This 1937 Portland home is an Art Moderne wonder, for sale at $949K. See inside

For a fleeting time in the 1930s and early 1940s, the streamlined look of airplanes, ocean liners and automobiles inspired Art Moderne architecture, and Portland businessman and Optimist Club member

Harvey S. Hudson

wanted the sleek, unique style for his home.

In 1937, he hired noted architect

Roscoe Hemenway

to design a Moderne house in Southwest Portland’s Homestead neighborhood. Like the era’s luxury passenger ships and aerodynamic

Airstream

trailers, air was intended to smoothly flow over the rectangular house’s roofs and around its curved edges.

The three-level, stucco-covered house on elevated property at

16 S.W. Abernethy St.

is now for sale at

$949,000

.

The rounded-edged second-story balcony over the front door mimics the flying bridge of a 1930s ocean liner, wrote architectural historians William J. Hawkins and William F. Willingham in their authoritative book,

“Classic Houses of Portland, Oregon, 1850-1950.”

High ceilings and broad windows grant sweeping Mount Hood views, and the living room has a clean-line stone fireplace and glass French doors that open to the flat backyard of the 4,791-square-foot lot, said listing broker

Jimi Hendrix

of Neighbors Realty..

There is a butler’s pantry in the kitchen area, three bedrooms and two bonus spaces for work-from-home options among 2,617 square feet of living space. A terrace allows for dining under the stars.

Upgrades since 2019 include new floors, windows, and kitchen and bathrooms remodels.

Who would love this property? “Designed-minded Mount Hood lovers, architecture buffs, folks who love to host, ex-Angelenos, NYC’ers or Bay Area folks who miss that bigger city feeling,” Hendrix told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

History of Art Moderne

Hawkins and Willingham devote a chapter of their “Classic Houses of Portland” book to the brief emergence of Modernistic/International architecture. They found only a

handful of these houses in Portland

, including the Hudson house, but said the quality can be compared to others built across the country in the style’s heyday.

During the Great Depression, fussy Art Deco was edited down to duplicate the airplanes and automobiles speeding into the future. The spare Moderne architecture typically employed white surfaces and pleasant surprises like porthole windows. It was the first architecture designed for electric lights.

The Art Deco style emphasized skyscraper verticality, rich colors and geometric ornamentation, while Art Moderne employed horizontal lines, simpler, streamlined designs, and often materials like steel and aluminum, reflecting the machine age, according to historians.

The brief Streamline Moderne-era survives mostly in commercial buildings. But the rare residence with a long, low horizontal silhouette showcases the early signs of what a stretching, 1950s ranch-style house would look like.

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— Janet Eastman covers design and trends. Reach her at 503-294-4072,

jeastman@oregonian.com

and follow her on X

@janeteastman

.

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