Think pink: The 1950s, 1960s pink bathroom

When Stacey Lopis' friends see the bathroom in her 1960-vintage Hawthorne 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 homebuyers - 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. '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 Savethepinkbathroom.com and 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 first lady Mamie Eisenhower popularized the color when she wore a rhinestone-studded blush ballgown to her husband's inauguration in 1953.

Kueber started Savethepinkbathrooms.com 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?”

Many homebuyers who shun pink will accept the other 1950s pastels. In her house hunt, for example, Lopis saw a yellow and black bath that she loved.

'Yellow and black totally work,” Lopis said. 'You could make it funky and fun. But pink is a little much for me. Pink just wasn't really in my repertory of colors. Pink, to me, is like a little girl's room.”

'It's usually the man who reacts,” said Maryanne Elsaesser, a Coldwell Banker agent in Wyckoff. 'They're opposed to the fact that it's a female color.”

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

'I really don't like it,” said Armstrong, who is now 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. 'They don't make materials like that anymore, that's for sure.”

Elaine Jochmann's parents bought their Rochelle Park split-level when it was brand-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 still is in excellent condition.

'Are you going to get 58 years out of anything you buy today?” asked Jochmann, an accounting and project manager at a pool construction company.