Built for David Kelley, the founder of IDEO and Stanford Design School, and designed by the late Italian architect, Ettore Sottsass, founder of Sottsass Associati and the Memphis group, the postmodern Woodside home at 1250 Canada Road is hidden behind the five-acre estate’s equestrian center.
The home, which is on the market for the first time and priced $14.995 million, is outfitted with four bedrooms and plenty of postmodern flair.
And if you don’t have horses, there are alternative uses for the well-kept barns.
I don’t get it. The outside looks like a cross between a Best Western and a prison
Jacques Tati’s school for the blind
wow. truly awful, on multiple levels.
Brutalism is back in style. Just give postmodernism another 15 years.
Are you kidding? Memphis has been back in style for years. Sottsass is a luminary.
I’d pay $15 million to tear this down.
I’ve never cared for post-modern. But, I’m glad they kept the barn!
This place is so much more interesting than most of the “historic” gutted Victorians or revivalist McMansions in the South Bay. But not surprised most commenters prefer more boring homes—part of why we get such middling bland architecture and interiors in this town. :/
Actually I’d prefer windows.
I like it. And nice that the stagers threw in a little Memphis too.
That this place gets its fair share of haters is not too surprising. Every brash new wave of design hits its nadir about two to four decades after its introduction because it looks so “dated”. Even SF’s cherished Vics were despised for many years around WWII before being rediscovered.
i don’t think there are any stagers here, and its pretty hard to say that anyone “threw in a little Memphis” in a house designed by the founder of the Memphis Group.
this home is full on Sottsass (and Memphis) in color and material and shape mix. and those vases and table lamps and cabinets and credenza and media center and divider headboards are all, i think, his design. even the emeco aluminum chairs in the dining room and the office swivels are sottsass versions.
i think he also designed the outdoor totem lights.
the tolomeo lights are by another Memphis designer, Michele de Lucchi, and have never gone out of style since their introduction.
this house is very much of a time and i agree that it will age better than it looks now. its like living in a sculpture (not one i’d want to live in – but one i’d like to cocktail in or visit).
“this home is full on Sottsass” – you got that right modernedwardian!
Even the red typewriter sitting on the desk in the study is designed by him…earlier in his career.
Well, the timberframing in the garage barn is nice …
What’s with the freestanding cabinet maze between the dining room and kitcen?!
I bet there is an inverse correlation between a house price and the utilization of the kitchen. Above $10M, kitchens are mostly just showcases, used occasionally by the caterer to warm up the food that’s trucked in. If this house is no exception, at least the cabinet maze makes for a much more original conversation piece than your standard La Cornue-ed monster!
The cabinets could be the postmodern interpretation of Carson, the footman, and Mr. Barrow attending to the dining room, and since the kitchen is not in the basement, you also see Mrs. Patmore and Daisy.
As a design showcase, it’s remarkable. The website is short on photos of the house, though. Unless the 8,000+ sq/ft includes the horse barns.
It reminds me of my elementary school.
I doubt its staged. Anyone who would commission this house would live with a little Memphis. And I doubt the stagers keep that in their inventory. Too interesting.
While not my cup of tea, part of me thinks it’s not bold enough. Go all the way and make it so it seems like you’re living on a theatre set by David Hockney.
I’d auction off most of the interior finishings and simplify throughout, but keep the buildings pretty much intact.
Great house for art collectors.
I don’t find this house appealing, either, but I’m quite sure there will be a time when it will be highly sought-after. It might be 30 years, but these things tend to come back just as modernism and, to some small extent, brutalism has returned to popularity again.
UPDATE: 10 Percent Price Cut for Pedigreed Postmodern Estate
a tiny typographical correction: instead of canada road it’s actually cañada road.