2025 SE Brown’s Woods Ln., West Des Moines
A first-rate instance of mid-century fashionable structure is on the market in West Des Moines, inbuilt 1964 for a former director of the Des Moines Artwork Heart
Positioned throughout from the 486-acre Brown’s Woods, Iowa’s largest city forest, the three-bedroom, three-bathroom, 1,939-square-foot ranch house is hidden from view by itself 0.76-acre, tree-filled lot.
Restored over the past two years, former Des Moines Artwork Heart director Thomas Stansbury Tibbs initially laid declare to the putting design. However regardless of continued efforts looking out archives, metropolis information and native architectural information, no paperwork to again up his assertion has but been discovered.
“It’s a really unknown thriller,” mentioned Rhiannon Barbour, who’s representing the vendor.
Admitting the house’s model appeals to an unique sector of the market, Barbour is assured the suitable homebuyer will ultimately be discovered.
“I really like the simplicity, how understated it’s, however it’s lovely,” she mentioned.
Tibbs was the Artwork Heart’s director from 1960-68 and was instrumental in hiring New York Metropolis architect I.M. Pei to create a $1.6 million addition to the Artwork Heart. Pei’s 18,000-square-foot wing debuted in October 1968, that includes an uncovered concrete exterior that supplied an instantaneous distinction to architect Eliel Saarinen’s 20-year previous constructing.
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Tibbs’ residence on Brown’s Woods Lane has undergone a sequence of upgrades since he left in 1968 and now contains a sunroom, laundry room, a porch with views of the close by pool and woodlands, a mud room and an hooked up two-car storage.
The current house owners have added a indifferent 1,800-square-foot mixture storage and artwork studio, geared up with a hydraulic automotive raise, and LED lighting to raised facilitate automotive portray and restoration.
Inside the principle residence, the main bedroom contains an en-suite rest room and the kitchen has been transformed with new home equipment and counter tops. The wooden floors and beamed ceilings have been refinished and the massive home windows guarantee an abundance of pure gentle.
The open plan area “shouldn’t be actually set as much as have a household with two or three children,” Barbour mentioned. However the accessible structure was a direct results of Tibbs facilitating his spouse Ruth’s restoration following a stroke.
Husband and spouse workforce Denika and Brad Almburg of Mod Residence Assortment and Almburg Properties have been earlier house owners of the property when it was nonetheless coated in vines and overgrowth. The couple started the house’s early conservation and restoration.
“He actually constructed that home to accommodate her after her stroke, and her caretaker,” Denika Almburg mentioned.
Through the pandemic, Almburg’s conversations with native architects “confirmed our beliefs that it was anyone expert in structure that designed it,” she mentioned.
No paperwork have been found to point Tibbs obtained any coaching to transition from a museum director into a classy newbie architect.
Regardless of that anomaly, Almburg stays an awesome admirer of the property and likewise Tibbs’ profession on the Artwork Heart. “My tackle him is that he was only a ahead thinker, a artistic man who pushed the envelope right here in Des Moines, and Des Moines was too conservative to understand a few of what he was doing,” she mentioned.
The property is listed at $699,000 by Rhiannon Barbour of Realty One Group and DSM Trendy Actual Property. Contact (515) 446-7524 to tour this residence or related properties.
Richard Lane is the actual property reporter for the Des Moines Register. He might be reached at [email protected].
