• news roundup, July 2007

    Several bits & pieces of interest to old-house aficionados, rehabbers and others interested in A&C:

  • a modern Craftsman kitchen

    Ih00016_plan
    Taunton publishes lots and lots of good books devoted to historic architecture in general and the Arts & Crafts movement specifically. I was happy but not surprised, then, to pick up a few back issues of The Inspired House, an (unfortunately out of print?) at a local used bookshop.

    The magazine seems to have halted publication mid-2006, but mining their online archive yielded lots of good stuff, including this article by Debra Judge Silber on a very modern yet classically attractive Craftsman kitchen remodel in a 1915 historic foursquare:

    When they found their brick foursquare in the
    mid-1980s, Ed and Kathy Friedman couldn’t believe their luck. They’d
    spent 10 years building a collection of Arts and Crafts furniture and
    decorative objects, and here was the perfect home in which to display
    it. The 1915 foursquare, with its built-in benches and bookcases, was
    as well preserved as if it had been locked in a time capsule.

    Except for the kitchen. Remodeled in the ’50s, the boxy room had plastic tiles running halfway around it and
    white metal cabinets backed awkwardly against the walls. Not just
    outdated, it was completely at odds with the purposeful beauty of the
    rest of the house.

    Visit their site for the full article. Floorplan by Martha Garstang Hill, whose illustrations and architectural drawings adorn many Taunton books.

  • we’re #1 (for houseporn, at least)

    I noticed today that we were getting an awful lot of visitors who found us from Google searches for "houseporn." 200 today alone! After checking, I found that we were the number 1 result for this rather odd search term. Not that I’m complaining.

    So, to accomodate all of you, some very G-rated houseporn (my favorite kind):

    Houseporn

    This was created with BigHugeLabs’ neat Mosaic Maker. Too bad it doesn’t generate a clickable html/javascript mosaic!

    The photographers are as follows. Click on each link to see the original photo:

    1. Heintz Art Metal Collection, 2. details, 3. IMG 1431, 4. Detailed woodwork, 5. Our Dining Room, 6. Arts & Crafts door, 7. Secessionist style Art Glass Door, 8. Plinthy, 9. Roycroft Hanging Lantern, 10. MG 0447, 11. Rockridge – 30, 12. Kitchen Remodel – After, 13. Maybeck church

  • restored Indianapolis bungalow sparkles

    Bilde
    Abe Aamidor has a short piece in this weeks’ Indianapolis Star on the recent restoration of a 1920 Arts & Crafts home in that city’s Southside neighborhood.

    This Southside Arts and Crafts home looks much the way it did when it welcomed its first family in 1920.

    The one-story bungalow has the same yellow bricks
    and clapboard siding painted in period Rookwood antique gold, and even
    the original wood storm windows and storm doors have been retained, or
    faithfully restored where necessary.
    This is neither McMansion nor artifact of some famous, long-dead architect.
    But
    it is everything home ought to be, says Paul Krasnovsky, director of
    choral activities at the nearby University of Indianapolis, who has
    owned the property for more than 20 years.
    Yet he didn’t always feel that way.
    "When I first looked at this house, I didn’t want to buy it," said the divorced father of two.
    "The previous owner had layers of drapes on the windows. It was so dark and constrictive. And the carpets just smelled."
    Even
    worse, an earlier owner had cut down the bottoms of several interior
    doors so they could clear the thick shag carpeting she had installed.
    Krasnovsky ripped out all the carpets and was pleasantly surprised to
    find original wood flooring in good condition underneath.

    photograph by Gary Moore for The Star

  • for sale: real estate, West Coast edition (again)

    Dug these up from classified sections, Craigslist(s), flyers, redfin & other sites over the weekend. Lots and lots of beautiful old houses all over the western US:

  • saving historic Seattle bungalow a “no-brainer”

    reader Keith Harrison forwards this article about a fellow preserving some of his own neighborhood’s character by saving an historic 1917 Craftsman home that was slated for demolition. Nicole Tsong has the full story at the Seattle Times; here’s a short excerpt:

    Frank-Michael Rebhan was not looking for a new house when he walked his dog past 6317 Phinney Ave. N. in late January.

    He already owned a small house a few blocks away. But this
    sandy-gray beauty was a 1917 Craftsman-style home with leaded
    stained-glass windows, dark wood built-ins and box-beam ceilings. And a
    notice said it was slated for demolition.

    Rebhan had an outlandish idea: What if he saved the home by moving it to his own lot?

    Rebhan hadn’t even been inside yet, but the 37-year-old quickly did some intense calculations. He added up costs for moving the house, demolition of his own home, excavation and the other issues involved in moving a house.

    He figured out how much it would add to his current mortgage and realized: "It’s a no-brainer."

  • for sale: homes in Phoenix, Arizona

    1912_bungalow_2

    from Nicole Serrin:

    historic 1912 bungalow in the Roosevelt historic district: 3 bed, 1.75 bath, 1702 sq ft; carefully restored. $775,000 [48 W. Willetta St.]

    1930 Tudor Revival home in the Medlock Place historic district: 2 bed, 2 bath, 1795 sq ft, with a separate 532 sq ft studio or guest house. Lot is big – just under half an acre. $747,000

    1935 Tudor Revival with some Mission features in the F.Q. Story historic district: 2 bed, 1 bath, 1152 sq ft; lots of neat detail. $330,000

  • Brea’s Bungalows

    Richard Dodd’s May 19 article in the Orange County Register on Brea, California’s Union Oil Co. neighborhood is a good one:

    The 1882 discovery of oil in shallow wells in Brea Canyon had a major influence in the history and economy of Orange County. Several small oil companies sprang up shortly afterward and in 1890, some of them merged to form Union Oil Co. of California.

    Many local communities faced a housing shortage for new workmen during the oil and land boom in the 1920s. Union Oil built 61 homes for their employees in the southwestern part of Brea. This area became known as the "Union Oil neighborhood."

    The bungalow period was in full swing at the time. As a result, most of the homes are California, Craftsman and Pueblo bungalows and other variations interspersed with a few
    provincial revivals.

    read the whole thing

  • Bungalow Relocation in Fort Lauderdale

    One of the most central tenets of the Arts & Crafts movement was the situation of a home in its landscape – even a kit house needed to be picked to be a good match with its surroundings. But better a well-built old house be moved than be demolished for a parking lot, I suppose. It is sad that people would rather go with ugly urban blight than a pretty old house, though, but I suppose we will eventually learn. Maybe.

    Here’s an article by Brittany Wallman in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on the upcoming move of a 1916 bungalow which had to be moved once before to make room for a parking lot. No, I’m not kidding. Maybe we do drive a bit too much. Maybe raising the gas tax to $5 a gallon would solve this problem:

    Progress is chasing the Annie Beck house around town.

    Historic preservationists are preparing to move the 1916 bungalow to its third location, again to avoid demolition.
    The cottage was home to
    one of Fort Lauderdale’s prominent pioneer couples, Annie and Alfred J.
    Beck, and is a "traditional Craftsman style, front-facing gable
    bungalow" characteristic of the vernacular-style houses of early Fort
    Lauderdale, according to a city memo.

    Its
    original location, before downtown boomed into a high-rise district,
    was at 334 E. Las Olas Blvd. But in 1977, the house was relocated to
    310 SE 11th Ave. to make way for a parking lot.

    read the whole article