Charles Deaton Sculptured House

One of the classic icons of mid 20th century modern architecture is being foreclosed upon by The Public Trustee in Jefferson County Colorado (scheduled date is November 10th 2010): The Sculptured House created by modern architect Charles Deaton. If this house would have been in Malibu, Palm Springs or Montecito Santa Barbara, there would have been ample buyers, but as it happens, this wonderful house was constructed near Denver; also a lovely city with lovely people but without the deeper pockets of the modern-architecture-collecting Hollywood in-crowd.

In the 1973 comedy classic, "Sleeper", Woody Allen's character, Miles Monroe, wakes up 200 years in the future to discover that mankind has regressed into an "inept totalitarian state". Woody Allen rented the house for $2000 a day during the shooting of Sleeper. But things are kinda rough a mere 37 years after 1973, and now the home made famous in that film for its spaceship design is in foreclosure. If you have ever driven on I-70 west of Denver you've seen the home on the south side of the highway, way up on a ridge. It can now be yours. Either move to Denver, or, hire the best possible structural engineer and have them airlift it to Palm Springs.

The Denver Business Journal reports the home was bought in 2006 by businessman Michael Dunahay from another local entrepreneur, John Huggins, for $3.43 million. Dunahay is about $171,000 behind on his payments, and the holder of the note, Bayview Loan Servicing, is planning a foreclosure sale next month. An earlier sale planned for October 6 was postponed. This is not the first time Bayview has moved to foreclose on Dunahay. It filed paperwork to do so last year, but withdrew. I am sure that this is not the way the current owner wanted to be remembered. This modern house has had a though life ever since it was constructed: when its creator Charles Deaton first built his dream home for $100,000 in 1963 he ran out of money and the house sat empty for 40 years.

Back in January 2006, Jane Wells from CNBC interviewed Huggins, the previous owner, who had bought the house for under $2 million. It was still an empty shell, having never been completed by the original architect nor lived in. Woody Allen came close but it appears some of those movie sets were not in the actual house. Huggins fixed the house up and filled it with beautiful mid century modern furniture (we remember the pictures in the mid century modern magazines who photographed it at the time) and hoped to sell it for $10 million. He later lowered the price to $4.8 million, and eventually sold it for even less (again, it's not in Santa Barbara). Today, you can probably get the home, excluding the orgasmatron (you will have to call Woody Allen for that) for less money than Woody Allen spent on special effects in "Sleeper".



Credit: Jane Wells for CNBC