“You killed the car.” Cameron’s House Now on the Market
29 May 2009
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[image via luxist]
As seen in the 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the modern home of Ferris’ best friend Cameron is now on the market. 370 Beech Street, aka The Ben Rose Home, in Highland Park, Illinois was designed by architect A. James Speyer. After a traditional Beaux-Arts education, Speyer traveled through Europe in the 1930′s, cultivating a new, ornament-free Modern vocabulary. As you might be able to tell from the glass-and-steel glory that is the Ben Rose Home, Speyer returned to the states to study with Mies Van der Rohe at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also later taught. Almost as much a piece of eye candy as the 1961 Ferrari it rather unsuccessfully protected, Cameron’s house was also an incredibly savvy setpiece.
[image via luxist]
In Ferris Bueller, the modern building was perfectly believable as the sterile home of the uptight Cameron, reflecting a nurtured numbness and his isolation from friends and family. What better metaphor then for Cameron’s social and personal evolution than the climactic shattering of the perfect glass box? completely surrounded by the woods of Highland Park; its two buildings perched precariously above the hillside. For a beautiful piece of architecture that played such a pivotal role in film history, $2,300,000 seems like a bargain. Just be careful when you pull into the garage.
[image via luxist]
· The Ben Rose Home [Realtor.com]
Written by Jimmy Stamp in Architecture & Pop culture &
4 comments
29 May, 2009 at 3:24 pm
It’s still amazing to me that paintings can fetch tens of millions of dollars and splendid modern homes can be had for a fraction of that. How can a Damien Hirst be worth the same as a building? Odd indeed. But for all the Ferris love out there, let it be said that that kid was a jerk. I always felt rather bad for poor benighted Cameron. His best pal didn’t really care for him at all.
29 May, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I completely agree with you about the prices of art v architecture, but I can’t back you on your opinion of Ferris. I think he really cared a lot about Cameron. He wanted his friend to loosen up and enjoy life and not worry so much about things that, in the long run, don’t really matter at all. Ferris Bueller has a preternatural self awareness for a high schooler. He realized early on what the lucky ones only understand in hind sight: life is for living! He just had to get Cameron out of his (literal) glass house to shake him awake.
31 May, 2009 at 9:53 pm
Jimmy, you beat me to the punch on this one. I was getting ready to work up a post on this one, though for other reasons (I went to high school where parts of Ferris Bueller were filmed, I remember seeing “Save Ferris” on our water tower before knowing what was going on, and some people at College even called me Cameron because of a physical likeness, not even knowing my slight connection to the film’s making). Nice catch on the metaphor. Better than anything I could have come up with.
I drove by this house once in high school. Unless it’s winter it’s hard to see anything from the road, and even then it’s hard to get a glimpse of it while navigating the turns.
11 August, 2009 at 8:45 am
This is one of those iconic homes like the house from North by Northwest. There is a unique quality to this structure that people will always remember. custom closets