I've mentioned this company before, but I just took a few minutes to browse the online inventory on the Pasadena Architectural Salvage website and man do I wish I could jet down to LA to take a look at their shop. Great stained glass panels & windows, doors (both interior and exterior), unique fixtures, and all manner of trim and hardware!
This 1917 bungalow in Temple, Texas (about halfway between Dalls/Ft. Worth and Austin) includes the original hardwood throughout, a pretty front porch, an attractive upstairs loft and a decent-sized yard. at just under 1600 square feet (3 bedrooms & 2 baths), it's got more than enough room for a small family. Spoon fans should note that Temple is the home town of Britt Daniel, lead singer of America's best rock & roll band, as well as Rip Torn and a disproportionately large number of professional football players (probably due to the Temple Wildcats' excessive awesomeness).
$88,800 is a steal anywhere. If you can telecommute, and would enjoy living in a small town on the edge of a large military reservation in Texas, go for it. I'd do it if I could get a decent bowl of pho down there.
This coming weekend - Saturday April 19 and Sunday April 20 - California Historical Design in Berkeley CA is having one of their annual 20% off sales. The shop is located at 2988 Adeline Street at Ashby; if coming north or south on I-80, simply exit at Ashby and go east to Adeline.
We specialize in vintage Stickley Mission Oak Arts & Crafts furniture, art pottery, copper and California paintings. We just got a collection of furniture and need to make room. Take 20% everything. Furniture by Gustav Stickley, L&JG Stickley, Stickley Brothers, Roycroft, Limbert, Lifetime, Shop of the Crafters, Harden, Michigan Chair Co, Globe-Wernicke and many others. Art pottery by Roseville, Weller, Gladding McBean, Catalina, Van Briggle, Clifton, Robertson, Jalan, California Faience, Peters & Reed, Stockton, Rookwood, Pacific, Marblehead, Bauer, Niloak & McCoy. Hammered metalwork by Roycroft, Dirk van Erp, Harry Dixon, Novick, Liberty & Co, Jauchens, Old Mission Kopperkraft, Ernest Burnley, Armin Hairenian, Benedict, Kalo, Randall, Mills & Burnley, The Copper Shop, Fred Brosi, Stickley Brothers, Nekrasoff, Craftsman Studios and Tiffany.
Thanks to Flickr user Mike Wade for the CC-licensed image.
A quick & dirty rundown of older Craftsman homes for sale all over California. Some believe this is the perfect time to buy, and others think that this is just the beginning of a much longer depression and that prices will fall much further. Still, I like looking at the pretty pictures:
Could you all do me a small favor and, in the comments below, list the shops you know of anywhere - in the US, Canada, the UK & elsewhere - that specialize in Arts & Crafts related items? I'm thinking of not only places like Ohmega in Berkeley, which sells both new and old shades, lighting, fixtures and hardware, but small furniture stores, art galleries that specialize in A&C tile and plein air painting, neighborhood antique dealers who have a good selection of A&C ceramics or wooden items. Bonus points if they are on the web.
update: reader Boe Miller offers us a list compiled over the past six months.
Rick Tauzer was Sacramento's best-kept secret for many years - a talented cabinetmaker and finish carpenter who built some of the prettiest custom furniture in town, and did gorgeous interior architecture for many years. He's retired to Oregon, but his pieces continue to grace some very pretty homes throughout our region.
Diane Ayers in Sacramento's Curtis Park neighborhood is selling her Tauzer piece, a very attractive tall and deep armoir modeled after a contemporary Stickley design. She won't ship it, but if you live near Sacramento and are looking for something like this, you certainly won't find a better deal; in my opinion, $2000 is a steal for such a nice-looking piece of furniture.
If you're interested, email Diane. If you'd like to see additional photos, she has some up here.
As usual, I've filtered out all the "Stickley era" labeled junk and other dishonest listings.
This very pretty and well-landscaped 2 bed / 1 ba Tudor is not far from my home in East Sacramento. Walking distance from McKinley Park and its very pretty library and community center, pond, tennis courts, sporting greens and picnic areas, the 1131 sq foot home (plus detached 1 car + workshop garage) includes a breakfast nook and formal dining, what look like original (and very well cared-for) tile counters, a pantry and some pretty built-ins, plus hardwood floors throughout. A modest and very attractive home in one of the area's nicest old neighborhoods.
We've got additional high-res images in this Flickr photo set.
Last week, reader Russell McLaren dropped us a line with the interesting information: the Greene & Greene designed 1906 Caroline DeForest House, at 530 West California in Pasadena, is for sale. The house includes a number of really stunning features, in addition to some wonderful landscaping, a pretty wisteria-encrusted pergola, and a running brook (which includes a small waterfall and a koi pond)
The Hollywood Reporter, of all publications, recently ran a short article by Denise Abbott on this home, calling it Greene & Greene's "most obscure" property, as it has been owned by the same family for more than 80 years. Originally built for a Manhattan socialite in 1906 for only $8,000 - "roughly eight times the going rate" - it was soon sold to the Tabor family, who have taken good care of it, avoiding the remodel fever that has befallen thousands of other beautiful bungalows over the years. Abbott, who we are quite jealous of, obviously got to spend a bit of time there and writes that the original lighting fixtures are all intact and that the wood finish is pristine and undamaged throughout. Since the article appeared in October 2007, the price seems to have dropped from $2,295,000 to the current asking price of $1,870,000.
Kudos for the current owners for seeing their residency in the home as stewardship, rather than remodeling any of the beautiful design elements, and here's to hoping that its future owners feel the same way about this stunning property.
From one listing:
The Caroline DeForest House, by famed architects Greene and Greene (one of the) least-altered, privately-owned homes of its kind, boasts unpainted woodwork throughout. Incredibly preserved & updated impeccably with the utmost integrity. Designated for the Mills Act = huge annual tax savings. Includes original light fixtures, built-ins, massive fireplaces, Port Orford cedar, Tiffany glass, lush Japanese gardens + app. plans for a pool + an 866 sf basement remodel. A truly stunning & private masterpiece.
Peter Martocchio - a long-time Greene & Greene fan who has
become one of the go-to agents for selling homes like this - has set up
a website with extensive photographs of this beautiful home. We've taken those photographs and constructed a Flickr set for you where you can see the highest-resolution versions individually or as a slideshow.
A beautiful and fully-furnished 1958 Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home on a 20-acre lakefront lot can be yours for $3,750,000. The price includes all the Wright-designed furnishings, the architect's drawings for three additional cottages that were initially planned to be built on the same site, and a very pretty twenty mostly-wooded acres.
Water comes from a well, electricity from the local municipal grid, and the 2 bed / 2 ba home - more a cottage in the Usonian style - is 1,875 square feet total. The listing includes many photographs of this unique home. With your generous donations, it could be the future home of Hewn & Hammered Publishing, Inc.
Intrepid New York reporter Jean Emery sends us the following:
To counteract the unattainable house lust brought on by that gorgeous house in Portland, this is a bungalow for sale for $145,000 in upstate New York – Greenwich, a tiny town (but with one or two good restaurants) about twenty minutes from Saratoga Springs. Outside is charming, inside less so; not a lot of A&C detail.
This is an especially attractive bungalow, with exposed rafter ends, interesting architectural detail all over the inside and out, and plenty of other neat features. Built in 1914, this 3,800 square foot, 5 bedroom / 2.5 bath home is spread out over three levels and includes a 2 car garage; the lot looks to be at least partially landscaped and is about double the size of the house.
Andrew Baker at the Oregon Realty Co. has all the details.
A few noteworth bits & pieces of Stickley for sale, new and old, throughout the country:
A few weeks ago, Rachel Myrow reported on NPR's Morning Edition that a company is giving bus tours - called "Repo Home Tours" - of foreclosed homes in Stockton, California. The tours are operated by a realtor to show groups of ballsy buyers the kinds of values that can be had in the foreclosure capitol of the USA. One in 27 Stockton households, according to Realtytrac, is either in the process of being foreclosed upon or has already lost their primary residence.
You too can own a pretty but very modest bungalow in California's wine country (map) for the bargain price of just under a million dollars. This 1,223 square foot brown shingle highwater has 2 bedrooms, one bathroom and sits on a 5,663 square foot lot. The gourmet kitchen is attractive, although the black cabinets are a little overdramatic and don't work all that well with the rest of the house. A full basement includes an (additional? not sure - the listing says only one bath, so maybe the primary is in the basement) bathroom, an office and a wine storage area.
Ohmega Too - near the similarly-named Omega Salvage on San Pablo Avenue near the Berkeley / Oakland border - is a treasure-trove of houseparts. Doors, medicine cabinets, a constantly-changing stock of restored antique bath fixtures and plenty of new hardware, they've got it all. But what they're really known for is lighting. The sheer immensity of their collection of shades at almost any size you can imagine will be a delight to any owner of an historic home; I dare you to go and not buy something.
I know people love these things. I do too ... I just don't have anywhere to fit more furniture in my house, especially not with the step tansu that I'd like to wedge into the living room somehow. Here are several I've found this week on Craigslists around the country:
west coast
midwest
east coast
south & southwest
Knoxville is a great town with some really terrific old neighborhoods, and for the most part, citizens who delight in historic preservation and are trying consistently to keep chains, strip-malls, big boxes and other detritus out of historic districts full of pretty old homes.
Knox Heritage is the most active of the city-wide architecture rejuvenation and conservation development companies, regularly buying old properties and cleaning them up for resale as part of their Vintage Homes Program. They also regularly offer neighborhood tours, raise money to preserve endangered properties and keep track of threatened structures throughout the region.
Metro Pulse, Knoxville's alt weekly, recently ran a note & listing for one such home that has to change hands due to an unfortunate job relocation - the owner, Amy Quimby (who knows old homes - she's an executive at Home & Garden Television) - is very sad to leave it, but she's got to move on to Denver.
The 2650 sq ft, 4 bed, 2.5 bath home - at 321 E. Oklahoma in Knoxville - is going for $289,000, and it's gorgeous inside and out.
For the bargain price of $275, this antique doorbell set can be yours. One in stock, available from Rejuvenation Hardware in Portland, Oregon; $22 shipping to the rest of the US.
I saw several similar in Nova Scotia where they are quite popular; they were all painted black, though.
I prefer to buy all the holiday gifts for my friends and family from local businesses and craftspeople, but it's not always possible: many recipients live far away, or need something very specific. And sometimes the online price, even with shipping, is far less than it is anywhere else - and I am not, by any means, wealthy. So there's that whole needing to make the house payment thing. Should you have backed yourself into a corner and need a few quick fixes this holiday season, there's plenty - whether you're buying for a local friend, your spouse, or a faraway family member - on Amazon:
furniture
lighting
tools & fixtures
books
and finally, for those who are either completely nuts, ridiculously rich or have a 30-foot entryway to light:
This is so much easier now that I can collect these listings automatically! As usual, I make no guarantees as to the authenticity of any of these items - be careful (and note that some items described as "Stickley era" or "Stickley style" do get through the filter - I try to remove them by hand but once in awhile leave the item in if I think it's nice enough or interesting):
Yes, the price is obscene. But the house is gorgeous. Beautifull restored kitchen & bath, great (small) backyard, lots of light and in one of Sacramento's three nicest neighborhoods, this Curtis Park bungalow can be yours for just a bit over a half million dollars:
Beautifully restored shingle Craftsman on idyllic West Curtis Park street. A large lot with 3 car garage and alley access - this home has been meticulously restored. The period appropriate kitchen renovation is complete with handmade shaker style cabinetry with inset doors and solid wood construction. The ’50s era Wedgewood stove is also restored, and the rest of the appliances, including a Bosch dishwasher, are completely integrated into the design of the kitchen. Soapstone countertops, a full pantry, and plenty of open shelving throughout. A central vacuum system makes cleaning a breeze!
3 bedrooms, 1 bath, approx. 1460 square feet. Newly refinished hardwood floors throughout, along with a new 30 year composition roof, new copper plumbing, restored original windows, automatic irrigation, new HVAC, and more!! There is a partial basement which is great for storage. The 3 car garage is currently set up for a woodworking shop- the garage door is for a 2 car garage, but there's plenty of extra space inside!!
Many custom touches including master bedroom with built-in maple closet cabinetry and pull-out ironing board- sliding barn doors for the closet too!
Front and backyards are completely landscaped, there's even an outdoor kitchen! Cook and dine outside next to the gentle sound of the koi pond waterfall. Much, Much, More... Call for more details!!
I'm the first to admit that I am not the handiest handyman. However, maybe it's a gender thing, but I love tools. All kinds of tools, gadgets, anything that will enable me to accidentally do more damage to my house while attempting to switch out a light fixture or thermostat or something else equally simple.
As we all know, it's important to have the right tools for the job, and in the interests of making sure you all have the right tools (as well as a jillion useful knicknacks that will come in handy on a regular basis), I've added a tool section to our Amazon Astore, replete with a coupla dozen near little doohickeys that you had no idea you needed - but now must have.
So, should another equally disaster-prone handyman or handywoman in your home require that special holiday gift, look no further.
So, obviously I've become a bit addicted to Yahoo Pipes. This free tool lets you aggregate, organize, and filter data from an unlimited number of RSS feeds and databases and present it in almost any kind of electronic form you can imagine.
I've found a really good use for it, one which is - amazingly - missing from the vast majority of real estate listing sites. Redfin, Zillow, Realtor.com and all the others: you are really letting the entire industry down by not having raw MLS data available as an RSS feed! I just could not believe that in an age when so many of us get our data on mobile devices and from feed readers that these firms wouldn't have easily-configurable custom RSS feeds of their listings, but sure enough they don't. Ziprealty is one of the very few to have such a useful feature, and more power to them for it.
Using Ziprealty's listings, house-for-sale posts on Craigslists in a dozen markets and a few other small sites here and there, I've created a Yahoo Pipe that includes only listings self-described as "Craftsman," "Mission," "Prairie," or "bungalow." Now, if I can only figure out how to include photos of each property...
If you are an agent, a broker or an MLS firm, please publish your data as a configurable / custom RSS feed. This way, searches that could take hours can be finished in just a minute or two, and users don't need to revisit the sites every single day - using a service like feedburner or one of the many rss-to-email services, we can be notified only when our search criteria pop up in a market we are interested in, in our price range.
And if you know of any listings services that do issue their data as an RSS feed, please share that info in the comments section below - I'd love to add them to the pipe. Also, let me know if you'd like me to include other cities' Craigslist posts, I can do that pretty easily.
If this tool is useful to you and if you think other folks might find it interesting, please digg it:
I got over a dozen emails from those of you who found our Stickley-on-Craigslist aggregator (a page that lists all the Stickley items for sale in 15 major American cities' Craigslists, filtered for those that include photographs), so I not only wanted to remind those of you who may be shopping for a major holiday gift for your Craftsman furniture loving spouse, but also to introduce something new...
I've made variants of the same pipe for a few other search terms. Remember to bookmark this page, as these aggregators will always show the most recent entries for these terms, whether you check them today or next year:
And remember, if you use Firefox or Safari (now available for Windows, too!) or another browser that lets you use live bookmarks, you can simply drag the rss feed right into your menu bar - or add it to your favorite newsreader or start page.
Also, while I was playing around with Yahoo Pipes, I created a news aggregator - similar to Google News, but this one not only pulls in news stories, it also illustrates them with new and hopefully related photographs from Flickr:
Plenty of interesting furniture, metalwork, glass & more on Ebay this month, with more than the usual number of small gift items available:
There are plenty of reasons to buy only handmade gifts this holiday season, chief among them that handmade objects have more soul & personality than even the finest machine-made mass-produced goods. Of course, there are also environmental and social reasons: money stays in the craftperson's community, and doesn't (as often) go into the coffers of WalTargetMartEtc. or another international conglomerate that cares not at all about its customers or the quality of the products it sells. From buyhandmade.com:
Buying Handmade makes for better gift-giving.
The giver of a handmade gift has avoided the parking lots and long lines of the big chain stores in favor of something more meaningful. If the giver has purchased the gift, s/he feels the satisfaction of supporting an artist or crafter directly. The recipient of the handmade gift receives something that is one-of-a-kind, and made with care and attention that can be seen and touched. It is the result of skill and craftsmanship that is absent in the world of large-scale manufacturing.
Buying handmade is better for people.
The ascendancy of chain store culture and global manufacturing has left us dressing, furnishing, and decorating alike. We are encouraged to be consumers, not producers, of our own culture. Our ties to the local and human sources of our goods have been lost. Buying handmade helps us reconnect.
Buying handmade is better for the environment.
The accumulating environmental effects of mass production are a major cause of global warming and the poisoning of our air, water and soil. Every item you make or purchase from a small-scale independent artist or crafter strikes a small blow to the forces of mass production.
There are plenty of ways to do this. Visit one of the many hundreds of folks selling their wares on etsy.com, for instance, or your local artists' guild, or contact a local community or technical college and find out who your neighborhood's cabinetmakers and furniture carpenters are. Either way, down with plastic and up with real gifts!
In the venn diagram of life, there is a small intersection between Frankie Goes to Hollywood Fans and aficionados of Craftsman design. This shirt is for those people - or, really, anyone who likes to sit in a comfy chair. Also, please let me know if you'd like to see it in other colors (the artwork, the text or the shirt) - I can indeed accommodate you. The shirts are quite affordable and are now available from my new Bountee store, and other designs are coming (and I'm always looking for suggestions, too).
Some of you may be familiar with RSS ("really simple syndication") - a way to publish "feeds" of regularly-changing information. Using Yahoo's Pipes application, I've just made an RSS feed of Craigslist searches - in this case, 15 Craigslist city sites are searched for the term "Stickley," and those without images are filtered out. You may view the feed here - I hope it's useful. In the future, I'll build a full page of such searches, an Arts & Crafts furniture-for-sale aggregator for most American cities.
The 300 square foot, 1 bed / 1 bath "bungalow" at 128 Day Ave. in Toronto is that city's smallest house, and at $600 per square foot, quite a bit over the average for the neighborhood. It's also currently for sale at the price of $179,900. The lot itself is 824 square feet, and includes two parking spots in back (front-to-back, one would assume). If you want a really small house, though, you have plenty of other options.
This month, there are more knicknacks than you can shake even the fanciest stick at over on the mother of all online auction sites. The following aren't necessarily excellent deals, but everything here is at least interesting.
As usual, I'm avoiding everything labeled misleadingly (i.e., "Roycroft era," "Stickley style," "maybe Stickley?," etc. ... I'll have plenty more up next week and the week after.
