Craig Von Deylen, an Indianapolis-based architect and developer, was looking for a vacation home on or near Lake Michigan when he ran across a listing for a midcentury home in need of lots of work. 

He and a pal, musician and architectural history expert Vess Ruhtenberg, drove to Long Beach to see it on a Monday after Christmas in 2021. “We were very surprised to find it,” he said. “I believe we started gleefully laughing.” 

Laughing because they knew they were looking at a midcentury diamond in the rough, in disrepair (don’t miss the ‘before’ photo at the bottom of this post) and priced to sell. 

“It was an incredibly well-built midcentury architectural home,” he said. All the flashing is stainless steel, and all the wood is redwood. There’s tongue-and-groove construction and steel reinforcement. “To replicate this house today would be in excess of $3 million,” he said. 

The house, built in 1966-1967, has a striking and unique profile. “The house is built on a triangular modular instead of a rectangle or square,” VonDeylen said. “So there are no parallel walls.” 

The original owner, Henry R. Lott, a salesman with U.S. Steel, commissioned the design from a firm called LC Incorporated. Von Deylen did some research and found a mention of LC based in Harvey, Illinois, with LC standing for Robert Lange and his partner, Robert L. Crist. 

Information about the architect is scarce, because the firm was fired before completing the plans. Lott and his wife went on a world tour after hiring LC, stipulating that they expected the plans would be complete by the time they returned. They were not, so Lott fired the architect, and the contractor took over.

Von Deylen made an offer on the home right away. “I would have paid the asking price because I really wanted it. But I’m in real estate, so I like to negotiate.” Then the work of restoring the home began. 

“Unfortunately, the home had fallen victim to insensitive modifications to the structure that compromised the structural integrity of the home,” Von Deylen said. “That, coupled with a lot of deferred maintenance, created some serious problems.” For one: “Subsequent owners undermined the (cantilevered) outdoor deck by cutting the top of it off, and it started to sag.” 

Luckily, the owner had saved the original construction drawings, so Von Deylen was able to use them to guide his renovations. 

Von Deylen counts himself lucky to have found a partner in Mackey Construction, a fine homebuilder out of Michigan City. “I couldn’t have done it without a great contractor,” he said.

Because of the triangular design, “we had to prefabricate, say, a door, to do a template, and then build the door,” Von Deylen said. “It just took a lot of time because angles are odd. We literally had to template everything.” 

In addition to restoring the cantilevered deck, Von Deylen restored original wood cabinetry and slate floors, and restored many elements that had been removed. “The previous owner did not throw anything away,” Von Deylen said. “Thank god. They had not thrown out the built-in desk in the bedroom, cabinets in the bath. Thankfully they were left behind and we were able to use it all.”  

Von Deylen and his wife, Laurel Judkins, are big fans of Long Beach, and have ties to the area. Judkins wife spent many summers on the Indiana lake shore, and Von Deylen had a friend from architecture school who was from Long Beach. 

“We love it,” Von Deylen said of his renovated jewel, which serves as a second home (he is a principal in Deylen Realty, Inc. in Indianapolis.) “It’s our favorite place and the hardest place to leave. I’m astounded every time I go there. The details that went into the construction were like none I’ve ever seen,” he said, short of in a masterpiece like Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robey House in Chicago. “The craftsmanship is extraordinary. The fireplace and how it aligns; everything. It’s built like a vault.”

I’m thrilled that the house has such a good steward in VonDeylen. Several months before he bought it, I came to see it with a real estate agent for a friend in Los Angeles who had grown up nearby. She was looking for a vacation retreat. I was immediately enchanted by the built-ins, the unobstructed view of the lake, and the mod ‘60s party vibe, but it was obvious that it would take someone with construction and design expertise to restore it. I was afraid someone would buy it for the double lot and tear it down. Luckily, that didn’t happen. 

The photos in this post were taken by me and VonDeylen. Many thanks to the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy for allowing me to tour this home.
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