Interestingly and typically for the early 1960s, the Mogayzel House blends modern forms with traditional spatial organization. Its low-pitched roofs, vertical-board siding, and ample use of casement windows employ an architectural vocabulary developed in the mid-20th century for domestic architecture on the West Coast, which emerged as something of a training ground for the modern house. In this house, those minimalist forms are combined with an overall form and interior plan that follow in a long tradition—but with fresh proportionality, juxtaposition, and use of materials.
The house’s basic plan, wide rectangle with projecting central entrance pavilion, has a long history in Providence houses. The main entrance, a double-leaf door flanked by full-height sidelights, is also traditional in concept, but here made modern through proportion and material, especially the tinted bottle-bottom glass. Inside, a center stair hall is flanked by living room to one side and family room to the other, but the sweep of the staircase, the sunken floor of the living room, and the juxtaposition of marble floors in the hall and dining room at rear center with wall-to-wall carpet — a 1960s favorite — distinguish this from earlier interpretations of the center-hall format. Also distinctive, and welcome, is the orientation of the principal rooms to the private garden at the rear of the house.
Dr Mogayzel was a dentist.
– 2011 Festival of Historic Houses Guidebook
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