I Wish Every Kitchen Still Had This 65-Year-Old Feature (It’s So Bewitching!)

Many modern homes embrace the latest cookie-cutter upgrades, but untouched vintage properties are a rare gem for homebuyers who’re on the hunt for one-of-a-kind character. Now-uncommon features like Victorian dust corners, stair clips, and built-in shaving benches have all but disappeared from today’s homes (and public knowledge), but many retro appliances are just as useful as their modern-day counterparts. Case in point: This quirky 1960s-era kitchen gem, which has a bewitching backstory (and a major cult following). 

TikToker @Bubba_Bug_and_the_Bean shared a video highlighting an unusual kitchen burner and oven setup she stumbled upon while touring homes, and quickly realized she’d seen it before. The stove, called a Frigidaire Flair, features a pull-out electric cooking range, two side-by-side ovens above it, and major mid-century modern flair. In the TikToker’s video, the Frigidaire Flair appeared well-maintained and had an on-trend butter yellow cupboard below.  

While the TikToker was quick to dismiss the vintage cooking appliance, sharing that she was “pretty sure it’s a set piece and should never be used,” Frigidaire Flair fans were quick to jump in on the comments section, lauding the appliance’s “beautiful” aesthetic and functionality.

In addition to its small space-friendly sliding design, the double oven’s design and doors (which pull upwards) eliminates the problem of lifting something hot out of a contemporary oven, which is usually underneath the burners. “You’ve won the lottery my friend,” one person wrote, while another chimed in, “This is elite and has been my dream forever.”

Determined to know more about it, I reached out to Maile Pingel, a design historian who was so excited to see the stove. She says that the Frigidaire Flair was “truly novel and designed not just to offer extraordinary space-saving features, but to simply look fantastic.” Frigidaire, she says, was the appliance subsidiary of GM. “You can almost see elements of mid-century car styling in the Flaire’s design … it was a showstopper! Shiny chrome, sleek-looking instrument panels, the pull-out drawer with four electric burners, and the double ovens with snazzy lift-up doors. There were different sizes, oven, and lower cabinet iterations available, too, and it came in a range of colors including Honey Beige and Autumn Haze.”

The Flair was designed to look like it was built-in to your existing kitchen cabinets. Pingel notes it was considered and marketed as a luxury appliance — “which probably led to its demise in the 1970s.” In today’s dollars, she says they’d be about $5,000. 

The inventor of the Frigidaire Flair was Jayne Van Alstyne, Pingel says. She was “one of the women hired by GM to bring a woman’s viewpoint to automotive and appliance design. The women became famous as the ‘Damsels of Design.’” (Van Alstyne, it so happens, also holds the patent for the first stackable washer-dryer unit, Pingel tells me, and “eventually became the head of the company’s appliance division, also overseeing exhibitions of their latest models.”) 

The Flair hit the market in 1962 and, famously, was featured in Samantha Stephen’s kitchen in Bewitched and also helped contribute to her magical powers. (“a strategic marketing move by GM,” Pingel says, noting that GM sponsored other television shows. The Stephens also drove GM cars!) 

The Flair was geared toward “busy housewives” and was “by all accounts” easy to use. It offered “speedy and efficient everyday cooking in a more streamlined kitchen.” Some weren’t on board, though — Pingel notes that Julia Child didn’t buy into it, and instead used a six-burner commercial range from Garland.

While these types of stoves might not be well known among the public, there’s a fiercely devoted community of Frigidaire Flair fans on Facebook and other Reddit forums who are dedicated to sourcing these vintage gems and replacement pieces, as well as the care and upkeep of their much-loved appliance. If you truly want one, you can also sometimes find them online on eBay. 

Several people in the comments section revealed that they have or know someone who regularly cooks on this stove, and it works well. One person, who revealed that they still cook on the Frigidaire Flair at their aunt’s home every year, noticed that “the burners are a little hot on the right side, but it still works fine! A perfect Christmas roast every year.” 

However, several people on Reddit said that they struggled with using both the ovens and the stovetop at the same time, and that they had a hard time using multiple large pans due to the size of the Flair’s drawer. One person also noted that unless you get a dual-oven design, you won’t be able to fit a standard baking sheet in your Flair’s oven. It’s also possible that your Flair might have a weight limit. However, many people noted that many current Frigidaire Flair users are diehard fans, and say the stove’s superior ovens and aesthetic are well worth any extra maintenance.  

Is there a chance that the Flair could come back with a modern redesign? Now that Electrolux owns Frigidaire, some of those same enthusiasts are hopeful that the Flair will make a modern comeback. “And maybe the time is right,” Pingel suggests, “as people begin to raise concerns over health risks associated with gas cooking.”