Recent Articles From The Craftsman Bungalow
Recently I had the good fortune of traveling to Los Angeles for business, and while there I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream – making a pilgrimage to “The Ultimate Bungalow”: The Gamble House in Pasadena, California. Designed in 1908 by the architectural firm of brothers Charles and Henry Greene, The Gamble House embodies...
The bungalow that we’re currently restoring is actually the second bungalow restoration that we’ve undertaken. Our first was a 1927 English Cottage style bungalow, also in Portland. Below is a picture of the finished kitchen… The house was in overall good condition, and while the kitchen was functional, it was rather tired looking and in need...
When Phillip Myer of Ragsdale Home Furnishings built his first table lamp way back in junior high school, he never imagined that one day, he’d be doing it for a living. But in 1999, more than 25 years after building that first fateful lamp, Phil quit his job in the high-tech electronics industry and embarked...
Those of you who are fans of J.R.R. Tolkein and his work may recognize some of the images below from the Lord of the Rings films and most recently, The Hobbit. Tolkien grew up in rural Western England around the turn of the last century, and his writings were heavily influenced by the romantic prose...
This year the Architectural Heritage Center expanded their Annual Kitchen Revival Tour beyond just kitchens to showcase entire homes, and re-named the tour the Portland Old House Revival Tour. I’ve covered this tour for the past three years, and now in its 16th year overall, the tour never disappoints. In case you missed it, here...
Perhaps it was serendipitous that a internationally recognized horticulturist would end up living in a home that once belonged to a descendant of John Olmsted, the prominent landscape architect who designed countless parks and public spaces across the country. But that’s exactly what happened. First moving to the property as a renter in 1995, Sean...
The Mission Hills neighborhood of San Diego, California has long been a bastion of early 20th century homes, with nearly all of era’s requisite architectural styles well-represented. From compact single-story bungalows to expansive Spanish haciendas – and everything in between – Mission Hills exhibits the same architectural prowess today as it did when it was...
As far back as he can remember, Brett Johnson owner of Craftsmen Studio has always been a do-it-yourself kind of person. Growing up in rural Missouri, he got his start helping family members with building and remodeling projects, and eventually went out on his own – doing everything from carpentry to masonry. At the age...
UPDATE: You voted and the results are in! In a closely contested race, “A Resurrection in New Orleans: Restored Bungalows of the 9th Ward” emerged as YOUR favorite article of 2013. Thank you to everyone who voted! As I did last year, I thought it would be fun to countdown our Top 5...
Frank Lloyd Wright designed well over 1,000 homes and buildings throughout his illustrious career, but only one of those structures was built in the State of Oregon: The Gordon House. Commissioned by Conrad and Evelyn Gordon, the 88-year-old Wright designed the home in his Usonian style in 1957 for the couple’s sprawling farmland acreage that...
This past weekend was the Architectural Heritage Center’s Annual Kitchen Revival Tour. Now in its 14th year, the tour showcases the efforts of Portland homeowners who have restored their home’s kitchens to its original glory. Most of the homes featured were professional restored by local contractors who concentrate on period homes, however one home’s kitchen...
I was fortunate to recently travel to Hawaii for business and while looking for a place to stay – away from the hustle and bustle of tourist-packed Waikiki – I was thrilled when I came across the beautiful Manoa Valley Inn. Originally built in 1915 by an Iowa lumber baron named Milton Moore, the house...
If you haven’t had the opportunity to see an authentic Greene & Greene-designed home up close, then a visit to The Lodge at Torrey Pines might be the next best thing. Taking its design cues from two of the Greenes’ most iconic “ultimate bungalows,” The Blacker House (1907) and The Gamble House (1908), both in Pasadena, the...
This April, the Architectural Heritage Center in Portland hosted its 15th Annual Kitchen Revival Tour. Last year was the first time I attended the tour, and I was hooked after the very first home I visited. This year’s tour was just as good and featured noteworthy kitchens of several early 1900’s bungalows. All of the...
In my previous post, A Pilgrimage to The Gamble House: Part I, I walked you through the many breathtaking vantage points that abound on the exterior of The Gamble House. While the exterior of the house is spectacular – with its incongruity often highlighted and celebrated – it is gracefully contrasted by the interior’s rigorous...
The Fall 2014 issue of American Bungalow magazine is out now, and my article about the restoration of the Bernard Maybeck-designed George H. Boke House (below) can be found on page 28. There are actually two articles about the house in the issue, one by Arts & Crafts historian and scholar, Robert Winter, who focuses...
For a time, the Ross House was known by everyone who lived near it as simply “The Purple House.” It had lilac trim on the windows, and there was an odd purple-ish addition that had been added to the front. It was an authentic Frank Lloyd Wright house, built in 1916, but its current state...
William Randolph Hearst was a wealthy businessman who inherited a family fortune as a young man and expanded it into a vast newspaper and magazine publishing empire during his adult life. In 1919, he inherited his family’s 250,000 acre retreat property in San Simeon on the Central California Coast and aspired to build a vast...
I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on the year and wish all of you Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas! The Craftsman Bungalow was launched back in 2011, and hopefully all of you have been enjoying reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. Every new year promises to be...
Recently I wrote about Frank Lloyd Wright’s magnificent Darwin D. Martin House in Buffalo, NY. Earlier this summer I was able to return to Buffalo and had an opportunity to tour the lakefront home that Darwin Martin had built for his wife, Isabelle. In the twenty-some years that followed Wright’s design and construction of their...
The Architectural Heritage Center’s Portland Kitchen Revival Tour is one of my favorite days of the year, and 16th annual edition was again full of beautiful homes, whose kitchen – and in most cases much more – have been impeccably restored to reflect the home’s original period design. This is my third year covering the...
The Summer 2018 Issue #96 of American Bungalow magazine has just come out, and it includes an article that I wrote and photographed about a couple’s restoration of a historic bungalow in Eugene, Oregon. The article, titled “Serendipity In A University Town,” (which can be found on Page 18 of the issue) tells the story of Sherrill and...
A couple weeks ago my wife and I traveled down to attend a friend’s wedding in Cayucos, California – a quaint little beach town about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. When we started looking at flights a few months back, we realized that in order to get to Cayucos from Portland, we’d have...
When Frederick Robie commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design a home for him and his growing family in 1908, neither man knew that the home’s iconic design would become the celebrated jewel that it is today. Considered by many architectural scholars to be one of the most influential and important residential designs of the 20th...
With all of the traveling I’ve been doing for work recently, I haven’t had much time to write about some of the other things we’ve done to the house since we’ve moved in. If you remember my earlier post entitled Peeling Back The Layers, you’ll recall that the whole first floor had wall-to-wall carpeting and...
With all of the basic stuff done at our new house, the focus has shifted to the big stuff. Our wishlist started with just remodeling the kitchen and bathrooms and building a new garage, but has quickly ballooned to include adding on a new master suite above the garage, as well as adding a second...
Frank Lloyd Wright grew up in the Upper Midwest and honed his skills as an apprentice with the prestigious Chicago architectural firm of Adler & Sullivan in the 1890’s, before branching out on his own. At the turn of the 20th century, Wright had completed over 50 projects and began to develop his groundbreaking “Prairie...
Somewhere near the intersection of rustic charm and stately elegance is a place where natural beauty and cooperative humanity walk hand-in-hand. Nestled a few thousand feet beneath the rugged 11,249 foot peak of Oregon’s Mount Hood, the iconic Timberline Lodge has been welcoming weary hikers, giddy newly-weds – and everything in between – for over...
San Francisco is well known for its abundance of elegant Victorian architecture, but tucked away among the tens of thousands of Victorians, there exists a small enclave full of hundreds of charming bungalows. Westwood Park, located just south of Mount Davidson, was originally a grove of tall eucalyptus trees – part of an old Mexican...
Each February, the eyes of the Arts & Crafts community are focused on Asheville, North Carolina, and the upcoming 2020 edition marks the 33rd year of the National Arts & Crafts Conference at the Grove Park Inn. “It’s been a perfect match,” explains founder and author Bruce Johnson, himself an Arts & Crafts collector and...
