I’ve been moving most of my text documents and spreadsheets over to the very helpful Google Docs (which also lets you create powerpoint-compatible presentations) – a great app that basically lets you have access to and share all your documents from wherever you are in the world – and just moved this database over. It’s a list of all still-extant Greene & Greene properties, including some civic non-residential structures (walls, etc.); this is the same list I made this Platial map from. I hope it’s useful to you … If anyone is interested in helping me make a similar database/map for Maybeck, Frank Lloyd Wright and other architects of the movement, let me know.
What do you do when your house blows up?
You rebuild, of course. Dave Premer, of Huntington NY, rebuilt his 1830s farmhouse – leveled by a gas explosion and fire caused by a contractor who severed a gas line – as a very attractive Craftsman bungalow. Energy efficiency and other modern touches were important to Premer, whose 4 bed / 3 bath home should be ready next month, just about one month after the blast.The story itself is not especially noteworthy, although we certainly wish Mr. Premer the best. It is interesting to note, though, that he was able to cut the energy footprint of this rather large house – at 2,600 square feet, it’s almost double the side of my perfectly livable Mission Revival bungalow here in Sacramento – by half, without going over budget. You can indeed build "green" – as long as you have some sort of focus – without breaking the bank.
The bungalow concept with energy-saving features began to take shape in
late February, after his insurance company, Allstate, referred several
contractors for the project. Armed with a set of plans from a local
architect, Premer selected a project bid from a national firm with a
franchise in Brentwood. Mark Gunthner, owner of Paul Davis Restoration
& Remodeling of Long Island, Huntington architect Pete Smith and
Premer worked together to revise the original house plans.The result will be a residence using about 50 percent less energy than a traditional home its size, about 2,600 square feet.
Payson Denny Architects in Santa Monica, CA
Ken Payson is an architect in the Santa Monica area (his firm, Payson Denny, also has an office in Santa Fe NM) who mainly works on residential projects. While Payson Denny do build many modern / modernist homes, they have sometimes produced very attractive and historically-accurate Craftsman structures; they’ve also been responsible for some really stunning restorations and remodels of historic structures throughout the Los Angeles area.
We’ve created a small Flickr set with a few high-res images of these recent projects.
Arts & Crafts gems from the New York Times’ archives
The New York Times recently decided to open up much of their historic archives for free, finally realizing that the ad revenue generated by increased access is far higher than what they could make in fees or subscriptions. As a result, there are plenty of interesting articles suddenly available to all of us that we’d have had to pay for in the past. I spent the morning searching for various Arts & Crafts related keywords, and here’s what I turned up:
- R. W. Apple’s Journeys column on Berkeley, California, with quite a bit on Maybeck and other local architects and artists;
- review of the 1997 Boston Arts & Crafts exhibit at Wellesley college;
- ‘travel advisory’ on Greene & Greene’s wonderful 1909 Thorsen House in Berkeley;
- profile of a Sacramento-area family who did an extensive green remodel of their Craftsman bunglaow;
- article on the continued popularity of Rookwood pottery;
- visiting the Grove Park Inn, the site of Asheville NC’s annual Arts & Crafts conference & show;
- Eagle Rock, Mount Washington and Highland Park: NE Los Angeles’ Craftsman hideaways;
- 36 house in Pasadena, California’s most (famous) bungalow-centric town;
- Spanish Colonial Revival "fixer-upper" in Mar Vista, CA;
- Arts / Artifacts column on California’ contributions to the Arts & Crafts Movement;
- four interesting architecture-centric walking tours in San Francisco;
- Living In Forest Hill, NJ – an unlikely enclave of Arts & Crafts architecture; and
- a Maybeck home is sold in 2003 – but the focus here is the wonderful garden.
Design Works Architecture, Pittsford New York
Design Works Architecture specializes in timber frame structures – resort buildings, grand mountain estates, big giant Craftsman palaces – as well as renovations of similar types of buildings. Given their location in woody upstate New York (just east of Rochester, near the Canada border) this is not surprising; there’s a very strong Craftsman influence in the area, with the Roycrofters just down the road in East Aurora.
Principal Charles Smith started the firm just a few years ago, after a history of working with other architects in the New York City area; he started out specializing on the "adaptive re-use of under-utilized structures" and that and his interest in historic renovation paved the way for his current emphasis on the Craftsman style (take a look at the "boat house," a rather unassuming name for a big, beautiful structure, which won an AIA award in 2007). His staff – project managers, architects, interior designers and construction specialists – all seem to be just as dedicated to this site-specific aesthetic, and it really shows in their work.
We’ve created a Flickr set of images of those projects of theirs that fit most firmly within the Craftsman aesthetic – take a look.
Oaklawn Portal, South Pasadena
Greene & Greene’s 1906 portal to the Oaklawn neighborhood in Pasadena; found in mins3rdkid’s Flickr photostream. Unfortunately, this pretty bit of stonework, wood and masonry is often overlooked in books and studies of the work of the brothers Greene; local artists, however, know it well – here’s Liz Reday’s painting.
Los Angeles’ Arts & Crafts jewels are in … Garvanza?
LAist‘s "Neighborhood Project" feature included a report this past week on a part of Northeast LA that I’m not at all familiar with – I always assumed that was Highland Park – and found extremely interesting:
Once the heart of the Arts and Crafts movement in Los Angeles and a
bohemian artists’ colony, Garvanza is today one of Northeast LA’s
hidden treasures seeking to retain its turn of the century identity
while creating a liveable neighborhood for the twenty-first century.
Although many consider Garvanza to be just a part of Highland Park,
this small and hilly area brimming with historic buildings has more
than enough charm and character needed to stand out on its own. Named
for the wild sweet peas (garbanzo beans) that used to grow on the
hillsides, Garvanza itself is much like a hearty wildflower, blooming
stubbornly amidst the dominant concreted landscape, unabashedly
colorful and pleasantly surprising to discover.Check out the whole story for plenty of photographs and maps and a reasonably complete history of the region.
“like watching Ann Coulter debate Al Franken”
Neighbors in the Decatur, Georgia neighborhood of Oakhurst are definitely not agreeing to disagree about a proposal to turn their area into an official historic district. Scott Henry fills us in on the story, something that may not be all that hard to imagine for many of you who live in historic districts, whether recognized or not:Threats. Intimidation. Yard signs. Snotty e-mails. Yes, the knives
are out in Oakhurst, where the proposed creation of what would be
Decatur’s largest historic district has resulted in a nasty
neighborhood-wide squabble in which many homeowners have been forced to
choose sides.Terry Michel, a real estate agent who says she supports voluntary
design guidelines rather than city imposed building restrictions, says
she’s stopped discussing the issue with neighbors because the rhetoric
on both sides has become too overheated.“The vitriol is off-putting to me,” Michel explains. “It’s like watching Ann Coulter debate Al Frankin (sic).”
So what is it about a historic district that has so many peoples’ knickers in a wad?
Mainly, the argument comes down to control over one’s own property.
If a house is included in the district, then the owner would need to
get a “certificate of appropriateness” to tear it down, build an
addition or make significant exterior changes. Construction plans that
aren’t seen as keeping within the historic character of the
neighborhood – say, replacing a 1920s Craftsman bungalow with a
modernist stucco triplex – may not be allowed.Rich Baumhofer & Cindy Bechtel’s Curtis Park firehouse, part II
Yesterday, HGTV ran an episode of their reZONED program on Richard Baumhofer & Cindy Bechtel’s beautiful Curtis Park home in a remodeled and restored firehouse, which we originally wrote about this week last year. Marybeth Bizjak has more on the house in her September 2006 article in Sacramento Magazine. Later in the article, Rich notes his favorite northern California salvage yards – which happen to be mine, too – Ohmega Salvage and Urban Ore, both in Berkeley:
Vision. Some people have it; some don’t.
Rich Baumhofer and
Cindy Bechtel fall squarely into the “have vision” category. When the
couple stumbled upon a dilapidated old house in Curtis Park, they could
see it had major potential.Their friends told them they were
crazy to consider buying the structure, which had been built in 1917 as
a fire station and later converted to a private home. But buy it they
did, setting out to restore its “firehouse charm.”They
succeeded so spectacularly that HGTV will feature their house on an
upcoming episode of “reZONED,” a show about people who turn commercial
spaces into one-of-a-kind homes.“My intention was to
rebuild in the spirit of the original firehouse,” says Baumhofer, a
builder and general contractor who has worked on many old houses. He
kept the shell of the Craftsman-style building intact while gutting the
inside to create a spacious, family-friendly home.Congratulations to both Rich and Cindy – it’s nice when the rest of the world acknowledges all your hard work. And thanks, too, for sharing your home with all of us!
Alfred Faber, Portland architect
James Heuer has put together several SmugMug photo galleries, including one on homes built by Portland-area architect Alfred Faber, who was active as a residential designer from 1904 to 1917. I stumbled across that gallery this morning, and was struck by the level of detail and the tight symmetrical grids that Faber seemed to enjoy. I was very surprised that he dropped off the map, as it were, after moving to Los Angeles for a very early retirement, right when these elements were very much in demand by builders throughout the Los Angeles area.
The M. B. Nease House is a particularly attractive example of Faber’s work, with all kinds of attractive woodwork – builtins and other architectural detail – still intact.
