grandfather’s legacy.

Triangle Modernist Houses is full of beautiful real estate photography and is a great point of entry and resource for learning more about this style in North Carolina and who is designing and building them now.  The site also provides information about many of these distinct homes that come on the market. I recommend the site to anyone interested in this classic style or for anyone who just appreciates good design; you will find that your intentions to wile away a few pleasurable minutes turns into many more.