HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Realtor Julie Lockwood usually doesn't mind when she hears prospective buyers speculate on knocking down interior walls to enlarge the bedroom in an old house.
She cringed, however, when a young couple spoke of altering the original floor plan designed by Huntsville rocket legend and space pioneer Wernher von Braun. The 2,750 square-foot home located at 1516 Big Cove Road isn't just a house Lockwood is selling; it's history.
It would be a shame to disturb the historic aura of this house with all the earth-changing dialogue that occurred inside the walls or on the stone patio when von Braun regularly entertained his rocket team, she said. Surprisingly, although it's been 44 years since the von Brauns lived there, the house floor plan is very close to the original blueprints that Lockwood has in her possession.
One of two half-baths is still six inches from the front door, the built-in china cabinets are still part of the dining room and the wall-to-wall, built-in bookshelves are still part of the den. However, the hole in the wall where von Braun often reared back on his recliner was repaired long ago by the recent owner.
Sitting under giant cedars, the four-bedroom, three-level house has an Alpine vibe, and Lockwood said it still exhibits a German influence with the vaulted ceilings and large windows. The spacious yard on a steep incline also is testament to the German dislike for mowing grass. The ground is covered by a mixture of moss and ivy.
"It's very utilitarian," she said. "The china cabinet is probably the biggest luxury. That and the book shelves."
Lockwood compared the mid-century modern style to what people would recognize from the TV show "Mad Men." And that's actually a good selling point now, she added.
"I have a lot of couples who like this style, even though it has separate spaces instead of an open floor plan," she said.
Von Braun moved into the custom-built house overlooking the Blossomwood neighborhood in 1958 when he and his wife, Maria, were expecting their third child, Peter. Perhaps understanding its historic value, von Braun donated it to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center when the family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1970. The furnishings from when the house sold are still in storage on Redstone Arsenal.
Visions of turning it into a museum never materialized, and the museum board sold it in 1973 to George Philyaw. It was sort of passing the torch, as Philyaw worked in rocket marketing and his wife, Pamela, was a 30-year engineer for Boeing and a one-time Silver Snoopy Award recipient recognizing her contributions to space. The Philyaws even entertained some of the original German rocket scientists at the house.
"It was all very austere," Philyaw told the Huntsville Times in December 2001. "The furnishings weren't new, and there was no carpeting upstairs. The von Brauns were a frugal family, apparently. It's a very unpretentious, livable space. We've always loved it."
Dr. Ernst Stuhlinger, a German rocket team member who had visited von Brauns several times, remembered the home being well-furnished but not to a degree one might expect from the man "who spent 25 out of 24 hours a day in outer space."
"They didn't keep up with modern gadgets and the like," Stuhlinger said in the 2001 Times article. "Wernher traveled a lot and didn't have time for much of a social life. So he didn't put much effort into furnishing and equipping his Huntsville home."
The biggest changes the Philyaws made were modernizing the kitchen and bathrooms, redirecting the driveway and adding a carport, building a fireplace and installing wood floors and sheetrock ceilings. The original flooring was black and white industrial tile, and the ceiling consisted of acoustical tiles stapled to the ceiling.
One thing the von Brauns and Philyaws shared was a love for music, and each family had a piano in the downstairs nook that von Braun had intended to use for his aging father.
"He played rather well," Stuhlinger said of von Braun. "And when he had a party and it got loud, he'd be happy to go downstairs and play that piano for a while."
The Philyaws also kept the concrete fallout shelter in the back yard, built in the days of Cold War when Huntsville's rocket braintrust was a prime target. Now, the shelter is more suitable for withstanding tornado attacks.
The house went on the market a week ago, and the asking price is $379,000. Lockwood said she's had five clients show interest, including the space and rocket center. Three other agents also are showing the house, which has benefited from its famous original owner.
"That's actually a really good number for during the holidays," she said. "That says people here really do appreciate the history of this place."