It's history, it's art, it's a foam home
The futuristic Ensculptic house outside of Minneapolis is for sale for $212,000, but whether the buyer will embrace the home's unique structure, made of polyurethane insulation foam, or tear it down is a tossup.
Even this home's listing on the Minnesota Real Estate site mentions tearing down this piece of history as an option for its next buyer.
But if the foam home built in 1969 called Ensculptic has managed to survive this long, tearing it down just doesn't feel right.
Curbed National writes that the home, for sale for $212,000, outside of Minneapolis is one of the last made entirely of polyurethane insulation foam after the similar Xanadu homes quickly morphed from futuristic to obsolete and were torn down. (Bing:Read more about the Xanadu homes)
But unlike the Xanadu homes, which fell into disrepair after the tourists stopped coming, the crisp white interior of the Ensculptic house tells of the tender loving care it's been given over the decades.
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Shortly after it was built, a Life magazine article called Ensculptic "light, airy and wondrously unpredictable," and although those descriptions still fit the futuristic home, Curbed points out that there's a reason it's one of the last such homes.
Perhaps it's not the look most people are going for in their interior design.
But still, as the Realtor.com listing states, the buyer can "own a piece of history and live in a piece of art" (Realtor.com is an MSN Real Estate partner). At 4,080 square feet, you'd be hard-pressed to find another piece of art that big for just $212,000.
However, considering that the two-bedroom, three-bathroom home is on 8.4 acres, its fate just might be demolition.
What do you think? Will the new owners bring it back to its former glory or tear it down? What would you do?
It's interesting enough to try and revamp it into a livable house. It has to many steps and wasted space, the kitchen is small cramped and not suitable for more than two people. It is to chopped up with unecessary walls and pony walls. The bedrooms are very small and short ceilinged, I'm not one for sleeping on the floor. Storage space in almost nill and the bathrooms are little more than closets. It would depend on the structural design of the interior if this house could be made livable. I do like the free flow design, the indoor living plant spaces and the natural light. Remodeling this to bring it up to todays standards would be expensive.
About Teresa Mears
Teresa Mears is a veteran journalist who has been interested in houses since her father took her to tax auctions to carry the cash at age 10. A former editor of The Miami Herald's Home & Design section, she lives in South Florida where, in addition to writing about real estate, she publishes Miami on the Cheap to help her neighbors adjust to the loss of 60% of their property value.
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