Posted June 28, 200519 yr I received and email about someone who was interested in info on the Hyde Park "Mushroom House". The email is included below: My name is Jillian Horgan and I am an associate producer with a production company based out of Manhattan. Kralyevich Productions Inc. (KPI) is currently producing a new series for the History Channel. The series is called "Weird US, " based on the best selling book of the same title. One of the segments in the series is going to focus on strange homes in the US and the people who built them/reside in the them. I was wondering if you had any information about the “Mushroom House” you photographed, or if you just thought it would make an interesting picture. If you have any information that you would like to share about the “Mushroom House” please let me know. Would any forumers or lurkers for that matter like to provide any info on the home in question so I could pass it on to them? Any positive exposure on our fine city is always welcomed and if a TV show is looking to do a special on a home in Cincinnati I would love to help them out. Here is a link that talks about the house briefly: http://www.cincinnati.com/local/hydepark/E50html_11182003__GNHProadtrip.ART_Other.html
June 28, 200519 yr I dont know too many specifics on the house, I know the owner is an artist who has been transforming it over the past decade. I know around 10 years ago (sometime in the mid 90s) the locals were getting pretty upset trying to force the city to make him tear down the house because they felt it was going to destroy the character of the neighboorhood. I guess nothing ever came of that. The house looks very different now than around 10 years ago. It is pretty much a work in progress it seems like because the owner always seems to be adding or doing something to it.
June 28, 200519 yr my friends are moving in there...i'll get the goods from them! Mister Good Day, was the house for sale? I was unaware that this place was for sale. I wonder what the value is currently appraised at?
June 28, 200519 yr Here is the info off the auditor's website.... BROWN JERRY LEE & JEAN KAE 3331 ERIE AVE CINCINNATI, OH 45208-1625 USA The Link: http://64.56.97.2/realestate2/agency/hamilton/hamilton_tab_base2.asp?sid=EB6340AD13AE4DFBB3980B53AA53B3C1
June 28, 200519 yr I find it very hard to believe that anything residing in exclusive Hyde Park is only appraised at $87,600. I would think this property would be worth a mint. Tha auditor site also states that the house was built in 1913. It doesn't add up...
June 28, 200519 yr Maybe all of the 'art' brought the actual value way down?? seems backwards but possible..
June 28, 200519 yr OK, so it's actually like la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in that TERRY (not Jerry) Brown is builing it little by little over the span of a lifetime... It's still a work in progress and he lives there and I believe runs a design/architecture firm maybe on site. My friends are good friends of his and are supposed to be moving in to help offset the cost of construction and upkeep and what not. Still not sure when they'll be touching down, though.
June 28, 200519 yr Good deal. Pass on the information to the powers that be and if they email me at [email protected] I will pass on the contacts so they can get in touch with KPI if they are interested in promoting their house. I would also love the oportunity to tour their house and shoot some photos. Hint, Hint...
June 28, 200519 yr Maybe all of the 'art' brought the actual value way down?? seems backwards but possible.. Yeah, that might make it hard to appraise! It's either that or the fact that it's only 1000 square feet and on 1/10 of an acre. (Though similar sized houses on Tarpis are appraised at well over $100K, so that doesn't explain it either, I guess.)
June 29, 200519 yr OK, so it's actually like la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona in that TERRY (not Jerry) Brown is builing it little by little over the span of a lifetime... wierd. Terry Lee Brown Jr. is a phenomenal dj, producer, and label owner from Germany. (at least the one I'm familiar with)
June 29, 200519 yr Monte, it is quite likely that house was built in 1913. There is a "normal" house under all that artwork, the artist just built around it and added the front football-shaped thing. I remember when he first started working on it and could not figure out what the hell he was doing. It will also be interesting to see what his new valuation is.
July 3, 200519 yr It is a tiny house on a major road. I have no doubt that it was built in 1913. The appraised value does not necessarily equate to the market value.
July 3, 200519 yr That's amazing! It kinda takes Gaudi to the next step. I wonder how many tons of wood shingling are on that house.
July 3, 200618 yr Well I took some more photos of the house this weekend, so the old ones are no longer hot linked. Bonus, here is the Cotswold Cottage:
July 3, 200618 yr There is a painting professor at OU who built a house similar to the Hyde Park mushroom house and calls his compound "The Church of William Blake". It's about 10 miles from OU, the last two miles of which are on gravel ruts booby-trapped (seriously) to keep outsiders at bay. You descend into this idyllic shallow valley to what resembles Pappa Smurf's house. He paid me and this other guy $20 to help him pack up his paintings and put them in a van, so I got to see the inside of his place which reminded me of the Swiss Family Robinson with all sorts of strange narrow staircases and ledges and crooked windows and then there were all these vintage communist texts strewn about. His studio was a cylinder with a bell-like concrete roof and he claims he grew grass on the roof for a few years, which I have no reason to doubt. The guy was beyond eccentric but I think he purposefully acted that bizarre as some sort of political act. I wasn't able to find a pic of his place (I really wish I had taken one when I was there) but here are some of his paintings on the web: http://wiredforbooks.org/eldridge/ http://www.chrisis.org/chr_aethelred/aethelred.html
August 4, 200618 yr picture: Even the chimney on the 3331 Erie Avenue house in Hyde Park has lots of intricate architectural details. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060804/NEWS01/608040398/1077/NEWS01 Dr. Seuss would be proud Unusual Hyde Park house - man's 'life effort' - for sale BY JOY KRAFT | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER HYDE PARK - Some call it the mushroom house, the Dr. Seuss house, the egg house. Others have names for the whimsical cottage just around the bend from the District 2 police station that can't be published in the newspaper. But "sold" is what Sibcy Cline Realtor Laurence Stillpass hopes it will be called soon. Owner Terry Brown, architect and adjunct professor of architecture at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning, is selling the structure he calls a "life's effort." Perched on a corner above busy Erie Avenue and covered with waves of cedar shakes and trimmed in tile with stained glass glinting in the odd-shaped windows, the studio/office is listed for $399,000. The building's years as a landmark began in 1989 when Brown bought one of many cookie-cutter clapboard cottages built around 1913 as homes for the workers on the streetcar line that ended near the site. Under Brown's direction, the structure has morphed - some say too slowly with too much mess and mud - into a compilation of shapes and textures that defy description and tradition. There are winding steel steps and church-like stained glass. There's also corrugated steel siding and a mosaic chimney fit for a fairytale. Those who worked on the studio, many students from UC's DAAP program, could claim hands-on experience in creating organic architecture. Nevertheless, as it took shape and veered from traditional expectations, neighbors were perplexed. Critics assailed it as lacking sensitivity to its environment. Fans called it refreshing. Kids loved it. Brown said Thursday that if he had built a Taco Bell on the spot, few would have blinked. "In the context of Cincinnati, architecture as an art form hasn't really thrived. So within that context, people really don't know what to do with it," he said of his office. Next-door neighbor Richard Hall said it would be too bad if someone bought Brown's building and tore it down. "There's probably $1 million in labor in it," Hall said. "It's not my choice, but it's interesting." Brown, who would not say why he is selling, did say: "I'm not from Cincinnati. I was here for a while, and now I'm ready to do something else." About the building's future, he said: "It would be nice if someone kept it like it is. But I don't really have any expectations. "If (the structure) were in Chicago or L.A., it wouldn't be much of a question. The answer would be obvious - someone would buy it and enjoy it." E-mail [email protected]
October 17, 200618 yr Her's the real estate listing: http://www.sibcycline.com/viewlisting.asp?mls=1027423&b=CIN&p=RESI&s=SFRD&m=1&sender=SearchResults
October 20, 200618 yr someone needs to buy it & open up a quirky little shop... so people can actually see the inside of the place! or maybe urbanohio headquarters? :)
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