On a particularly sunny Fort Lauderdale day, James London set out on foot to comb the beach for his next renovation project. The committed preservationist is no stranger to restoring homes. He’s made a hobby of adopting old, endangered houses in hopes of returning them to their original condition. So, it was no surprise that after touring nine blocks of beachfront property, he found himself standing in front of a quirky, early mid-century house, nodding his head, saying, “This is the one.”
The house was born out of a Christmas gift from a successful coal salesman, Allison K. Mordue, to his wife Pearl. In 1949, he gave her his entire Christmas bonus — $35,000 — and told her to build her “dream home.” Pearl, an opera singer, enlisted architect Guy Platt Johnson, and two years later the dream was realized on what is today NE 15th Court.
Fast-forward half a century to 2007, and one would guess that little three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath beach house — located now in a coveted million-dollar-plus neighborhood — would have been replaced by a monster-mansion. Such is the case with many of the city’s smaller historic gems, yet here was London, standing in front of the quaint post-and-beam construction home, plotting his next rescue.
“The real estate lady was selling it as a teardown,” London says. “I took one look at the terrazzo floors and thought, ‘Over my dead body.’” He competed with two other buyers for the sale — both of which had plans to knock the house down — and in the end, the owners chose London and his partner, Robert Hamilton.
The home, which London describes as “a collision of Mid-Century Modern and Bauhaus Modern,” hadn’t been lived in for quite some time. Those original owners — the Mordues — had been the only occupants, the wife bequeathing it to a niece in the late ’70s. No one had lived there since, so when London stepped inside, he found himself surrounded by the original 1950s furnishings. He was also inside a home neglected for far too long.
For the next two years, he worked fastidiously to bring the house to a habitable condition. He started with the mechanical systems, installing electrical, plumbing and five-zone energy-efficient air conditioning. Next he refinished the floors — beautiful turquoise-blue terrazzo with flecks of harvest gold, eggshell white, maroon and black. “Terrazzo is misunderstood,” London says. “It’s a living, breathing part of the house.”
He replaced all 44 windows with hurricane glass and freshened up the exterior with a fresh coat of white paint. Inside, he chose non-VOC paints in calming shades of blue, green and coral. He installed a tankless natural gas water heater and brought in Energy Star-rated appliances. For the kitchen, he found period-appropriate appliances from Northstar, a fashionably nostalgic set: refrigerator, oven and dishwasher. The existing cabinets and countertops were in excellent condition, so they stayed, with the exception of one cutting board countertop, which he replicated.
In 2008, London and Hamilton were honored at the Broward Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual award ceremony for the conscientious renovation. “The ultimate thing is for the house to stand on its own,” London says, “to have the architecture be honored.”
This wasn’t the first endangered home that London had rescued in Fort Lauderdale, and it likely won’t be his last. In 2000, he bought a 1956 ranch house on Port Everglades, spent $50,000 repairing it, and then sold it to a like-minded buyer who would respect its architecture. A year later, a 1936 home on Alhambra Street struck his fancy, and he spent nine months and $300,000 on that renovation. (The previous owner had 14 indoor cats.)
“People think I’m crazy,” he says. “But I love what I do.” His next mission is a true-to-era 1936 Nautical Moderne house in Sailboat Bend currently in danger of demolition. In hopes of saving it, London has put the NE 15th Court beach house on the market. “I wish I had a billion dollars to do this to as many homes as possible, but I can’t keep them all,” he says wistfully. “All I can do is buy one and bring it to its splendor so that someone understands it and will restore it into the future.”
So for now, he’s waiting for the right buyer, the one that will walk inside, take one look at the terrazzo floors and post-and-beam construction and think, “Over my dead body will someone tear this down.”
“I want to save one house a year for the next 20 years,” London says. “That’s right, 20 houses over 20 years.”
