Sculpted Sleeper

"One stray step from the habitual path leads irresistably into a new direction." Franz Grillparzer, 19th Century Austrian playwright

We were driving from Wichita, Kansas to El Toro, California in the summer of 1970. We always took car trip vacations back then. I was 14, had a new boyfriend (my future husband), and was headed to southern California for the first time in my life. I couldn't know then what importance the entire southern California region would someday have to my own life, as well as to the lives of my own nuclear family thereafter.

The route was I-70 for much of the way, right through Denver, Colorado. I wasn't really paying much attention to it, since that stretch of I-70 basically felt like a commercial strip of name-brand manufacturers, distribution centers for major retailers, and steam-spewing plants making who-knows-what. It's not much different today.

The car began to climb. It was a very steep grade, and the slight tug of the engine as it adjusted to the incline brought me out of my adolescent trance. I looked up in time to suddenly catch the intense sunlight bouncing off some sort of shiny object perched on the side of the mountain to my left. In a flash, I remembered reading something in a magazine about an astounding architectural wonder that had been built just outside Denver -- in Golden, or some place like that. It was supposed to be a home. It looked like a spaceship had landed in Colorado, smashing into the side of the crest, apparently having missed Roswell, New Mexico by more than a few hundred miles.....

That vision was the beginning of my ongoing life-fascination with the Sculptered House, aka "Sleeper House." I anticipated seeing it again on the return trip to Kansas for a long time, realizing that it would then be on MY side of the car. It was, indeed, the perfect setting for Woody Allen's zany comedy in 1973. At that point, I had been relocated to Pasadena, California -- with all the "rights and privileges" that go with that.

I have been waiting for the August edition of Colorado Homes & Lifestyles magazine for the month since I read online that they were publishing a feature on Sleeper House. I have an entire file folder of article clippings and internet info about it. Never get enough of it. As of last night at 9 p.m., the new issue was still not on the newstands anywhere. I don't know why. I couldn't wait any longer and went to the website to see what they published. The pictures above were arranged online into "then" and "now" order. In this note, the first view in the sequence is the "then" shot (dominated by bright, primary colors), and the second view in the sequence is the "now" shot (dominated by neutrals). I'm partial to the original bright colors and more authentic, space-age type of feeling.

When I moved to Denver to work for a homebuilder, I could not have imagined how much fun it would be to work with architects and land developers. I worked with a man who met Deaton and had been invited to tour the property. I never got to do that, but just talking to him about it was exciting for me. More than a few times, when I've been in Golden or Arvada for other reasons, I've veered the car to I-70 westbound for the few miles up the slope to see it yet again. From an excruciatingly untouchable distance. When we're traveling that way with the girls to ski areas, I never fail to point it out to them. It's an "old" thing that still looks like the newest thing I've ever seen.

The online article from the magazine:

"The Sculptured House is an icon with a Cinderella story. Architect Charles Deaton was intrigued by the idea of living inside a sculpture when he designed the home—the only private residence he ever attempted. Deaton disliked the proliferation of cookie-cutter homes and chose instead to find inspiration in the shapes he saw in nature. “People aren’t angular,” he famously said. “So why should they live in rectangles?”

"Construction began in 1963, and by the time the exterior was finished in 1966, Deaton had run out of cash. The home stood vacant for nearly 35 years. (When Woody Allen filmed part of his 1973 sci-fi comedy Sleeper there, he had to shoot interior scenes elsewhere because the Sculptured House’s interiors weren’t complete.) The home sat in disrepair for decades.

"Fast forward to 1999, when Colorado venture capitalist John Huggins bought the Sculptured House and had it finished, complete with a 5,000-square-foot addition Deaton had designed. Huggins worked with Deaton’s daughter Charlee, an interior designer, and her husband, Nicholas Antonopoulos, an architect who had worked with the elder Deaton before his death in 1996. (Colorado Homes & Lifestyles published the story of the remodel in our October 2001 issue.)

"What we learned then—and still know to be true—is Deaton’s design inspires us to look forward, to imagine what comes next in the constant evolution of design. There’s something about the home’s sculptural artistry that challenges us to imagine what’s possible.

"So nearly seven years after our original story ran, we checked in with the current owner, who invited designers from AERA Studios to reveal how they would update the interiors. Builders from Rosewater Construction joined them to refresh—and in some cases, repair—this captivating space."