• Crow House named to National Register of Historic Places

    Crowhouse
    American ceramicist and painter Henry Varnum Poor‘s Rockland NY home – known semi-affectionately as “crow house,” after the birds that harassed Poor during the construction of the structure – has been added to the NRHP. Oddly, the town that hosts it – Clarkstown NY – either refused or was unable to purchase it themselves, so a neighbor (either richer or more interested in historic preservation), the town of Ramapo, is in the process of buying it from current owner Arthur Wagner. Wagner bought it a year ago from Peter Poor, son of the artist, for $1.15 million; let’s hope he didn’t feel a need to make a profit off the public by selling it at a huge mark-up.

    The brick home includes some interesting Tudor and castle-like features, including archways, circular stairways, exposed beams, and plenty of hand-crafted furniture made specifically for the site. According to visitors, the hand-made ceramic doorknobs, tiled windowsills and other stone and ceramic inlays are especially attractive; all the decorative ceramics were made by Poor specifically for this project at a kiln on the property. Much of the furniture is American Arts & Crafts.

    The New York Times ran an article in 2006 on the race to save the building, which Wagner originally planned to destroy; it includes several photographs.

    photo courtesy of the Preservation League of New York State

  • South Buffalo’s “bungalow belt”

    After reading our recent note on a modest but pretty bungalow going for a half-million dollars in Sacramento, reader Jean Emery sends us this article from Buffalo Rising on that town’s own "bungalow belt." Read the complete article on their site. There are plenty of good photos as well, and Jean notes that she "can guarantee these don’t cost half a million dollars like the one in Sacramento!"

    One of Buffalo’s most charming neighborhoods is centered on a
    cluster of streets running off Abbott between Lakewood and Hubbell on
    the South Side. The streets stand out from their surroundings as they
    are lined with distinctive bungalow style houses. The bungalow,
    sometimes referred to as craftsman style, was popular in the early 20th
    century. It is a derivation of an Indian house type with rustic
    detailing and broad porches. Common features include low rooflines on a
    gabled or hipped roof, deeply overhanging eaves, exposed rafters, and
    decorative brackets. The front porch is often formed by extending the
    main roof out past the front wall.

    The craftsman style of design became popular as people started
    yearning for a simpler time. The 20th century was a period of major
    change. Rapidly developing technology and a shift to urban living
    brought new wealth and convenience along with a sometimes stressful and
    unfamiliar way of life to many people. Design, with an emphasis on hand
    craft and natural materials, was a way to capture the nostalgia of a
    simpler America. The Roycrofters in nearby East Aurora, led by Elbert
    Hubbard, were leaders in this movement. Even the work of Frank Lloyd
    Wright could be included as a part of this movement (if peripherally
    so). His Connection to Darwin Martin and subsequent commissions in
    Buffalo came through Hubbard.

  • finding arts & crafts in unexpected places

    One thing we talk about regularly is finding Arts & Crafts vernacular in what can only be called unexpected places. Sometimes the use might be inappropriate but still well-executed; sometimes neither. Reader Jean Emery wrote to tell us about her own experience at finding Spanish Colonial architecture in the last place you’d expect – upstate New York:

    This is a visual response to the post about transplanting or recreating the arts and crafts vernacular. I hope this picture comes through. I’m a fourth generation San Diegan transplanted to upstate New York and I’ve always taken a great interest in a group of about twenty or so Spanish colonial homes built in Albany, probably in the 1920s or so. They’re so California!  But, as you can see, they haven’t fared very well here. I would love to buy one, but they generally are in pretty poor shape, have been terribly re-muddled. The stucco doesn’t take well to repeated freezing and thawing, and the original windows weren’t at all energy efficient so have been replaced with ugly double-panes.

    Also, the new Stickley arts and crafts reproductions are big here in town because we’re near the manufacturer in Syracuse, but they just don’t have the soul and the patina of the originals. And American Bungalow has recently had some vulgar, expensive houses with customized woodwork run amuck!

    I’m not really sure what the moral of all this is. I do love these bits of Mediterrean architecture plunked down in the snow belt!

    Jean notes that one such home – 17 Rosemont Street in Albany (pics) – is for sale at an asking price of $178,900.

    Thanks for sharing these, Jean. We do love to see this kind of thing, so if other readers have pictures to share, please do send them in!

  • “The Connection” – October 26-28 2007 on the Roycroft Campus

    Knottroycroft
    Last week, Sandra Starks sent us a press release on an upcoming conference at the Roycroft campus:

    East Aurora, NY – The great minds of the turn of the 20th century is the theme of this intimate gathering of Arts & Crafts enthusiasts.  It is the International Arts & Crafts Movement and the great men and women who espoused its philosophy that changed the world a little over one hundred years ago.  From the 1860s to the 1920s, this historic social and artistic eruption that turned against the Industrial Revolution and embraced a human connection to our material surroundings was meant to discover a better way to live.

    The Arts & Crafts Revival, now approaching the same number of years as the original wave, has also become a phenomenal reaction to intellectual progress i.e. the electronic world.  This revival and the education it offers is another opportunity to balance life for the future with the hand and heart!

    All of the Roycrofters celebrate our treasure of Arts & Crafts sites in Western New York and we recognize that, as it was then, we are all connected to the rich legacy of Arts & Crafts worldwide.

    For more than 20 years, the Roycroft Campus has intermittently hosted long weekend conferences with a focus on brining together top-notch scholars to emphasize the wealth of knowledge and share it with colleagues and friends from near and far.

    art by Raymond Knott, from the conference’s identity

  • 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.

  • Frank Lloyd Wright in Buffalo: a podcast conversation with Neil Levine

    Caroly Batt with the Buffalo-Niagara Convention & Visitors Bureau writes to tell us about a very interesting podcast:

    Harvard University professor and noted Frank Lloyd Wright
    Scholar and author Neil Levine recently discussed Wright’s important
    architectural contributions to the Buffalo area. Buffalo is the home to many acclaimed Wright
    achievements including the Darwin Martin House Complex and Graycliff
    Estate    . The interview is available
    as an audio podcast on the Wright Now in Buffalo website.

  • for sale: restored Horseheads NY home, $199,500

    From Martha Horton’s recent article in the Star-Gazette‘s Twin Tiers Homes section:

    John
    Stevens, a Horseheads native, studied architecture at Cornell
    University, and his wife Rosemary, originally from Owego, is a Cornell
    graduate, but the two did not cross paths on campus. They met later,
    when Rosemary was employed with Corning Inc. and John, an independent
    electrician, was doing work there.

    John
    had purchased a Craftsman-style house in the Village of Horseheads in
    1993 from the Shappee estate. The original owner, who built the house
    in 1920, was James Shappee, a prominent citizen and foundry owner. His
    caricature by famed cartoonist Zim hangs in the Zim Center in
    Horseheads. James’ wife Febe was a Horseheads school principal.

    When
    Rosemary, an interior designer, first saw the house, she recognized its
    "good bones," and thought it was well worth preserving and updating. So
    the couple went to work on it, doing most of the labor themselves. "We
    worked on the house every day after work," Rosemary recalls, "and every
    weekend." They are still working on it.

    John
    did extensive rewiring and updated the heating system. Rosemary, who
    now operates her own interior design firm under the name of "Designs by
    Rody," masterminded the aesthetics. "I wanted to keep the house in
    character and bring it forward as it would have evolved through the
    years," she explains. "Houses talk to you," Rosemary adds.

    The 3+ bedroom, 4 full bath, almost 4000 square foot house is listed by Kristen Dininny, a real estate agent with Signature Properties. There’s a map here.

    Of course, where I live, a house like this would sell for well over $450,000, even with the market falling a bit in the past year. It’s almost tempting to move to New York and try to make a living doing freelance work or by beefing up this site and trying to make some money from the advertising … the $200,000 cash I’d walk away with from the sale of my own smaller home would cover expenses for several years.