530 Aurora Avenue - Kraushaar House

530 Aurora Avenue / Jack and Nancy Kraushaar House / Architect: Roger Easton / Style: Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright / built 1957

The house is not very visible from the public right of way but is so well designed that we wanted to include it on the tour. Architect Roger Easton designed this low-slung modern house for physicists Jack Kraushaar and Nancy Curtis. Easton was a graduate of the Iowa State University College of Architecture and worked in Portland, Oregon for the international modernist firm Skidmore Ownings and Merrill before moving to Boulder to teach at CU. He was one of several young architects who worked in the office of James Hunter before venturing out on his own where he created several innovative buildings around Boulder.

The house appears to hug the ground due to the continuous horizontal line of the overhanging roof. The stylistic approach relates to architects Mies van der Rohe (the repetitive pattern of the exterior walls and windows) and Frank Lloyd Wright (the low overhanging roofs and the rough stone walls). The main living room space seems to flow outside through the large expanses of glass.