Atomic Ranch Midcentury Interiors by Michelle Gringeri-Brown

'You can't just cut holes and run things where you want in a house like this,' says Suckle. Creating the 'spa-like' master bathroom, which is painted Meditative Blue (SW 6227) and Waterscape Green (SW 6470), was an exercise in compromise, given the twin challenges of 50-year-old plumbing and exposed infrastructure. Oh, and then there's the fact that the house wobbles in a strong wind, thanks to the stilts.īoardman's sister, New York City-based architect and designer Abby Suckle, loved the house immediately and frequently urged her sister and brother-in-law to let her give it a tender-loving 'update.' Finally, in 2005, 18 years after they moved in, they were ready.Īt the rear of the home, Suckle removed the Acorn partitions that delineated two small bedrooms, creating a large master bedroom, bathroom and closet. 'The views are amazing, but it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer because of all the windows,' says Boardman. 'They're so boring.'īut after living in the home, which was designed by architect John Nickols based on a plan published in the 1937 book The Modern House in England, the couple quickly became converts to the modernist aesthetic, despite the challenges. 'We didn't want a colonial,' says Boardman.

They liked the home because it was unusual, with its Acorn partitions, its glass walls – and its stilts. When Barbara Boardman and her husband bought their 1957 steel-and-glass modular home in Carlisle, Mass., it wasn't out of a passion for midcentury modern architecture.

Atomic Ranch Midcentury Interiors by Michelle Gringeri-Brown