Wall house in StarTrib

Our recently completed Wall residence received some attention in an article by Kevin Behr in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Tuesday 4-20. It was a rather oblique article in that it wasn't about the house as much as it was about the trajectory of the property from a problem (rat-infested garbage house) to a new modern house. Apparently it was more important to the author to canvas the neighbors' opinions regarding the house than it was to talk to us about our intentions. It seemed a lost opportunity to contrast the predictably vague Lutheran disapproval of something this "different" with our thoughts and intentions in introducing something so admittedly bold into the neighborhood. We understand some difference of opinion on the "appropriateness" of this gesture is to be expected, and we'd welcome the opportunity to discuss this with anyone who would care to. We value traditional neighborhoods, but we also believe they need to remain living, evolving entities, not arrested in time a half-century ago. "Appropriateness" has its limits - at least it should; and It's often too easy to fixate on the stylistic difference of something new while neglecting to address the appropriateness of our neighborhoods and homes to unabashedly reflect how we currently live -- and build -- and to allow these structures to be what they are, without having to doll them up in historical drag in order to avoid upsetting the neighbors. It's a potentially interesting conversation, and one with should quickly get beyond the bromides of a thumbs-up/thumbs-down dialectic.

Also, we were mentioned in Todd Melby's Building Minnesota blog with regard to the Wall residence being one of the few modern houses on the Mpls/St Paul home tour. He quotes me from an email I sent him in which I described the salient features of the project. It doesn't sound half bad!