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Preserved in 1967: 93-year-old seller’s Natick home is an ode to his late wife
"I think you’ll appreciate what my wife has done" — from whimsical wallpaper to a built-in indoor hot tub — says the owner of this $1M listing.
When you think of a typical house in Natick, you might picture an updated Colonial, or even a Gambrel-style Cape. But one 1960s contemporary for sale on the Natick and Dover line is a preserved piece of the town’s 20th-century history.
Owner Larry Wolozin and his late wife, Norma, lived in the home since it was built in 1967 as part of a development. According to the Natick Historical Society, the town saw a housing boom in the post WWII era when suburban builders (like the local Campanelli brothers) began taking off.
While the Wolozins made repairs and updates to the house over the years, its interior design has remained largely the same. That’s thanks to Norma’s vision. She put her stylish stamp on the place with wallpaper and vibrant nylon carpeting.
“My wife had zero professional experience, no schooling in that regard,” said 93-year-old Wolozin who is now selling the home at 39 Indian Ridge Road for about $1 million (he says they bought it for just around $40,000). “She did the entire house, the entire interior design, the entire decor, and I humbly say she got a lot of very, very good marks over the years.”
Bright blue carpets bedeck the main living area, while cherry-red and rust-colored ones can be found in the bedrooms. The majority of the home’s rooms, from the entryway and the kitchen to the primary suite and bathrooms, are adorned in colorful patterns; the den and the Wolozins’ daughter’s former bedroom boast original wallpaper.
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In the primary suite’s bathroom, Norma had a special request for the blue and white floral wallpaper she’d selected. “She wanted — and eventually got — wallpaper on the ceiling,” Wolozin said. “One wallpaper installer would not do that … but we got someone else.”
The color blue is a motif throughout the home, as it was Norma’s favorite. In addition to wallpaper choices, there’s a blue toilet and bathtub in one of the bathrooms, as well as more blue walls and flooring in the sunroom and three-season porch.
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“My wife and I would kid about the fact that ‘Blue is back,’” Wolozin said. “Well, blue never left with us.”
On the furnished lower level, there’s a wood-paneled family room with a fireplace, and just beyond it, a “spa room.” Decades ago, Wolozin converted one section of the former two-car garage into this retreat, then installed a hot tub in the floor.
“I don’t know where or why or how, but I got the idea of installing that,” he said. “Once it was installed, I religiously used it daily before going to work, because you could get that water up to over 100 [degrees] and it was very, very relaxing.”
In addition to the hot tub, Wolozin had a professional greenhouse installed off of the spa room; he said he and his family particularly enjoyed its warmth and leafiness in the dead of winter. There’s also a greenhouse window bump-out upstairs in the dining room — a spot to grow herbs and raise more plants.
The 2,488 square-foot house has four bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms. For all its retro charms, the asking price is $999,000. It’s listed with Rosemary Comrie with Comrie Real Estate, Inc., at comriere.com.
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“As long as you like the color blue, I think you’ll appreciate what my wife has done,” said Wolozin.
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