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mass-produced objects. To allow for a “full view of the interior space” of his plans for streamlined, curvilinear furniture, Weber presented his client with drawings in which the interior walls were transparent. A focal point of the house is the circular, two-story main staircase; it has Baccarat glass posts set between aluminum alloy railings. Long corridors link the living, dining, and breakfast rooms, six bedrooms, and Walter Bixby’s study; a rumpus room at the basement level has a circular bar, the shape of which is echoed in a diorama of Bixby’s ranch in Wyoming. Weber used a highly saturated palette throughout the house and machined Streamline Moderne materials and details—brushed aluminum was everywhere. Listed in the National Register, the house was the backdrop for the 1990 film, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge. Weber commented in a 1929 lecture that “it must be our ambition to express beauty in our daily commodities, through the most simple, most logical, most graceful and proportioned forms and designs . . . and the most natural development based upon the understanding of the problem, will be retained as the best possible solution.” Weber attained his goal in the Bixby house, but sadly, with few exceptions, his innovative interiors and furnishings have not survived.
First floor plan
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