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| This is the entrance court to a
beautiful vacation home in the middle of Virginia on a man-made
lake. The shot on the right from the fire pit under construction
gives you a good idea of the majestic beauty of the property and the area
in general. I met these clients after a talk I gave at the Arts
& Crafts convention in Asheville NC at the Grove Park Inn. They
showed me the plans for the house that was just under construction, and
asked if I had any thoughts, since they were rightly feeling a little
uneasy about the details that the architect, not an Arts & Crafts
specialist, had developed for them. I told them the entire scheme
lacked cohesiveness and continuity, and that there was a disconnect among
the various elements, sort of like someone had put post-it notes on pages
of an Arts & Crafts picture book, and then set about fitting those
images into the floor plan where they might fall. I asked them a
little bit about themselves, and it turned out that the husband had grown
up in Pasadena, near the Gamble house, and that they met in college
there. I suggested that a logical source of inspiration for them,
given their history and the exterior of the house, which was already 3/4
shingled, would be the architecture of the Greene brothers. After
thinking a minute, the husband remembered that one of his childhood
friends had grown up in a Greene & Green house! The program for
the project, at this point, seemed inevitable. |
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| These are two views of the front
door, clearly inspired by the Gamble house. The glasswork was done
by a local woman, a real artisan, who had not heard of the Greenes before,
but examined the photos we brought with the eye of an artist, and quickly
understood the challenges and techniques needed to create what you see on
the right. The clients and I spent several hours picking through
boxes of glass to individually choose each piece, which was tedious but
worth it in the end. |
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| On the left is a view of the
double-height great room, at the center of the house, which overlooks the
lake. As you can see, the basic structure of the house is typical
stud and drywall identical to any modern house. On the right is what
we did with the "trim." One of the well-kept secrets of
Arts & Crafts architecture is that many of the seemingly-structural
elements are actually applied woodwork, hollow box beams being the most prevalent
example. This may not be the case in all the Greene & Greene houses,
but I have certainly seen my share of them here in the Midwest. In
any case, for our purposes constructing all this structure after the fact
was the only way possible, since the house had already been framed and
drywall started. For the most part, all the interior rooms, volumes
and openings had been determined, and there was reluctance to go back and
make wholesale changes. The challenge was to infuse the Greene
spirit as deeply into the bones of the house without tearing it down and
starting over. The first choice I made was to recommend the use of
poplar in place of mahogany, a cost saving measure that would allow us to
do more elaborate work by saving money on materials. Using analine
dyes instead of stain made the poplar glow like mahogany, and the talented
woodworker who did most of the carpentry was invaluable in achieving a
look that was far beyond the expectations of the material. |
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| This is a view of the inglenook
fireplace with the custom tile work and rug that we had done for the
space. The carpet, by GuildCraft, is based on the design for the
Gamble house, but took inspiration from an original watercolor for the
palette, rather than the finished rugs that are in the house now, which
may have altered over time in color, or been changed at the last minute
from mostly greens and blues to mostly yellows, browns and golds.
The tile work was done by one of my sources locally and then installed in
Virginia by one of the many craftsmen that the husband found who, once
introduced to the house and the Greenes' work, became dedicated to giving
their very best efforts. The picture in the center shows a view from
the inglenook bench back towards the staircase and the front door and
entry hall. A language of trim dimensions and heights had to be
developed in order to achieve the unity and consistency that characterizes
Arts & Crafts interiors, but it was made more difficult than usual
because, as I have said, the framing was pretty much in place
already. The picture on the right will be familiar to anyone who has
built or walked through a house under construction - the basic builder's
staircase. |
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| Since I was working mostly
long-distance on this project, with just a few brief visits, most of the
design work had to be done in sketches and then faxed or emailed. On
the left is the sketch I made for the staircase, which was then translated
on site into the picture you see in the middle. Luckily, we had a
great team of carpenters, and the husband himself became so involved in
the process, and was there every day all day to oversee the details of
construction and all the field decisions that get made on any project,
much more so a project as involved as this, that it would have been
impossible to achieve this high level of results any other way. Many
of my days for nearly a year and a half began and ended with 2 hour conversations on
the phone making decisions about what was coming up, or analyzing what had just been done. |
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| Here is my sketch for the
kitchen, and two views of the actual room, one in progress, and the other
finished. It is really fun for me to see this kind of comparison,
and how closely the results often mirror the initial concept sketch. |
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| These are two views of the small
and cozy library, with the walls completely covered in poplar and aniline
dyed to match the rest of the house. Unfortunately, the picture was
taken before the soft blue tiles were put in the fireplace surround.
Notice how well the lead carpenter, a genius with wood, understood the
vocabulary of the Greenes' joinery and woodwork detailing. It would
have been impossible without his dedication, commitment tot the project
and high level of skill. |
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