Recent Articles From The Craftsman Bungalow
Portland, Oregon is full of old homes of all shapes, sizes and styles, and the Eastside neighborhood of Laurelhurst has been considered a microcosm of such homes since its inception in the early 1900’s. One of the gems of the neighborhood – if not the entire city – is The H. Russell Albee House which...
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...
If you’ve ever sought the perfect antique or architectural element for your home or business, then you probably know just how exhausting a search like that can be. On a recent trip to Western Pennsylvania, I stumbled upon one such place where all those hard-to-find items can be found – neatly organized, and all under...
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...
A couple of years ago, I heard about a home tour on the western slopes of Oregon’s Mount Hood that celebrated the work of a family of craftsmen who single-handedly built as many as 100 of the Pacific Northwest’s finest examples of authentic log cabins. Naturally, my interest was piqued, and since the weekend of...
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...
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...
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...
Looking back on the inaugural year of The Craftsman Bungalow, I thought it would be fun to countdown our Top 5 most popular articles from 2012. This year I was able to travel quite a bit and visit architectural landmarks in many history-rich areas of the country like: Upstate New York, Southern California, the San...
This article is the continuation of Timberline Lodge: The Quintessential American Alpine Lodge, Part One, in which I explored the lodge’s genesis and its historically fast construction which took place over the course of 15 months in 1936-37. Now I’ll take you inside this storied lodge on a personal tour through its hallowed halls… As...
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...
In the Spring 2017 Issue #94 of American Bungalow magazine, I contributed an article about a Greene & Greene home that was designed in 1906, but for reasons still not known today, was ultimately never built by the Greenes. Almost 100 years later, an ambitious builder, fueled by his love for authentic craftsman architecture, acquired...
This is a great article by Patricia Poore that defines the traditional hallmarks and characteristics of craftsman bungalow homes. It goes into specifics about interior and exterior design influences and the materials and construction details that distinguish the bungalow aesthetic from other architectural styles. I have re-posted the opening of the article – to read...
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...
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...
The Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York have long been recognized for their rugged wilderness and unspoiled natural wonder. There’s a peaceful sense of timelessness here – a feeling of quiet isolation that hearkens back to those early rustic days when frontiersmen settled here and built their cabins from the fabric of the land itself. ...
Everyone remembers the heart-wrenching and tragic photos of Hurricane Katrina’s cataclysmic effect on New Orleans in 2005. In the eight years since that calamitous storm, you may have moved on with your life and forgotten just how devastating the damage was, but the people of New Orleans, and especially those who live in the 9th...
Known as “San Diego’s First Citizen,” George W. Marston (1850-1946) was a successful self-made businessman, civic leader and philanthropist, who, among other things, played a pivotal role in the early development of the city’s wildly popular park system and public library, often spending considerable amounts of his own personal wealth to do so. In 1904,...
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...
With its rich history and sunny Mediterranean climate, Santa Barbara has been an immensely popular destination since being settled by Spanish Missionaries in the late 1700′s. Following its annexation by the United States in 1846 after the Mexican-American War, Santa Barbara quickly expanded. Through the mid and late 1800′s, the city was home to countless...
The William T. Bolton House in Pasadena, California is a prime example of Charles and Henry Greene’s early emerging California Arts & Crafts aesthetic. Taking its name from the prominent physician who commissioned it in 1906, the home predates Greene & Greene’s larger commissions – including the Gamble and Blacker houses – and introduces several more...
Last weekend my brother was in town visiting from the East Coast and we braved the rain and headed down to Silver Falls State Park located about an hour and a half south of Portland near the town of Sublimity, Oregon. Designated as a Recreational Demonstration Area by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, the...
Filmmaker Joaquin Montalvan always knew he wanted to live in a bungalow – even before he knew what a bungalow was. Growing up, he had lived in a Spanish Mission style home with a welcoming front porch, hardwood floors and a fireplace that his family frequently used. Those three features were ingrained in his mind...
When photographer Jett Loe came to Los Angeles in 2012 in search of a home for he and his wife, he was amazed at what he found – hiding in plain sight. Almost by accident, Loe stumbled upon West Adams, a once forgotten central Los Angeles enclave located halfway between Downtown LA and Santa Monica,...
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...
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...
Although neither craftsman nor bungalow, the story behind the beautiful and historic Ladd Carriage House is a compelling one that I wanted to share. Today, it may seem a bit out of place among the modern high-rise buildings that surround it on a busy corner in downtown Portland, Oregon, but when it was built, the...
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...
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...
From Our Bungalow To Yours: Wishing You Happy Holidays From The Craftsman Bungalow!
Dec 10, 2020
Grand 1910 Bay Area Residence, Once Home to CA Supreme Court Justice, Listed For Sale
Jul 27, 2020
Peek Inside: An Unbuilt 1906 Greene & Greene Designed Home Listed For Sale
Apr 30, 2020
The Craftsman Spotlight: Arts & Crafts Lighting And Furnishings By Brett Johnson From Craftsmen Studio
Oct 18, 2019
Serendipity In A University Town: American Bungalow Issue 96 Article
Jul 20, 2018