Omaha Exploration

Award-winning architect Robert E. Langdon Jr. designed his parents’ house when he was just 21 years old. Not yet an architecture student, he was attending Yale University when he became ill and bedridden. A talented artist, he began studying architecture as a hobby and sketching houses. Soon he started making model houses, one of which was in the southern colonial style and was used to construct the residence in 1940.

Located at 503 S 93rd Street in Omaha, the homes exterior had white-painted brick and 17-foot-high wooden pillars on the front portico. Inside the 10-bedroom, 5-bathroom house was a curved open stairway, a library, recreation room in the basement and a terrace in the back. It also featured a screened porch on the south end of the house. The name of the family member who occupied each bedroom had their name engraved on knockers installed on the door. The college student was credited as the associate designer with Architect Bert Hene. This house is no longer standing.

With that experience serving as inspiration, he changed his major and transferred to the University of Southern California to study architecture. After graduating in 1944 he started his own architecture firm with former classmate and lifelong friend Ernest C. Wilson in 1949. The in-home office of what would become Langdon & Wilson Architects started with a single drafting table. 

While living in Council Bluffs, he met his wife Jacqueline Hughes whose father, Floyd Hughes Sr, co-owned Hughes-Irons Motor Car Company and later Floyd Hughes Chevrolet with his son. The original location of Hughes-Irons was in the 100 block on West Broadway. The Hughes’ commissioned their son-in-law to design a Mid-Century Modern Ranch at 55 Kenmore Avenue in 1949.

Robert designed the house in the typical California Ranch (Rambler) style. The exterior of the house featured Tennessee stone and a low-slung aluminum roof with concealed outdoor lights beneath the eaves. Its upright cast-iron supports at the front of the house were shipped from Texas. Comprising 3,610 sq ft it originally had 2 bedrooms, 3 ½ baths and walkout basement. 

With the living area at the center of the home, it along with the kitchen and breakfast lounge had walls lined with birch paneling. The remaining wall in the living room had a fireplace with Silverdale Stone from the floor to the ceiling. It also featured three six-foot windows on the north-facing front side of the house while a 10-foot picture window and two six-foot side windows overlooked the large rear patio. 

The kitchen contained lower cupboards that blended in with the birch walls. The kitchen also had an L-shaped work table that sat atop of the dishwasher and lower level cupboards and extended to the stove that was tucked into a corner nook. Sliding door cupboards separated the kitchen from the adjoining breakfast lounge. 

The master bedroom contained a cork-floored dressing room lined with built-in drawers and two dressing tables. The master bath had a glass shower with built-in seat and a tile countertop that extended on either side of the built-in sink. The guest bedroom had access to its own bathroom which was finished in bronze tile and citrus yellow tub and fixtures. 

The bedroom wing of the house was two stories with the lower level being a walk-out basement that led to the west side of the house. The basement served as a recreation room and was lined with California redwood and completed with a bar, pool table, corner fireplace, forest green walls, green cement floors and another bathroom. 

Despite having no closets, the home had ample storage with all drawers and hanging space being built into the walls. It also featured such cutting-edge technology as a radio controlled garage door opener, electrical switches with built-in lights making them easy to find in the dark, acoustical plaster ceilings that hushed conversations inside the house. After the Hughes family sold the house in 1986, it was renovated and now consists of 4-bedrooms and 4 ½ bathrooms. 

It should be noted that he designed another home in the exclusive Keeline Home Place neighborhood. Constructed in 1951 for his brother-in-law, Floyd Hughes Jr, this one was located at 344 Kenmore Avenue. With 5 bedrooms and over 50 windows, the four-story home was built on the side of a hill and had an exit to the outside on each level. The living room included built-in bookshelves taking up the entire wall. Perhaps we’ll explore this house in more detail in the future. 

Robert remained in California where he headed the Los Angeles office of Langdon & Wilson Architects. During the course of his impressive career, he supervised the design and construction of 27 major office buildings along Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles in addition to Howard Hughes 2-million-square-foot Hughes Aircraft-Electro Optical Systems plant in El Segundo. Perhaps most notably, he designed the J. Paul Getty Villa Museum in Pacific Palisades, CA. The museum mimics the Villa de Papyri in Herculaneum, a southern Italian seaside community destroyed along with Pompeii by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. With objects dating back as far as 2500 B.C., the museum fortunately has been spared from the wildfires that are currently ravaging Southern California. 

Langdon & Wilson Architects amassed dozens of awards including eight from the American Institute of Architects as well as lifetime achievement awards for both of its founders from the Construction Industries Committee of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and Business and the Industry Award from Los Angeles Beautiful. Robert also served as the President of the Pasadena Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the Director of the California Council of the same association. Born in Council Bluffs in 1918, Robert passed away in 2004. Built in 1950, his L-shaped Mid-Century Modern residence at 1350 La Loma Road has been designated a Historic Landmark by the City of Pasadena.

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