CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When I arrived at the 1950s split-level ranch home of Mark and Christine Zust, she was wearing a 1950s embroidered skirt and sweater, Mark was in a short-sleeved 1950s shirt and “Kind of Blue,” the 1959 album by Miles Davis, was playing in the background.
The Zusts -- Christine is 61 and Mark is 57 – answered my recent call for more readers to share their homes with us for this feature, and their description of a 1950s Westlake home filled with 1950s furniture intrigued me. They run their own company from their home; Zust and Co. works with emerging leaders and helps them to develop their professional presence.
The Zusts live by three simple rules.
Rule one: The 1950s was about more than kitsch. They collect quality pieces from the important designers of that era. The only place where the Zust home strays into kitsch is silly ceramic fish in a powder room. But even here, things are saved from going over the top by a commissioned decorated mirror from Cleveland artist Anna Arnold.
Rule two: You can enjoy mid-century furnishings even if you don’t live in a 1950s home. Go ahead and mix vintage with modern; just keep the scale and materials similar. The Zusts put Ikea next to vintage, and the juxtaposition isn’t at all jarring.
Rule three: Collecting doesn’t mean cluttered. Mark is a former art director who builds collections the way the rest of us breathe, but he and Christine have a minimalist style and carefully edit their collections. Each collection has an assigned space, and when that space is filled, the collection is closed. “It’s kind of an easy rule,” he said.
The story of this nifty ’50s house begins with Mark and Christine’s previous home, a 1920s colonial in Euclid. It was furnished with Empire décor, but Mark had been squirrelling away in the basement 1950s furniture he found on tree lawns and in estate sales. “It was everywhere in Cleveland, and nobody wanted it,” he said.
The couple decided to move to the West Side when, in 1992, Mark began commuting to a new job as an assistant professor of graphic design at Bowling Green. “[The real-estate agent] was hopeless,” Mark remembered. The agent was stuck on center-hall colonials; Mark and Christine were interested in 1950s split-levels and ranches.
One day, the agent said he had a listing to show but he knew they’d hate it. It was this Westlake split-level ranch with four bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths. They loved it, especially when Mark realized that a terrazzo floor -- “the poor man’s marble,” Mark called it – was hidden under the carpet in the foyer. Terrazzo, a composite frequently made with marble, quartz or granite -- is commonly found in public buildings but is a rare find in a home, Mark said.
Christine and Mark looked past the ugly dark wood paneling over the fireplace and the flocked silver-and-bronze wallpaper and saw the home’s potential to become an updated space that would reflect their personalities. They purchased the 2,700-square-foot home for $147,900.
Over the years, the Zusts spent about $80,000 on a new HVAC system, updated kitchen and appliances, carpeting, wallpaper, ceiling tiles, bathroom tile work and more. Exterior work included a new roof, windows, deck, fence and poured concrete patios, driveway and walkway.
Mark’s mid-century modern furniture collection fit like a glove in their new ranch.
The low, sleek living room couch was designed by Adrian Pearsall, a leader in early modern furniture. Restored versions of his work sell online for $5,000 to $8,000.
Mark bought the sofa for $35 and refreshed it with new upholstery and contemporary burgundy wool fabric.
The floors are wood, but a mid-century modern home has got to have a bit of shag. Christine has scattered shag cream throw rugs in various rooms. “They create a sense of space,” she said.
Mid-century modern Eames occasional chairs, fiberglass bucket chairs, leather rocker and ottoman are part of the living room’s conversational grouping. Noted designers Charles and wife Bernice “Ray” Eames are best known for their work in architecture and furniture design, especially the Eames Chair. The Eames molded plywood chair was called “the chair of the century” by the influential architectural critic Esther McCoy.
The Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman were badly damaged when Mark rescued them from a Shaker Heights basement. “The leather was almost white,” he said. “I didn’t know if I could do anything with it.” He cleaned and oiled the rosewood and, on the advice of a shoemaker, used shoe polish on the leather. The shoemaker said that if the shoe polish were buffed, then allowed to harden, it wouldn’t come off on clothes. “It’s true,” Mark reported.
On the day I visited, the dining room table was set with one of the 10 sets of 1950s china that they have collected over two decades. The pink and yellow dishes on the table, decorated with stylized flowers and leaves, were designed by New York designer Eva Zeisel, Mark said. Flatware, designed in Denmark with black rosewood handles, is from the 1950s as well. “Most people don’t think about [collecting] vintage flatware,” Mark said.
They took me into the kitchen, where more vintage china dishes were displayed in glass cabinets. I vowed to start trolling vintage shops for my own set in a starburst pattern like the Zusts' set, which looked like what the Jetsons would eat their space meatloaf on.
The pride of their dish collection is a hard-to-find large platter and footed bowl designed by famed industrial designer and former Clevelander Viktor Schreckengost. Mark scooped them up on the last day of a church rummage sale, when you could buy a grocery bag of stuff for 50 cents. “Bargains are still to be had,” he said.
In Mark’s basement man cave, a Heywood-Wakefield blonde rattan porch set is ready for a party. Heywood-Wakefield is an American manufacturer that dates back to the 1800s; the company specializes in" blond wood" (maple) furniture and also makes rattan furniture. Some of its older pieces are valuable collectibles. “After the war, this was all the rage,” Mark said.
I got lost for a while in the basement, also known as the Land of Mark’s Collections, all artfully displayed – Beatles albums, vintage board games, playing cards (Mark is a professional magician), vintage Cleveland postcards and books. The coolest items were two large figures from the semi-obscure Jim Henson fantasy movie “The Dark Crystal.” Mark gave me girl-geek points for recognizing the elfin characters.
I wanted to see what a home office shared by two dynamic, creative people would be like, so we climbed to the second-floor space that serves as the headquarters of Zust and Co. A previous owner of the house combined two bedrooms into one large room, now outfitted with back-to-back Ikea desks and Ikea cabinets.
Christine’s desk overflows as though it’s bubbling with ideas and deadlines; Mark’s is sparse but his shelves are filled with his favorite pop culture figurines from “Corpse Bride,” “Pirates of the Caribbean,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “The Lord of the Rings.”
My last question for them: Wat do you love most about your home?
Christine answered simply. “Everything.”
Mark agreed. “We smile every time we come in,” he said. “We’re happy to share it.”