open haus: the haas house

by harvey stubsjoen

when i came across this house on zillow during my daily browse, it completely stopped me in my tracks. why is it so good, why is it in ohio, why is it perfectly furnished, who lived here, and why are they selling it? are just a few of the questions my mom and i texted to each other. i also said to her how much i wished houses like this would do open houses so people like us, who could never afford to buy a $1.25m house, can go pretend like we do for the day. well, a few days later i get a text from my mom with a screenshot of a zillow email she got alerting her that it’s having an open house. so, i present you with the first of a (hopefully ongoing) series called open haus.

today, we are at the haas house designed by mies van der rohe student harvey stubsjoen. it was built in 1968 for the haas family in silver lake, ohio, a little village in summit county near akron. the patriarch of the house, dr. andrew haas, was an orthodontist, and lived in the house with his wife and their 8 kids. i believe they had one of their orthodontic offices designed by stubsjoen as well, but don’t quote me on that.

i really wish i knew more about this house. i wish i had a tour guide telling me every single little detail about it as i walked around. it’s just so special and so perfect, it’s astonishing to me that it exists only 45 minutes away from me. it also makes me sad that it’s being sold. i don’t know the circumstances as to why they are selling it, but how do you have 8 kids and none of them want to keep this house in the family forever? they clearly loved it because it has been kept in impeccable condition. i’m horrified by the thought of who might buy it and what they will do to it.

as my mom and i were entering the house, an older, extremely stereotypical upper class ohio woman was exiting and said to us how amazing it is but that it “needs a lot of work.” i could tell she was wrong before even stepping foot instead. i wouldn’t change a thing about it. i would even keep the probably impractical old ovens in the kitchen because they are unlike anything i’ve ever seen in my life. we thought they were dishwashers at first.

the whole house is filled with little details that are just so unique and unlike anything you see in houses today, like the bathroom faucets that i will be searching ebay for until i die.

if you are familiar with mies van der rohe (you better be if you are here, since my first post was about his farnsworth house) it’s quite obvious that stubsjoen was a student of his. i kept seeing little things throughout the house that reminded me of the farnsworth house, like the window and shower curtain tracks in the ceiling and the symmetrical bathrooms.

my favorite room in the house was the master bathroom. these pictures don’t even do it justice, it was breathtakingly beautiful in person. the combination of materials just worked so perfectly and i’m obsessed with those skinny mirrored medicine cabinets.

it does feel slightly insane to say this but i think my favorite thing about the entire house was these door handles. this is what all door handles should look like, i need to know how to get these on every door in my house immediately.

going on this tour with my mom was so fun, i’d be in one room taking photos while she went onto the next room and i’d just hear her going “oh my god zoë…” or “are you sure we can’t figure out a way to afford this?” even though they have since dropped the price from $1.5m to $1.25m, unfortunately we still can’t afford it. but i will never forget the afternoon we got to spend there, pretending what it’d be like to live there <3

xoxo