15 Mid-Century Modern Dream Homes that will Kill Your Children

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The clean lines, the geometric decorative elements, the seamless blending of indoor and outdoor space… I sure do love mid-century modern architecture.

Do you know what I love more? My children. And that is why I will never live in my MCM dream home. Because mid-century modern architecture is designed to KILL YOUR CHILDREN. (Also, moderately clumsy or drunk adults).

im_certain_none_of_these_children_reached_adulthood

We can be reasonably certain that none of these children reached adulthood.

As a public service, Projectophile is alerting its readers to the dangers posed by key elements of mid-century modern residential design.

1.  OPEN LEDGES:

I love open, flowing space as much as the next modern girl. But I know it would only be a matter of minutes before my kid flings himself off one of these deadly ledges…

ledge5redarrow

Red arrows show the direction of travel of children’s bodies

ledge2

What four-year-old can resist that hidden nook?

ledge4-read arrow

That’s going to require at least ten stitches.

ledge3

Where are all the children? Probably under that ledge, unconscious.

Someone needs to call protective services on this place, because this stylish modern mother is too absorbed in her reading to notice that all her children have fallen into the living room garden:

ledgeredarrow

2. FIRE, WATER, AND OTHER DEATH TRAPS INSPIRED BY NATURE:

First of all, make sure your kid wears her helmet when she inevitably climbs up, and then falls of of, this rock formation in your dream living room.

rocks1

Be sure to check those crevices for rabid bats.

 As soon as you turn around to fetch the marshmallows, Junior is going to stumble right into that open fireplace (and stumble out with some third-degree burns).  And watch out for that mysterious little nook on the right!

fireplacew-arrow2The use of indoor reflecting pools creates a calm and deadly space in your modern dream home:

blackandwhitepoolofdeathChildren in mid-century modern homes are advised to wear flotation devices at all times. This glamorous couple has no idea what danger lurks in that strangely-placed reflective pool.

indoor reflecting pool white circle1

“Darling, why is it suddenly so quiet in there?”

And for goodness sake, don’t send your kids trick-or-treating near this Mid-Century Modern fortress:

drowningpool2

3. FLOATING STAIRS:

Nothing is more un-modern than an unsightly railing on your stairs. To add extra danger to your mid-century staircase, twist the stairs into a dramatic 180-degree turn, or simply make the angle of the stairs extra steep.

ultimatedeathstairs

deathstairs3(Hey, aren’t these just a bunch of IKEA Lack shelves nailed to a wall?)

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These extra-dangerous stairs lead right to the ceiling, guaranteeing a concussion for your curious child.

These soaring, multi-story bannisters add a touch of safety, but you know my kid would totally get her head stuck in between them. Keep a crowbar handy to pry her free…

deathstairs6The mid-century dream house below comes with its own on-site medical team, in the very likely event that your children will either drown, fall, slip on those mossy stairs, or impale themselves on a rock.

deathhouse

Or maybe that’s dried blood I see on those stairs?

If you care about your children’s safety, perhaps you’ll want to settle down in a late Georgian colonial revival.

661 thoughts on “15 Mid-Century Modern Dream Homes that will Kill Your Children”

  3. Not everyone lives their lives around CHILDREN… Sigh. (this is the same battle I fight every time I want a medicine container without a childproof lid on it. I DON’T HAVE KIDS, dammit. Never have. Don’t intend to. I live in an environment where eveyrone is a responsible adult. Could I please be treated accordignly…? And yes, if I want to iive in a place which boasts a stair without a banister – I don’t, as it happens, but if I did – I don’t see why I should balk at it because, oh, I don’t know, CHILDREN.)

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  4. As an architecture geek, I’ve long had a love of the Modern design movement of the mid-20th Century. And having been raised by a mother who ran a day care, I have no special love for children (my own being the exception, though they are now adults). This is a win-win for me. Great post!

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  6. And yet amazingly you’re all here, proving that children who lived in that era survived at least long enough to breed.

    I loathe floating stairs because I am afraid of heights, but I was born in 1964 and surprisingly never once took the notion to wander into an open fireplace…

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  7. Today’s kids are a bunch of over-protected selfish brats. I was raised in places that would horrify you, but my parents taught me something called COMMON SENSE and THINK. So I survived with a few bruises (does it bleed enough to warrant a trip to the hospital?). So all your little arrows and scares make me sad and feel sorry for your kids.

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    • Rabid bat boxes, the ideal craft project to do with your children, hang them next to any areas with exposed rock and watch how happy you make both batties and kiddies. 😉

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  9. Frankly, yes, some of these buildings are not exactly child-proof. However, in all great likelihood the clients are without children thus allowing them to request certain solutions that wouldn’t be possible if they indeed had small children. As for a moderately drunk inhabitant: … if we are to draw houses that are not only safe for daily use, but also states of greater intoxication, does that not require more or less adding soft rubber edges to any corner and edge? (yes, that is a rather dramatic way of putting it, but the fact is that if you are going to design for every possible accident then you will end up drawing a padded cell.)

    The users of a building are ultimately responsible for their own actions and whether or not they choose to place themselves in a dangerous situation. I think you’ll find that motorized accidents still hurt and kill far more children than any MCM BLDGs ever have. I know that is an unfair comparison, but one can also argue that the world and the natural environment is hardly safe for children and at some point children have to learn to navigate and stay safe despite that. Locking children away from nature with all it’s falls, hard rocks and branches that break isn’t the solution either.

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    • Everbluegreen, completely agree. Whether one has or even abides children is irrelevant. This is hilariousness for all ages! As the introduction states, even the moderately clumsy and/or drunk adult can run into trouble! As a child who ran wild in my grandparents late-mid-century ultra-modern pile of ridiculousness, the only thing I managed to do was get, not my head, but my entire body stuck in the upright stair “handrail” bars as shown above. I think I must have been trying to jump from there to the floating stairs below. I was petrified of the floating stairs and random “open fire pit” in the middle of their living room or the random pond in their master bedroom, but even more worried that my drunk-and-unsteady grandfather was always about to plummet to certain death. However, what is life without adventure?

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  11. If this is meant as a little joke, then it’s pretty funny. If you are actually serious and are overprotective, then no. But it was not clear from the posting whether it was meant to primarily funny. So which one is it? 🙂

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    • Um, look at the captions to the photos. “Where are all the children? Probably under that ledge, unconscious.” “This stylish modern mother is too absorbed in her reading to notice that all her children have fallen into the living room garden.” “Be sure to check those crevices for rabid bats.”
      I realize sometimes deadpan humor doesn’t come through perfectly online, but *really*, people.

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  16. Forget the children, think of one’s eyes! They’d be bleeding from the hideousness of the mid-20th century architecture long before one’s current and/or future children were able to fling themselves into danger! And if one doesn’t think it’s all very hideous, then these homes will work nicely in determining the evolutionary fitness of such lack of taste.

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  18. I suggest everyone immediately re-watch “The Party” with Peter Sellers, to understand the real potential of these homes for unimaginable and unexpected pleasure. Were it not for such a school of design, this film would have been unable to redefine what it is that we mean, when we utter the phrase: “happy accident”.

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  19. Should you build/buy such a house, just be aware that your pool of potential buyers when you go to sell it is smaller than those who have stairs with handrails.

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    • That’s OK, I plan to live in my lovely mid-century modern house until I die (probably next week, by stumbling off a ledge while going to the toilet in the middle of the night).

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  21. Actually, we survived those exact situations just fine. Although our mother was horrified to discover that the infernal racket emanating from the roof ended when a small herd of 8 year olds yelling “Geronimo” went flying past the kitchen window. We bounced across the grass and raced back around the house to climb up the jungle gym-style carport once more, only to be met with an angry redhead holding a broom.

    It was a great place to grow up. We had a house that was as much fun as the three-story tree house we build out back, with a huge window where the black bears used to come and press their noses against the glass. We survived animal bites, tetanus shots, one amputated finger and innumerable cuts, bumps, falls, scrapes, bruises, a few stitches, and a skunk that walked in through the front door. But there were no serious injuries or broken bones until we moved to the city and my sister decided to learn to roller skate.

    Sometimes I think we aren’t doing children many favours today trying to protect them from every little bump and scrape. Believe me, if you are going to start jumping off the roof, you learn how to fall and roll pretty quickly.

    PS. Putting an entire jar of tadpoles in the water feature makes mom really really mad. 🙂

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  22. As someone who lives in a Eichler home, I’m surprised this list did not include the most obvious terror: the huge sheets of untempered glass in modern homes built in the 60s! I have two boys and we were terrified of them smashing through those giant panes. Now that they are a little older, I’m more worried one of their friends will do so (they haven’t been trained to WATCH OUT FOR THE GLASS!)

    Some of those examples may actually have panes of glass preventing wee ones from hurtling to their doom (or mb not)

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  24. Although most of the designs you’ve chosen to show ARE ridiculous, we of the pre-helicopter parent era didn’t fall, burn, drown or otherwise impale ourselves all that much. Plus, we learned (sometimes the hard way) how to manage challenging obstacles AND we weren’t overwhelmingly self-important, obese couch potatoes. Give your kids the benefit of not projecting your own doubt on them. Loosen that tether – the extra rope will do them some good. They’ll figure out how not to hang themselves, I’m pretty sure.

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    • Anyone posting here who lived through that era is, by definition, still alive. Let’s hear from more people who did suffer serious injury or death. {cricket} {tumbleweed}

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  25. I helped raise four autistic children in an Eichler designed house with my partner for eight years. I loved the wider open space, but we took out the backyard koi pond, and enlisted the kids help in supporting our “no running in house” rule by giving them the honor of policing the adults and reminding us of rules too. You see, Eichler desiged homes with most external walls being made of glass. In all our time there, I was the only one that walked through one of glass walls, after the company Christmas party…the one with the open bar.

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  26. Oh – and to those who think it’s all just so much hilariousness: There’s truth in jest. Yeah, it’s funny, but it’s also pretty sadly true. Try telling your kid just to “Go outside and play!” these days. Somebody will drop a dime on you with CPS.

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  27. I’d be more worried about building inspectors. None of those photos are to code in most states, and if built today none of these homes would make it past building inspection without large bribes.

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  28. Space next to the fireplace is a wood box, where, in the days when gas logs were almost unheard of, homeowner (or homeowner’s faithful servant) would keep logs and kindling handy and dry. While she pours the garishly colored after-dinner drinks, he can lay a cozy fire. In his leisure suit.

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  29. I’m sorry, but not everyone’s kids would suffer grievous injury in these houses. I grew up in an old farmhouse that was continually under construction. If you’re convinced that these houses are dangerous then my childhood house, along with the treehouse I built in 8th grade, the tools, farm equipment, the unlocked (but unloaded) guns with ammo close by, and various other items lying about in the outbuildings would probably have given you seizures at the thought of it.

    I and both of my siblings grew up without a single injury other than the occasional scrape, cut, or sprained ankle (from a softball game at school). This sort of thing is really no different than teaching a child that a stove is hot and you shouldn’t touch it unless you know it’s cool. My parents did that along with telling us “Be careful with this tool. Here is how it can hurt you”, “Don’t run with knives.” and “Never point a gun at someone. The accidentally go off sometimes.” To us these were basic safety instructions and since we understood that burns, cuts, and probably bullets hurt we were careful and didn’t screw around with dangerous things much.

    I think most people under-estimate their kids. That said, some kids are idiots or just have no concept of danger or the possibility of severe injury. You just have to know your kids. So maybe your kids are that way.

    The big problem is that parents should have a lot of leeway in determining what is, or isn’t dangerous for their children, but often don’t because of well-intentioned one-size-fits-all regulation. These houses aren’t in themselves dangerous, but could be for the wrong children. In fact I’d say they were a lot more dangerous for the average drunk college student than the average grade school aged child.

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  30. I really hope this is satire. These homes aren’t dangerous unless you let your children run wild without supervision or safety instruction.

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  32. Oh I agree.
    These houses are Dangerous But also, they are Serious Pieces of Architecture. And also Great Places for Families. Or maybe just Great Places for Adults. Y’know, raising children and building houses are Serious Topics and should not be treated lightly.
    Although the stairs are Terrifying, whichever way you look at it.

    (no, really, I mean it.)

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    • The stairs *are* terrifying. I could never live in one of these. I prefer the cozy confines of a Frank Lloyd Wright home. He had children — he would never have designed such a staircase.

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  34. I hate fun, and do not understand sarcasm, satire, or even simple amusing observations. I’m going to assume that you are advocating that all of our children (including those that I probably don’t even have yet) should spend their lives playing in a stark white padded room without any possible risks.

    I also can’t tell from your playful tone that you’re just acknowledging the fact that a parent may, from time to time, look wistfully on the simplicity of childless life and long for a house that could “have nice things” and not (to one degree or another) sacrifice aesthetics for practicality.

    I’m also going to tell you that nothing in these homes is dangerous for children with proper safety instruction or supervision because, as a parent with many real children, I have never once had a child not comprehend the very logical and clear instructions I give them about what is safe behavior and what is not. Children of any age are perfectly capable of understanding the long term implications of their actions! Duh! Also, I have never once (to use the bathroom or perhaps pick up a phone that I foolishly left in the other room) left what appeared to be a child deeply engrossed in a very safe activity – only to return moments later to find Armageddon in my living room. Show me one child who has ever done such a thing!! It doesn’t happen!

    In closing, i’m sorry you hate fun and children and that your own kids (god help them) are probably growing up living a life of boredom and overprotection which will doom them in whatever future endeavors they may undertake. Good luck with all that.

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    • I love this comment so much that I’m going to leave my current husband and family to marry that comment, have children with it, and build a MCM house just like these examples and raise them in it, if only to PROVE that they won’t get hurt! ❤

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  35. gosh so many miss the point. the point is not that these houses are dangerous to children — it’s that they were designed that way deliberately. these architects ought be imprisoned I tell you. these houses were weapons don’t you get it?!

    no?

    sheesh

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  37. —kids are kids…either you systematically prepare them for the world (or a MCM home) with examples and common sense teachings…or be like a lot of today’s parents that are too busy texting or tweeting to see their little one getting crushed under a dumptruck…. -_-

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  40. Love the Geronimo/broom-wielding angry redhead story. Reminds me of our own jumps off the chicken coop roof. On a farm with many other delightfully dangerous features, all of which we survived. MCM: Bring it on !

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  48. The desire for basic, sensible construction standards that allow people to be people (clumsy) and kids to be kids (clumsy and young and clumsy) just makes sense. I understand some people like this style. That is great. However, you have to recognize that this style is clearly below average on any measure of safety.

    My kids ride roller coasters, jump from swings, climb rocks and do other things that are dangerous. They have both broken their arms doing “dangerous” things I told them that just meant they were having fun. It is not “helicopter parenting” to desire to raise your kids in an environment that doesn’t pose immediate danger on a daily basis *in the place you live*. in the context of kids, and most adults, these designs were/are very much style over function.

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  49. I blame architects. But, it’s not just mid-century modern homes that are death traps. I can’t think of any architectural period without hazards. (BTW, the nook in the fireplace wall is where you keep the wood.)

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