Mod at Heart
I was raised a modernist, but it was lost on me until I was an adult. In 1959, my grandparents had a house built for their growing family. It was a glass-and-steel structure designed in the International Style: open plan, low-slung roof with overhangs for shade, a glass curtain wall on the outside. On weekends as a kid I’d play with my cousins in this modernist box we jokingly referred to as the hotel. It could take a hit: built-in furniture, a brick indoor fountain we called the grotto, linoleum floors that no amount of pool water tracked in from outside could damage. In this handsome purpose-built home, we ran free. The minimalist structure framed our days there as a family, as we lived a life full of warmth, the oak…