2811 North Park (1987)

Designed in 1956 by noted local architect Munroe Copper, this handsome red-brick house is a bold and successful marriage of the contemporary and the traditional.

Its exterior combines Georgian features, such as a fan light and dentiled cornices, with large, unadorned windows and an attached garage, which are characteristic of post-World War II architecture.

Munroe Copper built the home for Mr. and Mrs. John Croxfon (Mary Elizabeth Crawford). The current owners purchased the home from Mrs. Croxton, keeping some of her nineteenth-century heirlooms and Oriental rugs in their original settings. The living and dining rooms contain furnishings by both Sheraton and modern designer Nakashima. Oriental and modern prints and artifacts co-exist compatibly throughout the house.

At the front of the house there are formal, elegantly appointed living and dining rooms, decorated by Holzheimers in dramatic blues and reds, and a library with hand-crafted sugar pine paneling. At the back is a long, partly enclosed porch, informally furnished in wicker, which serves as a family room most of the year.

One looks through 1950s picture windows in the back of the home onto an English country landscape created for Mrs. Croxton by Charles Knight. Formal gardens provide vegetables, fruit, masses of ever-blooming perennials, and a non-stop hobby for the ambitious owners.