Mid-Century Modern esthetic

Published 8:00 am Sunday, June 2, 2019

More than 100 fans of Mid-Century Modern style made their way through New Iberia Saturday on the Louisiana Architecture Foundation’s first New Iberia Modern Home tour.

The six homes and one church on the tour showed off the clean lines and open floor plans of the movement, which took elements of the Bauhaus and International schools and softened that austerity with a more organic flair, working in harmony with the natural setting and using large open windows to bring the outdoors in.

“We’re seeing people coming through in groups of three and four,” said Stacey Pfingsten, the executive director of the Louisiana Architecture Foundation. “We will probably end up with 150 people on the tour by the end of the day.”

The six homes on the tour, clustered on either side of the Bayou Teche, displayed a variety of implementations of the MCM ethos. The focal point of Jeff and Margaret Simon’s home on Duperier Oaks Drive, for example, is its balcony overlooking the large atrium of a living area, with a two-story glass wall allowing the natural beauty of the Teche to fill the space. The white walls, Celotex ceiling and slate flooring offer a simple counterpoint to the trees and reflected light of the bayou just beyond the home’s deck.

“I’ve had to replace the Celotex already,” Jeff Simon said. “And when I have to replace it again, I’ll put up more Celotex. It’s original to the design of the home.”

Down the block, near the intersection of the Loreauville Highway and Lewis Street, Pat and Anne Caffery’s petrified wood exterior and wood interiors bring a much more organic feel to the style.

“Everything here is original,” Pat Caffery said as he showed off the cabinetry and sliding pocket doors, as well as the natural wood floors which run the length of the home. “When my mother pulled up the carpet that was here, she worried about what she would find underneath. When she saw this, she just called someone to refinish it.”

The home’s lines seem to draw more from the Frank Lloyd Wright arts and crafts influence than the more recognizable sleek 50s and 60s lines more common to the MCM aesthetic, but the open spaces and large rooms provide the airiness at the heart of the style.

Farther down the Loreauville Road, at the home of former 16th Judicial District Judge Anne Simon, those sleek lines and gable windows are in plentiful evidence. Simon’s home, with its large sunroom, high ceilings and natural brick accents, echoes that 60s California style that architect Joseph Eichler made synonymous with the MCM movement.

Overall, the response to the tour was enthusiastic. Tave Lamperez, whose own home on Edgewater Drive would fit right in with the others on the route, stopped at the Bayou Teche Museum halfway through his tour.

“I was going to drive, then decided to walk,” Lamperez said. “I have been to three of the homes already, but I dropped in here just to bask in the air conditioning for a few minutes.”

Pfinsten said the Louisiana Architecture Foundation is actually planning a documentary on the MCM homes across the state, which should be completed later this year. The foundation is also holding an Architecture and Design Film Festival at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans on June 20-23.