By Matthew Halverson
Photos by Toby Weiss
Kenny Rogers, you could have been a real estate consultant. The music elite may say that “The Gambler” was an allegory for playing the game of life, but we’re inclined to interpret that business about holding ’em and folding ’em as a seminal treatise on the fight to save architecturally significant homes. (It’s a stretch, sure, but not remotely in the same league as what your plastic surgeon did to your face.) Some, like the 1970s tract homes of Harvest Gold Formica and pea-green shag carpet, are fit for some face time with a wrecking ball, but this marvel of modern, one-of-a-kind design deserves a reprieve.
12518 Maret
It may be too late to save this modernist abode in Sunset Hills, so consider this its eulogy. A marvel of character and design idiosyncrasies (that turret houses the main bathroom, and the zigzagging line of the front wall carries through to the hallway behind it), it was praised in the real estate listing not for its unique architecture but for the land it sat on: “This home is either a total rehab or a teardown. The value is in the two lots which back to Laumeier Sculpture Park in Sunset Hills.”
The new owner (as of press time, the home was under contract and had been since March) will need a fleet of bulldozers to bring this one down, if that is in fact the plan. Built almost entirely of flagstone, it’s solid in every sense of the word. Local real estate agent Marla Griffin toured the property and mourned the potential loss of its open floor plan and the level of detail in everything from the retro kitchen to the revolving platform in the guest bathroom that hides a toothbrush holder when not in use.
That detailed nature of the design was no accident—it was drawn up by the owner, Harold Brinkop, whose Hampton Village shopping center introduced the strip-mall concept to St. Louis in the 1940s. Brinkop was a born innovator, so it’s no surprise he would impart a fair amount of originality to his home’s floor plan. “Everything I saw, I understood why they designed things the way they did,” Griffin says. “It was obviously a very personal design, very specific to their lifestyle, but it could work for just about anyone.”
Design Particulars
Address: 12518 Maret
Built: 1950
Designer: Harold Brinkop (also the original owner, who is deceased. His widow, Erma, passed away 5 or 6 years ago, leaving the house to her physician, Dr. Charles Kilo. After leaving it vacant for five years, Kilo put it up for sale with a list price of $720,000.)
Square footage: 2,860 square feet
Lot size: 2.9 acres
