Take a look inside the renovated $1.7 million Bauhaus home near The Plaza

Houses priced at more than $1 million typically have luxury amenities or are architecturally significant. The 1936 International Style home between The Country Club Plaza and Loose Park has both.

Designed by architect James F. Terney and built in 1936, the two-story, white stucco stunner has been featured in two local architecture books — one by The Historic Preservation Commission of Kansas City, the other by the American Institute of Architects, Kansas City. It’s on the market for just under $1.7 million.

Susan Fleming, the listing agent with Reece Nichols who is selling the three-bedroom, 3.5-bath home, says it has had an unusual amount of foot-traffic since it went on the market three months ago.

That’s not surprising given that its ultra-modern exterior stands out among the traditional homes surrounding it. It’s also one of only three known International Style houses in the Kansas City area. The others are the 9,000-square foot Bixby House, three miles south on State Line Road, and a 2,200-square foot home in Westport.

International Style is a type of Bauhaus design that, according to the Getty Research Institute, emerged in Holland, France and Germany after World War I. International Style homes are marked by their radically simplified form, lack of ornamentation and use of glass, steel and concrete.

Raymond and Hortense Starr were the original owners of the 3,500-square-foot home near Loose Park. Their son and daughter-in-law Norton and Irene Starr recalled fond memories of the home while touring it recently.

“They were avant garde people. They had been to Europe several times, they spoke several languages and they read modern literature,” said Norton, explaining why his parents had such an unusual home built for its time.

In addition to its clean lines and unadorned white facade, the home was unusual for the 1930s in that its garage faced the street and its living room was at the back of the home. Such features would be commonplace a few decades later but were controversial when the Starrs built their home.

The current owner bought the house about 10 years ago, and has been painstakingly restoring it since. He replaced the roof, gutters, windows, plumbing and electrical systems. He repaired the stucco exterior and preserved original features like the round porthole in the front door, the mantel on the fireplace in the living room and the solid brass handrail on the staircase.

That handrail, by the way, is not to be touched lest it tarnish. It’s more a piece of art than a functional feature. It always has been. Norton remembers his parents warning him not to touch it.

Several nickel-plated round lights have been inset into ceilings throughout the home restored by Hiles Plating & Silversmiths. They shine like concave mirrors.

The home is a testament to sturdiness. The floors on the first level were made of concrete poured over wood, evidenced by the Wood grain patterns on the basement ceiling where the wood was removed.

The concrete had leeched moisture from the first level’s original cork flooring, causing it to crumble in spots. So the current owner replaced them with Brazilian cherry flooring and plush wool carpet, adding a layer of marine-grade plywood in between.

The Starrs had pictures of the home during its early years, when the walls were covered in shades of salmon and off-white paint and grasscloth wallpaper. It was chic for its time. Today, most walls are bright white, better for bouncing the ample natural light around the room from the house’s many large windows.

The biggest changes to the home were in overhauling the kitchen and incorporating one of the home’s four original bedrooms on the second floor into the master suite to create a modern spa bath and walk-in closet.

A den to the left of the foyer, as you enter the home, has thick horizontal chocolate-gray stripes on the wall, new plush wool carpeting and glass shelves in the chocolate cabinetry surrounding the wood-burning fireplace.

Norton remembers banging away on his dad’s Smith Corona typewriter in the den.

“He also had a stereo with a big speaker in here and a reading lamp which we still have, and an Eames lounge chair with an ottoman,” he says. His parents decorated the home with modern furniture including a couple of chests by Andrew Szoek, a Hungarian designer best known for creating Hallmark’s crown logo.

The living room, now open to the dining room, sports its original Kentucky bluestone fireplace mantel.

Norton can still see the firescreen that once sat in front of the fireplace. It comprised a sheet of tempered glass, he says, with two cutouts at the bottom through which rods from the log holder extended. They were topped by two big brass balls and the glass sheet would slide in and out, to control the flames.

One time, Norton says, his dad upset a hidden wasps nest while lighting a fire. He quickly closed the glass sheet, and whoosh! The wasps were sucked up and out of the chimney. Problem solved.

Paned windows round a corner of the living room, offering views of an in-ground swimming pool and cabana in the backyard and a semi-circular solarium on the side of the home that was once a screened-in porch. Now fully enclosed with windows, it has heated marble floors.

Norton pointed at four columns that help support the ceiling between banks of windows in the solarium. “My father went to a junkyard to buy those vertical pipes,” he said. “I had a birthday party out here one time. All I remember is crying.”

The kitchen, unrecognizable to the Starrs, is light and airy, high-end and thoroughly modern with professional-grade appliances.

At the top of the stairs on the second floor, Norton can still hear his closet door closing — in his mind, that is. The closet door is gone, along with the entire bedroom. They were swallowed up by the new spa-like master bathroom and walk-in closets.

Things that do remain on the second floor include a knee-high wall surrounding a roof-top deck, another original sink in a guest bathroom restored to its original glory and a long, shallow niche in the wall of the home’s smallest bedroom just down the hall. The niche has shelves built it into it now, but Norton remembers when it harbored a fold-down ironing board.

This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 9:53 AM with the headline "Take a look inside the renovated $$1.7 million Bauhaus home near The Plaza."