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The Wolfson House

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What Do You Get When A World Famous Architect and a  Vintage Spartan Trailer Get Together? 

Utter Awesomeness!

wolfson house

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wolfson trailer house exterior

This is a 1948 Spartan Royal Mansion mobile home (although another reference the home as a 1947 model) that has a gorgeous home built right around it! Get this, the very famous architect and designer, Marcel Breuer, kept the Spartan intact and incorporated the mobile home perfectly into the design just as he was asked.

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The owner of the Spartan at the time, artist Sidney Wolfson, had asked Breuer a couple times to design the home around the trailer but Breuer kept turning him down. An interview with the current owner of the home in 1996 in the Hudson Valley Magazine states ” that the architect probably just “didn’t want to deal with a trailer” and then the writer adds:

Or maybe Breuer feared that in head-to-head competition with the trailer, his work would come out second best?“

I think that’s the best line ever! It is hard to beat any Spartan, they are exactly what dreams are made of.

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The article goes on:
“Breuer wound up taking an ingenious approach. He covered the 33-foot-long trailer with a wooden pergola and treated it as one wing — the kitchen and eating area — in his “bi-nuclear” design, this time shaped like an H. (Clad in its original quarter-inch birch plywood, the trailer interior glows nearly as brightly as the outside.)

“A short hallway separates it from the main living area and master bedroom in Breuer’s cedar-clad addition, which parallels the trailer. Cantilevered out from a stone base, this new section soars off the hill.

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wolfson trailer house kitchen

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Located in Dutchess County, New York, the 10-acre property is an architectural assemblage composed of Marcel Breuer’s Wolfson Trailer House and a separate artist’s studio.

Commissioned and constructed from 1949-1951, the Breuer house surrounds a 1948 Royal Mansion Spartan Trailer. Accenting the Wolfson house is a 1960 artist’s studio by Tip Dorsel, commissioned by the original owner and designed in dialogue with the Breuer structure. Sited among vast acreage of natural landscape, the accumulative and varied structures create an unparalleled composition of architecture and space.

The home was last on the market for $1.48 million.
This is a perfect example of the infinite possibilities that mobile homes have!
 Thanks so much for reading Mobile Home Living!
Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

8 thoughts on “The Wolfson House”

  1. Hi Darnelle!

    There are a couple that I know of but I think your best bet would be Craigslist or various Facebook groups for your area (the for sale by owner pages, the vintage trailers for sale pages, and this Vintage Trailers for Sale page). There’s also these websites:

    http://www.tincantourists.com/classified/showcat.php?cat=3#.VRbEpvn4XfI
    http://www.vintagecampertrailers.com/for-sale.html
    http://littlevintagetrailer.com/
    http://vintagetrailercrazy.com/

    I just found my 1965 Airstream on a local Facebook yard sale page! It was meant to be because I just happened to be on FB as soon as the owner posted it and was able to immediately comment it on it and make arrangements to go look at it.

    Good Luck!

  2. Are there vintage mobile homes for sale someplace that you can share? I live in California, so one of these would make a perfect guest house.

  3. Hi Patrick! Thanks for letting me know about the broken links. I have fixed it so now you can see this awesome home. It is amazing how the architect utilized the Spartan and allowed it to be a feature. Thanks again! I appreciate you!

  6. THANK YOU! For the wonderful story. What a beautiful home, and a great inspiration to us all.

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