A Midcentury Modern House in Nutley, New Jersey, Suits a Design-Oriented Family
From our interview with homeowner Glenn Mariconda.
My wife, Asaka Midorikawa, and I lived in Brooklyn for about 20 years, and we loved it there. But then we had a baby, the pandemic started, and we started to think it was time to move. For a long time we’d said that if we ever did leave the city, we would try to find an untouched Midcentury Modern house—a Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian house or that kind of thing—and that’s what we set out to do.
It was a difficult search, because at that time everyone was trying to leave the city. We were renting cars and driving to open houses outside the city, and every time, either the property was already under contract or the bidding was going crazy.
We were on the way back from a showing one day, and this other house, in Nutley, New Jersey, popped up on the MLS. We liked the look of it from the photos, and the listing mentioned that the architect was Edward T. Bowser Jr., an African American architect who had worked for Le Corbusier. We had a car for the day, so we drove by.
photo by: Gross & Daley Photography
Architect Edward T. Bowser Jr. designed the house after working for the Modernist pioneer Le Corbusier.
And there, in a neighborhood of standard postwar starter homes, were these two really cool Modernist houses, both designed by Bowser. We found out later that they were among the first houses built in the area, so Bowser was able to site them at the very top of the hill, directly facing the Manhattan skyline. And you could really see the Le Corbusier influence in the architecture. Ours is this very high-style box, with all the living space elevated on the second level and probably 25 feet of windows facing the view.
The minute we walked inside, we knew that this was the house we wanted to buy. You enter at ground level and walk up a flight of stairs into the main living space, where you get all this daylight and that amazing city view. We were immediately just ... wow.
And while our first impression was of the European-influenced Modernist design, we also saw that the layout of the house would be really functional for a family. The front of the house is very open, but the back end is laid out almost like an American Foursquare, very practical and functional—and with actual closets. We could immediately imagine what it would be like to live here, and that was really appealing to us.
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There had been only three previous owners, and the house was largely in its original state. There had been a bathroom renovation and things like that, but all the important features were still intact. The post-and-beam ceiling, the built-in cabinetry, and the wood windows were all original, and the woodwork in the main living space had not been painted. During the initial walkthrough, we heard people saying, “We’ll just rip out these cabinets” and that sort of thing, so we felt like we almost had to buy the house just to prevent it from being destroyed.
After buying the house, we really wanted to learn more about Bowser, and one of the best sources we found was a [designer] and local historian named Frank Gerard Godlewski. Through Frank we learned that Bowser was born in 1924, graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1948, and worked in Le Corbusier’s rue de Sèvres studio from 1949 to 1950. [Bowser died in 1995.] He may have been one of the only Americans who worked for Le Corbusier at the time, which was a pivotal period for both Le Corbusier and the French Modernist movement. That really added to the mystique of the house.
We also contacted the Fondation Le Corbusier, in Paris, which provided some archival documents about Bowser: his college transcript, a letter of introduction from one of his professors, the job offers from the rue de Sèvres studio, and a recommendation letter confirming that he had worked on the Unité d’habitation in Marseille. We shared the documents with Frank, who connected us with an informal community of people who either owned Bowser houses or actually knew Bowser.
photo by: Gross & Daley Photography
The kitchen, like much of the house, gets abundant natural light, one of Mariconda and Midorikawa's favorite features.
Bowser had come from an accomplished and civically active local family. His father was an engineer and architectural draftsman who later became an architect, and one of his brothers was the mayor of East Orange, New Jersey. But when he returned from France, he couldn’t get a license to practice architecture in New Jersey. Because he was African American he was barred from sitting for the exam. So instead, he took the national exam and got [one of the highest scores] in the country, so New Jersey basically had to give him a license.
Our house was built in 1953 or 1954, so it may have been the first house Bowser designed when he returned from France. Later in his career, he designed a large commercial building for the Ronson lighter company and some big housing developments—so he may have done single-family houses primarily because the work was available, but he was clearly very good at it.
photo by: Gross & Daley Photography
Homeowners Asaka Midorikawa and Glenn Mariconda in the great room.
I’m a clothing designer, and before our son was born my wife worked in the fashion industry. One of the things we find interesting about this house is the modesty of its construction. There are no fancy materials, just regular brick, pine, and maple. But like all the other Bowser houses we’ve seen, it’s really intelligently designed. The way daylight works in the house, for example, is very well thought out. You can have natural light in any room of the house throughout the day, so we don’t often have to turn the lights on. When we decided to leave the city, it was important to us to find a house that felt inspiring, and this one does.
We also feel lucky to be a part of its history. I’ve always had an interest in French Modernist designers, and the house’s pedigree gave us the green light to furnish it with stuff by designers like Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, and Pierre Jeanneret, all [European] Modernists who had some connection to Le Corbusier. When we moved from Brooklyn, we basically got rid of all our furniture and started with a clean slate. We didn’t want to bring in anything that wasn’t in keeping with the original design.
We moved in October of 2020, and every time we walk into the house, we still feel privileged to live here. We’re inspired by the space, but we never feel restricted by it. It just feels like a normal house. We don’t feel like the aesthetic of the house demands compromise. Its functionality is also what makes it great.
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