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FLW Cottages vs. Hurricane Katrina

book review: Beyond the Bungalow

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Beyond the Bungalow: Grand Homes in the Arts and Crafts Tradition, Gibbs Smith, 2005.      

Paul Duchscherer's latest foray into bungalowbilia doesn't really deal with bungalows at all.  His Beyond the Bungalow (brightly photographed by Linda Svendsen), on the heels of his earlier The Bungalow (1995), Inside the Bungalow  (1997), and Outside the Bungalow (1999), examines, as its subtitle explains, grand homes in the Arts and Crafts tradition. An effort at nomenclature as well as explanation, this latest volume classifies and describes those larger-than-bungalow homes that share, in their design principles and philosophy, at least a family resemblance to the, if you will, basic bungalow.

While some might question denying big homes the bungalow rubric (Duchscherer recognizes the problem given the majestic Greene and Greene "ultimate bungalows"), he makes a strong case for recognizing separately the relevance and beauty of those two and three-story large footprint houses of the 1900-1930 era that so impressively remind us of the best of American pre-Depression residential architecture. His typology of the big home is fourpart - The American Foursquare, The Rustic Home, Craftsman (which he describes as classic Arts and Crafts), and Craftsman Crossovers, with its own nine subcategories: Swiss Chalet, Oriental Style, Prairie, Shingle, Colonial Revival, Mission, Spanish Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and English Cottage Style. Each type is described generically and illustrated with exemplar cases.

The book, certainly a handsome volume, is saddled with an unfortunately undersized type, and a rather abrupt ending. A useful list of open-to-the public historic homes is appended.

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