Richard Silverstein has an excellent gallery of photos of his own 1906 Craftsman home in Seattle's Madrona neighborhood. Much of the furniture in his photographs is made by gifted craftsman Tom Stangeland, whose work we profiled on HH not too long ago.
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Wright's Meyer May House
Built in 1908 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Frank Lloyd Wright's Meyer May House (site hosted at the always excellent dgunning.org) is a brilliant example of a perfect restoration. The 1987 project didn't miss a single detail: the house and grounds look fantastic, with everything from glass to planters getting a refurbishing. The house is open for tours and if you are in the area is definitely worth a visit.
Todd Exter
Todd Exter is one more of the finite but large number of tremendously competent and creative cabinetmakers living and working in Vermont. He is primarily self-taught, and in light of that his technical skill is especially impressive; his use of grain and his mortise-and-tenon work is artful and subtle, just as it should be. Working in a variety of woods, mostly local maples, Exter has made a niche for himself by integrating traditional Craftsman forms with contemporary style and the smooth, clean uninterrupted lines of the Vermont Shaker tradition.
neighborhood: Anaheim Colony
Unfortunately, many folks know Anaheim only as the home of Disneyland. However, the town has a distinguished architectural history and is one of the earliest and best-preserved collections of Arts & Crafts bungalows in Southern California. Resident Phyllis Mueller gives us this short history of the colony:
Anaheim was founded as a colony in 1857 when George Hansen purchased 1,165 acres of land on behalf of the Los Angeles Vineyard Society for the purpose of subdividing the land into vineyards and house lots. Its original boundaries were North, East, South, and West Streets. Anaheim’s wine industry flourished during the early years, but in 1885 the vines were stricken with disease, and the profitable wine industry was destroyed. Soon after, the enterprising colonists recovered by replacing the vineyards with orange groves, lemons, walnuts, and chili peppers.
book review: Living Homes
Suzi Moore McGregor & Nora Burba Trulsson's Living Homes profiles the design and construction of twenty-two homes - all constructed using the various principles and techniques of sustainable building - throughout the Western United States. 7 adobe homes, 5 rammed-earth houses, 5 straw bale structures and 4 reinvented / recycled / high-tech material buildings are examined. The homes are built in a wide variety of architectural styles: contemporary steel and earth constructions, pueblo and spanish revival rancheros, mission and craftsman cottages. All are both an expression of their owners' and builders' character and the philosophy of the green building movement made real.
neighborhood: Westwood Park
Greg Clinton, Board President of San Francisco's Westwood Park Association, tells us about one of the earliest and most interesting & architecturally important planned residential neighborhoods in the city - an area many outsiders know only for Louis Mullgardt's entry gates.
Development of Westwood Park began in 1917 by Baldwell and Howell under the architectural supervision of Ida McCain. Westwood Park was the first planned subdivision in San Francisco, consisting of 686 single-family homes mostly in the California bungalow style. Each house has its own unique detailing. Some bungalows have an Arts & Crafts influence, while others have elements of Spanish Mission or English Tudor. Several public green areas are dispersed throughout the neighborhood, which provide a feeling of spaciousness and nature, rare in a dense and crowded city like San Francisco. Historic gates and pillars that mark the main entrances to the Park were restored by the Westwood Park Association in 2004. On the inside, most of our homes have open floor plans, lots of windows and natural light, extensive gumwood trim, custom built-ins, and numerous architectural detailings.
Visit our Westwood Park photo album to see some of the remarkable and varied Craftsman, Deco and Mission homes of this neighborhood!
Wright's Carr Home Destroyed
On November 8, an 88-year old Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house in Grand Rapids, Michigan was demolished to make room for a new single-family home. The Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy would have preferred to save the home from demolition, but not made aware of the demolition plans until after the building had been torn down. According to Wright scholars and others who examined the property, however, the house was in especially bad shape and restoring it would have been a very serious undertaking. William Allin Storrer, author of The Frank Lloyd Wright Companion, said of the property:
The building deserved to be torn down, and crying over its destruction brings to mind the story of the shepherd boy who cried 'wolf' once too often. We must preserve that of Wright which truly represents his organic architectural principles, and the W.S. Carr house did not even when built, though it had the master's signature on the plan.
photograph: Kevin Byrd / Associated Press / Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy
Tile Heritage Foundation
Founded in 1987, the Tile Heritage Foundation is "dedicated to promoting an awareness and appreciation of ceramic surfaces in the United States." They sell books, historic tile catalogs and other publications, provide self-guided vintage-tile tour pamphlets ($3 per tour), and will recommend refinishers, restorers and tilemakers for your project. They also administer the Doty Research Grant, the purpose of which is to "stimulate research in the field of ceramic history and conservation." Additionally, the Foundation maintains a large photographic library and copies of images from their collection are available for a fee.
pictured: Mary Philpott's Crow
