LACKING LOVE

By Kathleen Lynn

The Record (Hackensack, N.J.) (TNS)

When Stacey Lopis’ friends see the bathroom in her 1960-vintage ranch, they all say the same thing: “You have to get rid of the pink tile.”

Pink bathrooms.

They were built by the millions in 1950s and 1960s ranches, Capes and split-levels, but they get no love from today’s home buyers — even the young buyers who are drawn to other midcentury styles in architecture and design.

“As much as the midcentury modern look is back, it’s still something that people are not going to find appealing,” said Gary Silberstein, a real-estate agent with Keller Williams in Woodcliff Lake, N.J. “Barbie’s not back.”

But one lover of 1950s design says pink bathrooms deserve more respect.

“Pink bathrooms are emblematic of the design of the period,” said Pam Kueber, who started the websites Save the Pink Bathroom (savethepinkbathroom.com) and Retro Renovation (retrorenovation.com) after buying a 1950s ranch in Lenox, Mass.

“If people could get their heads around pink bathrooms, they’d understand why something that looks so shocking today is actually a very appealing and wonderful thing.”

Kueber said developers of suburban tract homes started installing pink bathrooms after Mamie Eisenhower popularized the color when she wore a rhinestone-studded blush ball gown to her husband’s presidential inauguration in 1953.

Kueber started Save the Pink Bathrooms after watching people rip them out with “sledgehammer glee” on TV home-improvement shows.

“They’d throw the toilets out the window and guffaw. I was appalled. That’s disrespectful,” she said. “That bath was put in by somebody who loved that color.”

Pink wasn’t the only pastel used in postwar home design, as the nation’s mood turned sunnier. Builders also put in bathrooms that were yellow, blue or green, often with black trim.

“They were exuberant years, and people chose these colors,” Kueber said. “Walking into a pink or yellow or robin’s-egg blue or turquoise bathroom is going to be more uplifting than walking into a greige bathroom, don’t you think?”

Jean Armstrong, a retired chemistry professor, has lived for years with a pink bathroom in her 1950 condo.

“I really don’t like it,” said Armstrong, who is selling the condo.

But she’s always been too thrifty to replace the bathroom. “Why should I?” she asked. “Nothing is wrong with it. I knew that if I took care of it, it would last another 50 years.”

On that point, everyone agrees: These bathrooms were built to last. The tile was generally sturdier, and set into concrete.

“Much of tile from that era was literally twice as thick as the tile of today,” said Ron Aiosa, a Coldwell Banker agent in Butler, N.J. “They don’t make materials like that anymore, that’s for sure.”

Elaine Jochmann’s parents bought their Rochelle Park, N.J., split-level when it was new in 1957. The house, which Jochmann is selling, still has the original bathroom. The floor and wall tiles are gray; the tub and toilet are pink, and the vanity is a Formica faux-marble swirl of pink and gray. The bath is still in excellent condition.

“Are you going to get 58 years out of anything you buy today?” asked Jochmann.

George Rosko, a real-estate agent with Coccia Realty in Lyndhurst, N.J., recalls how difficult it was to rip out the pink bathroom in his Cape Cod two decades ago.

“What a job,” he said. “The tiles were on concrete embedded in a heavy steel mesh. I was bleeding trying to remove them.”

“I have to say in many cases, they’re in really fantastic shape,” said Robin Baron, a Re/Max agent in Saddle River, N.J., who helped Stacy Lopis find her home.

“I say to people, if it’s not in your budget to take it out, you can make it work with new curtains, towels and decorating. Or you can paint the tile and tub.”

Changing the color of the tile and tub requires special paint. It costs from $1,000 to $1,500 to refinish a tub and tile in a typical 5-by-7-foot bath, said John Emmons of American Bath Resurfacing, who often works on “pink, blue, yellow or green” baths from decades ago.

Lopis is making plans to have her pink tile painted white. For now, she has tried to dilute the pink with a delicately patterned white-and-gray shower curtain.

Pam Kueber is convinced that homeowners can learn to not only live with, but also love, their pink baths.

For one thing, the rosy glow can be very flattering.

“You go into that pink bathroom, with all that pink bouncing off your face, you look 10 years younger,” she said.