pictured: the Brewery Gulch Inn in Mencodino, CA

A recent thread at American Bungalow's online forums gives very truncated run-down of Craftsman-style hotels throughout the United States; I've started there and added a number of others. Take a look at the list below, and add any of your personal favorites by commenting on this entry.

The Grove Park Inn Resort & Spa sits on a ridge in the mountains above Asheville, NC.

The Black Dog Inn B&B is in Estest Park CO. The Pitcher Inn, in Warren VT.

The Brewery Gulch Inn is located along California's beautiful North Coast in Medocino, CA.

The Lodge at Torrey Pines, near San Diego CA, site right aside the famous golf course.

There are a number of pleasant very pleasant Spanish-revival and Mission style B&Bs and hotels on Catalina Island, off the coast of Long Beach, CA; The Avalon Hotel is the ritziest of the new development on the hill up above the bay.

The historic Hotel Pattee is in Perry, IA.

The Hotel Elliott in Astoria WA has recently been completely refinished.

The Cooney Mansion Inn is located in Cosmopolis WA, just a bit north from Astoria.

The Settlers Inn B&B is in the heart of the Pocono Mountains of PA.

Dickens House B&B is located in St. Petersburg, FL.

Alexander's Inn B&B is located in Santa Fe, NM.

The Amber House B&B is just down the street from me, here in Sacramento, CA.

The very pretty villas at El Encanto, in Santa Barbara CA, are a sort of Craftsman-cottage / Spanish Colonial revival style; also in Santa Barbara is The Pierpont Inn.

The Eureka Street Inn is located in Sutter Creek, in the heart of California's old Gold Country.

Rhythm of the Sea is a small B&B on the beach in Cape May, NJ.

Disney's opulent Grand Californian Hotel in Anaheim CA is Craftsman in appearance and, unfortunately, anti-craftsman in reality.

RiverPlace, in Portland OR, is another huge quasi-boutique hotel whose management, like that of the Grand Californian, believes that to decorate in a vaguely Craftsman style somehow authenticates a very non-Craftsman experience.

new additions: reader Merideth of Housemade suggests the Gaslight Inn in Seattle. Thanks, Merideth!

Just got this press release in my inbox. If any of you go, please send me photographs! And remember, the Frank Lloyd Wright home & studio is in River Forest, too, so you could easily make a nice weekend out of this:

Elaine Ellis' firm, Arts & Crafts Tours, produces specialy-crafted tours - led by world-renowned experts in the field - of private homes, gardens, exhibitions, collections and sites important to the Arts & Crafts Movement. Currently in development are a few tours of the United States, specifically to Cranbrook and in the New York City region, to visit work by the architecture Bertram Goodhue.

Arts & Crafts Tours offers highly individualized tours to sites and countries where the best of this work still exists and where new work is being created. We look at the past to help us understand the present - and we would like to have you join us. Take a short virtual tour through our site and then we hope you’ll take a real tour.

While most of our programs are offered through museums, art, craft and architectural organizations and institutions, we are always happy to prepare an itinerary for individual travelers and we are happy to work with small groups (6 - 12 people) to plan and arrange tours specifically designed to satisfy specific interests.

Last month, the New York Times Dining & Wine section began a series called "Coast to Coast: Restaurants That Count." #9 on the list is Seattle's Tilth, of which dining critic Frank Bruni writes:

Did I let in a draft? Should I take off my shoes?

As I stepped into Tilth, I felt as if I were dropping by somebody’s home, not entering a restaurant.

There’s no proper vestibule, no host stand. And the tables — for only 40 diners — are squished together in two downstairs rooms of a Craftsman-style bungalow with a humble fireplace in which squat, fat candles flicker.

That’s a big part of what distinguishes and recommends this sweet, sweet restaurant, but Tilth, whose name refers to tilled earth, also boasts an organic certification — from the exacting Oregon Tilth association.

That doesn’t mean that everything Tilth serves is organic, because wild fish and foraged mushrooms, for example, aren’t eligible for such designation. But the restaurant is consistently finicky about its suppliers, and that was abundantly clear in meaty, juicy, snowy slices of albacore tuna, pan-seared, oil-glossed and served with celery root in various forms: a purée, crisp wedges like French fries.

Above right photograph by Stuart Islett. Visit the Tilth Blog.

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.

Given that the New York Times recently opened up their archives, I've been spending lots of time looking for interesting A&C related articles. Just found this gem by Barbara Lazear Ascher, dated September 2002. The first few paragraphs are below; visit the NYTimes site to see the full article.

I'm driving down a twisting, clinker-brick driveway banked by boulders, wildflowers and rare Torrey pines. Ahead is a green-stained, cedar-shingled building, which from my East Coast perspective resembles an Adirondack lodge. Then I am reminded of Frank Lloyd Wright's prairie houses with their celebration of the horizontal line. An outward sweep of unpainted, broad roof overhangs, projecting outriggers, and rafter tails appear to dance with the light.

This isn't Surfin' Safari, Southern California. John Ruskin, William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh have come to La Jolla.

I'd heard about the recently opened Lodge at Torrey Pines from my stepdaughter in San Diego. Tucked between the Pacific Ocean and Torrey Pines State Reserve by the 18th green of the South Course of the famed Torrey Pines Golf Course, the hotel is a result of its owner William Evans's love affair with California's Arts and Crafts Movement.

I'm curious how a hotelier in the Era of Asphalt will interpret the movement's reverence for nature and craftsmanship. How will he tip his hat to Ruskin, whose espousal of the meditative and redemptive qualities of crafting and living in beautiful surroundings inspired the movement in England? And how is it possible to integrate into a 175-room hotel the intimate details of Mr. Evans's inspiration, the 1907 Blacker and 1908 Gamble Houses designed by his idols, the Pasadena architects Charles and Henry Greene?

I drive beneath the port-cochere composed of massive timbers stacked horizontally on one another like a bird's wing feathers, which impart an ironic sense of lightness, as though the entire lodge could be carried skyward on these outstretched wings.

photo of the Torrey Pines Lodge courtesy of Flickr user John Koss

A recent article by Ellen Tomson in Minneapolis' Pioneer Press describes local historian and author Larry Millett's research and subsequent book on Minneapolis' historic neighborhoods. excerpt:

Larry Millett biked the streets of St. Paul and Minneapolis for three summers to produce his latest book, (the) AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, the first major neighborhood-by-neighborhood handbook of its kind.

But the foundation of his 665-page book was decades of research and writing about the Twin Cities, first as a Pioneer Press reporter, columnist and critic, and then as author of Lost Twin Cities, Twin Cities Then and Now, and Strange Days, Dangerous Nights, all which focused on local structures and events.

"The book is the result of three years of work and, in a sense, it's the work of a lifetime since I've worked here all my life," says Millett, 59, who grew up in North Minneapolis and has spent much of his adult life in St. Paul.

I posted this over at Urban Cartography, but thought some people here might be interested too, especially since my test use of this new technology will be to make a map showing the locations and some background data on all still-existing Greene & Greene properties here in California.

I was all excited to learn that Google is now allowing user-created data in custom maps. This is great! However, when I went to go play with it, I learned the current implementation - which in most ways is an alpha release - is missing 90% of what could make it useful. Such as:

• the ability to import, not just export, addresses. I want to make a canonical map of all currently existing properties by the late great architects Greene & Greene; this is not very easy by hand-entering every single one. However, if I could import tab-delimited text, I could have the full list of 200 up in a few minutes!
• the ability to display multiple maps at once - on top of each other (i.e., LAYERS). this would make google maps a useful tool for data analysis: you could display maps of different data layers at once, but what would make this feature REALLY shine would be...
• the ability to pipe in data from online databases. if you combined #1 with the ability to bring data in from online databases, not just uploaded text files, you could use this with the ability to see different layers at once to see real causality - that is, you could see how income, for example, and property values, tax base, parks, etc. all interact. It would be a really democratic tool - the ability, for example, to see if public works projects actually happen in poor neighborhoods as they do in rich, or to see what zipcodes public university admissions come from (if that data were available), or to see what area codes had the most telemarketer calls originating, etc. In fact, this would turn Google Maps into the ultimate social researcher's dream tool - the killer app that sociologists, activists, criminologists and others have been waiting for.

Just a few (big) suggestions for the Google Maps folks to think about...

The Vagabond Traveler is a charming and entertaining tag-along on one person's trips through Europe and elsewhere - it might be less polished than a fancy travel-blog site, but it more than makes up in personality what it lacks in bells & whistles.

Welcome to Vagabond Traveler. This web site has come about as an organization of thoughts and experiences from traveling through Europe numerous times. The site started out as bits and pieces of information that was once kept on a little 486 linux box when I was an undergraduate in college. Over time, as my travels brought me back to Europe time and time again more information was added and the site expanded.

What brings it to Hewn & Hammered, however, is the Vagabond Traveler's interests in Arts & Crafts architecture and photography. Strolls through Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland are documented with many photographs of some really striking Arts & Crafts and Tudor homes, including an early residence of Bernard Maybeck and that architect's stunning Temple of the Winds. Also well-covered is the UC Berkeley campus, which is full of some of the state's best examples of Beaux Arts, Italian Revival and similar turn-of-the-century Mediterranean styles. And should you wish to take an architectural tour of Berkeley, home hometown and one of my favorite places in the world, the author includes a helpful and extensive FAQ for visitors.

The New York Times' weekly 36 Hours features are capsule city guides, often with lots of attention to historic architecture. Some recent guides that may be of interest to aficionados of the Arts & Crafts movement:

• 36 Hours in Syracuse NY, by Hart Seely: not only does much of Syracuse's historic civic architecture reflect the movement, but their Everson Museum of Art contains a large room devoted to local resident Gustav Stickley and his furniture.
• 36 Hours in Guthrie OK, by Kathleen Leighton: An attractive and often-overlooked prairie town, with a downtown that is in its entirety a National Historic Landmark. Take the First Capitol trolley on a tour of "downtown brickwork and houses in Victorian, Craftsman, Prairie, Bungalow and Colonial Revival styles."
• 36 Hours in Nashville TN, by Taylor Holliday: Certainly one of the most hospitable cities in the country, "the Athens of the South" is chock-full of neat restored and well-maintained Craftsman homes, including several that have entered a second life as bed & breakfasts - like The Cat's Pajamas, a 1918 downtown bungalow with three large guestrooms to let. And don't forget to stop at Hatch Show Print, one of the greatest letterpress poster shops in the country, still cranking out vibrant, colorful work under manager and master printer Jim Sherraden, who I once studied under.

Other Times travel features that may be of special interest include:

• Road Trip, Route 20 through New York State: Bouckville and its art galleries and Craftsman frame houses, and of course East Aurora and the Roycroft Campus and inn are worthy of a visit, and this is a particularly pretty drive in autumn.
• Mining Aura Inside a Mountain: Ann Crittenden visits the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC, home of the world's largest annual Arts & Crafts festival and conference.
• The Quirky Heart of the East Bay: Megan Harlan explores Berkeley and Oakland, stopping at the Claremont Hotel (which she relays Frank Lloyd Wright's report of being "one of the few hotels in the world with warmth, character and charm"), has a meal at Chez Panisse, one of the finest restaurants in the country and perhaps the world (situated, in fact, in a beautifully restored Craftsman bungalow which my father lived in - when it was a roominghouse, many years ago - as a UC Berkeley undergrad), and wanders some of my favorite neighborhoods and places I frequented as a child.

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!

When it comes to Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture nothing takes the place of visiting in person and experiencing his environments first hand. I will never forget the first time I visited Fallingwater after years of studying photos and models. It's the scale of the buildings that is most striking. I maintain that any Wright building you have seen in pictures is about 60% the size you think it is.

Many communities throughout the Bay Area hold an "open studio" weekend (or week, or, in the case of this month-long 29th annual event in San Francisco, month!), where a large number of artists - sometimes hundreds - open their workspaces to visitors. This is a great way to discover new artists and designers, and to find wonderful work at low prices. This year's event in San Francisco will take place from 11 am to 6 pm every Saturday and Sunday throughout the month of October at more than 800 studios across the city; each weekend a new neighborhood of studios will open its doors to visitors, culminating with the huge number of open studios at the now-decommissioned Hunters' Point Naval Shipyard.

pictured: Vince Meyer's Japanese-influenced tables

Christine Mladic's wonderful photoessay on Chicago bungalows was originally produced for Sixosix, a lifestyle magazine devoted to all things Chicagoan.

Auctions have come a long way in the last few years. Treadway & Toomey, one of the largest of the antiques auction houses to specialize in American Arts & Crafts, has one of their largest auctions of the year coming up on September 12 at their gallery in Oak Park. The online portion of the auction is presented using technology from icollector.com and will occur live on Ebay. Over 1000 lots of furniture, artwork and other decorative items will be sold, and you can preview the lots online. As at any Treadway & Toomey auction, there are some really gorgeous items up for sale.

If you live in the Northwest, try to visit this year's Bungalow & Craftsman Home Show. A huge number of vendors have already booked space at the 2004 event, to be held the weekend of September 25/26, and it promises to be a good time for anyone interested in Craftsman style or contemplating the restoration of an older home. I think there are a number of other cities that would benefit from an event like this - specifically one organized by a public agency or non-profit. The Seattle show is produced by the City of Seattle's own Historic Seattle organization and their Arts & Crafts Guild.