This morning’s WSJ (8/12/25) featured Tim McMann’s home showcasing 6 customs including the Jade Idol. Somebody smarter than I am can figure out how to post it here! It’s in the REAL ESTATE section
Here ya go. Yeah- I'm a gearhead and I read the WSJ. Forget the $3.4 Million House—It’s His Garage That Steals the Show This Vancouver homeowner built a glass-enclosed space where he could admire his midcentury car collection. ‘They’re my paintings.’ McMann’s top requirement was that he be able to see his cars from his living room. BILL PURCELL FOR WSJ By Nancy Keates Photographs by Bill Purcell for WSJ Aug. 11, 2025 4:00 pm ET Tim McMann’s newly built home in Vancouver, Wash., has a sweeping view of the Columbia River. But for McMann, the more impressive vista is his collection of six customized midcentury cars. A 1956 Mercury Montclair, 1957 Chevy 210 and others are stored in a glass-enclosed garage visible from the living room. “They’re my paintings, but they’re sitting on the floor instead of on the wall,” says McMann, 71, who also has a collection of hundreds of model cars. The garage is the centerpiece of the modern three-bedroom home, which McMann spent three years and $3.4 million building. McMann’s auto collection also inspired the design of the house itself, says architect Daniel Kaven of Oregon-based William Kaven Architecture, who worked on the project. “It’s all cars all the time,” Kaven says of the home. The modern house took three years to build. Inspired by the chrome and leather of McMann’s cars, the house includes lots of blacks and grays. The house was designed by Daniel Kaven of Oregon-based William Kaven Architecture. McMann, who grew up in Ohio, has loved cars since he was a kid. He still remembers seeing a 1963 Corvette split window coupe when he was about 9 years old. “The die was really set then,” he said. He has been collecting model cars for about 30 years, and started buying custom cars 10 years ago. McMann moved to Portland, Ore., in the 1990s, founding a plastic-and-rubber glove company that he sold in 2017. He lived in a condo in downtown Portland, and his cars were stored in a 1930s radiator-repair building he owned in the city’s Pearl District. The setup was great, he said, until protests downtown in 2020 led to violence and property damage around the city. Disillusioned with Portland, McMann decided to move to Vancouver, where he paid $1.5 million in January 2021 for a 1.7 acre parcel of land with views of the Portland International Airport across the Columbia River. He split the parcel into four smaller lots, putting in sidewalks, streetlights and sewers. He then sold off two lots, keeping the other two and hiring Kaven to design the house and garage. As a riff on the chrome and leather of McMann’s cars, the roughly 3,000-square-foot house includes lots of blacks and grays, Kaven said. Lighted glass cases were specially designed to display McMann’s model cars. But the house was less important to McMann than the garage, or “gallery” as he calls it. At 3,908 square feet, it is larger than the house itself, with skylights, polished concrete floors and a fir ceiling. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the river, and an attached space is modeled after an old gas-station office. A 1957 Chevy 210 in violet and pearl white, left, is called El Capitola. The green Mercury Montclair, center, has a six-color “Winfield Fade” paint job. At right, a 1955 pearl-white and burgundy Chevy was restyled by custom body-shop pioneer George Barris. The customized cars’ features include a grille made out of a perforated screen for the 1955 Chevy, handmade aluminum front fenders on the Jade Idol, and El Capitola’s stacked Lucas headlamps in oval surrounds. The most renowned occupant of the garage is the green Mercury Montclair, radically altered by the legendary customizer and painter Gene Winfield. Called the “Jade Idol,” the two-door hardtop has a six-color “Winfield Fade” paint job. Next to it sits a 1955 pearl-white and burgundy Chevy that was restyled by custom body-shop pioneer George Barris. Barris reworked the front fenders to accommodate four headlights and modified the taillights with plastic fin additions. McMann bought the car, which was advertised at $95,000, in June of 2017. The 1957 Chevy 210, called El Capitola, in violet and pearl white, was built by Sam Barris, George’s brother. It has a 1953 Studebaker front grill pan and Cessna aircraft struts on the tops of the rear fenders. A gold 1952 Lincoln Capri with black and red interiors was designed by Ina Mae Overman and built by Neil Emory and Clayton Jensen of Valley Custom. The car won 12 trophies in the 1950s and was featured in a number of magazines. Now that the project is completed, McMann has held private open houses featuring the cars, and occasionally gets tour requests from small groups of custom-car lovers. He likes that his auto collection is safe, and always within viewing distance. “It’s all about protecting my cars.”
The article says the garage (a.k.a. "gallery"!) is bigger than the house. I'd say the man has his priorities straight. Hey @RDR - that's close to your old neighborhood!
I have met him at a few events, very nice man and avid collector. He and the Idol were at Russ Meeks memorial earlier this spring. Cool house, I love mid century modern. Great idea on the gallery, I never thought I 'd say to but that's a better garage then the one on Ferris Bueler's Day Off. Uh yeah...I was born and raised there but I don't call it home any longer either. Vancouver has been my home for 40 years now. Almost perfect, they just need to remove those interstate bridges.
Yeah, I agree, wtf, arguably just as famous, IMHO just as beautiful, except maybe for the Idol, as any of the rest of them, apologies to @Moriarity, I know his affection for the tri5 customs.But I gotta say, the man has a nice setup, and excellent taste in cars.
Last year when Tim sent the El Capitola to the Custom Car Revival but couldn’t make it himself because he was sick. I got to be the one that drove it in and out of the show!
OK, how about some of the models?! No Love for the Dream Truck, What The Heck! Should of had a car guy write the article, guess Joey Ukrop was busy. All that aside, this man has a Beautiful house and Garage.
you should see it in person, All of the purple body panels are are about 3/16 raised above the white panels. all the way around the roof etc. I don't know how they did it , maybe it is filled with lead, maybe the white areas were hammered down? This was Sam's last build and it looks like he used every trick in the book. I can honestly say that this is the coolest custom car I have ever seen. Started life as a 210 2 door sedan
Honestly, the first thing I thought of when I saw this article is "How cool is it that traditional customs are getting print in mainstream media like WSJ?" Traditional customs, as a genre of automobiles, is not the easiest type of car to get into (both literally and figuratively) and requires someone who is connected to their creative side and is willing to make a statement to stand out. Tim here, not only in his choice of cars, but in his magnificent home, is clearly someone who wants to live stylishly. Showcasing just how cool cars and cool architecture can go hand in hand with each other is great exposure for this thing of ours.
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