Cool & Collected
FUN AND FUNKY MID-CENTURY HOME GETS A FACELIFT
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troll up the walkway toward an enthusiastically red front door and you know there’s something fun and funky going on inside. The clue is five extralarge round panels, mounted along the exterior pathway, displaying 1950s artwork from a book on how to date, each with a chuckle-worthy caption. That’s just a teaser of what’s to come. Get ready for an explosion of color, whimsy and humor decorating almost every square inch of this artfully wacky home. Tony and Donna Natsoulas, both avid art collectors and mid-century modern enthusiasts,
CR By Cathryn Rakich Photography by Aniko Kiezel OPEN HOUSE
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had their hearts set on a retro house when they stumbled upon this 1,563-square-foot Streng Bros. home built in 1963. The original owner customized the threebedroom, two-bath ranch by switching up the standard Streng Bros. floorplan so he could fit in his grand piano. The result was an open concept where the living room flows into the dining area, instead of two separate spaces. “I remember standing here saying, ‘I have to have this house.’ I fell in love with this living room,” Tony says. The couple purchased the home in 2002 and went to work turning their abode into a tribute to all things cool and collectible, silly and satirical. They filled every room with 1950s and 60s furniture and accessories collected or inherited over the years, plus fantastical two- and threedimensional artwork. The hundreds of colorful art pieces are “mostly our friends’ work,” notes Tony, a celebrated ceramic artist famous for campy, large-scale human figures, busts and wall sculptures. “Anyone can buy things made in China,” Donna adds. “I would rather see stuff that is handmade and one of a kind. Nobody else has it.”
Tony and Donna Natsoulas