A prefabricated three-bedroom, 2,341-square-foot midcentury modern home in Michigan City, Indiana, that is on the National Register of Historic Places sold May 14 for $850,000 — $100,000 above its asking price.
Known as the Frost House after its original owners, Robert and Amelia Frost, the aluminum, glass and steel home, which was built in 1964 and designed by architect Emil Tessin, was “maintained to museum-quality condition” by both its former owners, its listing agent, Rudy Conner of @properties said. Robert Frost died in 2015, and Amelia Frost sold the house in mid-2016, shortly before her death, for $192,000 to Chicago couple Bob Coscarelli and Karen Valentine.
“All the original furniture was still there, and it was so immaculately maintained … you don’t see things like that very often,” Conner said.
In August, the house, which was built by Alside Homes, was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Coscarelli and Valentine placed the house on the market March 25 for $750,000.
The house has two full bathrooms and sits on a 0.78-acre parcel. Furniture and industrial designer Paul McCobb designed all the home’s built-ins including the kitchen cabinets, vanities, glass partitions, bookshelves and wardrobes, while furniture firm Knoll designed all furniture and draperies. In 2017, Coscarelli and Valentine added a 40-by-14-foot heated pool and lush gardens.
“The (sellers) put in new gardens and a pool and just kind of kept up with the aesthetic and preserved the property in order to leave a really nice legacy,” Conner said. “It was in such amazing condition. It was like stepping into a time warp.”
Coscarelli told Elite Street that he and his wife decided to buy the house after only viewing photos of it online. He called it “a diamond in the rough.”
“Whoever gets to buy a time capsule?” he said. “We knew that (the home) was special. My wife grew up in Australia and we decided to add a pool on the side yard, which was just an area that was mowed. So then fencing that in, it becomes this midcentury compound with almost a resort feel. And when we decided to sell, we put the price such that it would only be a serious buyer and modernist collector that would buy it. We’d never heard of Emil Tessin when we bought the house, and he was a genius, so to be able to get an Emil Tessin house onto the National Register of Historic Places was great.”
The house had a $4,442 property tax bill in the 2020 tax year.
A Ukrainian Village couple bought the house and plans in the coming weeks to provide more details on their plans for it. That could include opening it up and sharing it with the public “in a bigger capacity,” one of the buyers told Elite Street, including potentially allowing guests for overnight stays and potentially for events.”
Goldsborough is a freelance writer.
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