Oregon midcentury modern homebuilder Bob Rummer dies at 97

Pictured Above: Robert (“Bob”) Rummer

Robert Rummer, now a fixture of Oregon’s mid-century architectural landscape, was not immediately moved by modern design. It wasn’t until 1959 that Rummer, a man in his 30s with a successful insurance business, turned his attention to building modern tract housing. The credit for his change of mind belongs with Phyllis Rummer who, after visiting a Joseph Eichler-designed home in California, announced to her husband that she would trade their brand new traditional dream home in Newberg for a modern one. Phyllis was awestruck by Eichler’s open layout and clean lines, but her husband was resistant. After visiting a friend’s Eichler-esque home with Phyllis, Robert was finally convinced and left the insurance industry to become a developer. He enlisted the help of architect A. Quincy Jones, who had previously worked for Eichler, to draw up similar designs suited to the Pacific Northwest.

Between 1959 and 1975, Rummer’s company built a total of 750 homes in the Portland metro area, about 300 of which were in modernist style. Rummer built 29 of the 650 dwellings in the Oak Hills district, listed in the National Historic Register of Historic Places. Enclaves of Rummers can be found in Gresham, Lake Oswego, and Garden Home, where Robert and Phyllis Rummer built their personal residence in the Bohmann Park Neighborhood in 1966. Architecture and housing experts credit Bob Rummer with creating modern homes for middle-class families.  Perhaps thanks entirely to Phyllis’ persistence over 60 years ago, "Rummer homes" are now a permanent fixture of Oregon’s mid-century architectural landscape.