Is this Eames "music house" calling your name?

Author

Michele Racioppi

Affiliation

Docomomo US staff

Tags

Threatened, Real Estate
Image details

The Meyer House in Huntsleigh, Missouri, was designed by Charles Eames and Robert T. Walsh.   John and Alice Meyer commissioned them after seeing another of their designs, St. Mary’s Church, in Helena, Alabama. The playfulness of Charles and Ray Eames’ later designs for items such as chairs, textiles, tables, and children’s toys, that they are most well known for, are clearly evident.

The carved exterior brickwork is a signature of the house, most notably featuring the first few bars of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, which Alice Meyer told Eames was her favorite. Eames designed the metalwork throughout the property and enlisted St. Louis artists and artisans, including Emil Frei, to create the home’s stained glass windows. “It was a collaboration of the leading artists and designers in St. Louis at that moment,” according to Genny Cortinovis, assistant curator of decorative arts and design for the Saint Louis Art Museum.

The home went on the market last year for the first time in 55 years. It has not sold yet, and the latest real estate listing advertises that the house can be “beautifully restored and updated to reflect the taste of its new owners, or on the contrary, serves as a blank canvas on one of the most desirable lots in St. Louis.” Finding a buyer who prefers the former would be music to our ears. The price has recently dropped to $1,590,000.