The Walker Guest House, completed by Rudolph in 1952, will be part of Sotheby's Important Design auction on December 12, with an estimated value ranging from $700,000 to $1 million. The midcentury structure was previously on the market for a reported $6,795,000, an endeavor that ultimately ended with no sale.
The pavilion-like guesthouse makes use of a square plan, split into four quadrants: one with a living room, another a dining room, a bedroom, and and finally section shared by a kitchen and bathroom. Rudolph incorporated 12 large panels around the perimeter of the structure, three on each of the four sides, allowing the flexibility of privacy and shade coupled with light and a connectedness to the surrounding landscape.
“With all the panels lowered the house is a snug cottage, but when the panels are raised it becomes a large screened pavilion,” Rudolph said about the home. “If you desire to retire from the world you have a cave, but when you feel good there is the joy of an open pavilion.”
Today, it is only the structure that will be auctioned, not the land that it sits on. The new owner will relocate the home to a new site upon purchase of the home. "The trade-off," Sotheby's writes, "will be knowing that one of the most important designs by one of the 20th century’s most important architects – one that, by its nature, is not specific to its site, and could be set down almost anywhere – will be preserved."
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