Peggi and Cynthia Howk from the Landmark Society exchanged emails this week on one of those rabbit hole digs. They were trying to track down where in our neighborhood the architect, Robert Brodie, once lived. Peggi found an article on Newspapers.com about a Mrs. Brodie taking children from Hillside Children’s Center on horseback rides from her house on Hoffman Road. A photo accompanied the story and Peggi was able to determine which house it was although the house was greatly altered by local artist, Sabra Richards. The percussion teacher at the Eastman School lives there now. Cynthia was arranging a tour of one of Brodie’s houses on Lake Road and she invited us to tag along.
The swing bridge is open at the mouth of the bay so we were there in minutes. The current owner is the son of the original owner and the mid-century modern home has thankfully not been altered, only improved. Cynthia pointed out the clearstory windows that run along the top of the house, a new architectural term for us. Some of the interesting features include a soundproofed telephone booth. A light goes on when you sit down and there is a hardwired intercom to the house next door for setting up carpools when both families included Kodak employees. The entire model home darkroom displayed in the Kodak exhibit building at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair in Flushing is installed in the basement. And a feature that you might have to be an electrician to appreciate. Each of the six single-bulb lights in the hallway were modified to accommodate two light bulbs wired in series, not parallel. So all but two or three of the twelve original bulbs, now 73 years old, are still in service.
The owner learned we play music and he showed us his Hammond B3 he had in the basement. He told us a story about the brakes on his mom’s Metropolitan going out as she came down the driveway. Rather than slam into the house she quickly decided to run the car into a nearby maple tree.
Since we’re out this way we stopped in to visit my brother and on the way back we pulled over to admire this house along the lake. We got out to take a photo. The owner was out front and Peggi told her we were architectural buffs. She invited us in and we learned this house too designed by Robert Brodie. See Peggi’s Don Hershey website for more local mid-century showpieces.
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wish you had pix of that darkroom