Cartey, California, and Conservation: Select Centre County Contemporaries

June 1 - 30, 2010
State College Municipal Building

"Cartey, California, and Conservation: Select Centre County Contemporaries," a photo exhibit of several late-mid-century-style homes, will be presented in the lobby of the State College Municipal Building, 243 South Allen Street, during the month of June. The exhibit is the work of Robert E. Malcom, sponsored by the Centre County Historical Society.

Jim Cartey: 5 Eclectic Houses

James M. Cartey is perhaps best known locally as a watercolor artist and painting instructor for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). However, he is also an accomplished architect, who studied architecture at the height of the mid-century modern era. He was a protégé of one of the area's best-known architects, William Hajjar, who he worked with for several years before joining Penn State's Office of Physical Plant as an architectural designer. During his 28 years with at Penn State, Cartey also designed five eclectic homes for colleagues and friends, including one for his wife and himself.

The California Contingent

Several architects left their imprint in the State College area with houses that were influenced by California modernist pioneers Richard Neutra and Rudolf Schindler.

Gregory Ain, arguably one of the twentieth century's ten greatest residential architects, was born in Pittsburgh and worked primarily in the Los Angeles area. He is the only modernist architect known to have his own historic district, the Mar Vista development in Los Angeles. One of his house designs was built in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, under the sponsorship of Philip Johnson. His only non-California home was built in State College, for William and Midori Ginoza.

Ain's colleague, Josef Van der Kar, also designed primarily in Southern California, but designed at least four homes in the State College area, including one for his wife and himself. His Rootenberg-Markham home in Los Angeles was declared a national landmark. The home that he designed for landscape architect pioneer Garett Eckbo was later occupied by former California governor Jerry Brown.

The Mease House: A Pioneer Sustainability Home

Another house featured in the exhibit is an environmentally sensitive “green” home, designed and built by environmental engineer Michael Mease and his schoolteacher wife, Claire, near Port Matilda. The home is a pioneering structure for sustainable living, and it is believe to be Centre County’s first passive solar home. It features a forty-ton solar heat retaining wall inside a greenhouse for raising vegetables and massive, fuel-efficient Russian masonry stoves furnish heat when the sun is not available.

Further details on the houses are available in photo books, compiled by Malcom, at the Centre Furnace Mansion and the Schlow Centre Region Library.