Recent Articles From The Craftsman Bungalow
As you may recall, on a recent business trip to Hawaii I stayed at a lovely family-run bed & breakfast rather than one of the impersonal mega hotels in Waikiki. While staying there, I got into a routine of taking a walk around the neighborhood every day and was blown away by the concentration of...
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...
I just got the latest issue of American Bungalow this week. Each issue this year includes an 8×10 full-color lithograph art print of the four seasons called “The Wisdom of the Trees” by Yoshiko Yamamoto. In 2010, American Bungalow featured four beautiful prints by Roycroft Renaissance artisan, Laura Wilder. Here’s what I did with those...
This article is Part Two of a two part series highlighting the homes that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Oak Park, Illinois during the years 1900 to 1913. Part One focused on his transition to the Prairie Style and the Oak Park homes he designed from 1889-1899. During the years of 1889 to 1899, Frank Lloyd...
I couldn’t be happier to share the news that our home is featured in the Family Album section of the Fall 2012 issue of American Bungalow! Those of you who are familiar with the magazine will recognize the Family Album section, where readers submit pictures of their home with a short blurb about the story...
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...
In July 1906, Charles and Henry Greene presented their original design to Frank W. Hawks for a home that he had commissioned the brothers to design for his property on Arroyo Terrace, a quiet and artistic enclave in Pasadena, California. While visionary in its scope, and for reasons still not entirely known today, Hawks chose not...
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...
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...
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...
I’ve written about our previous home in Portland a few times – I bought it in 2004 and painstakingly restored it over the next 5 years that we lived there. In 2010, when we moved to our current home in Laurelhurst, we kept our previous home as a rental and were fortunate to find wonderful...
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...
While Asheville, North Carolina has been home to the National Arts & Crafts Conference for over 30 years, it’s been a destination for those seeking solace in its picturesque setting and holistic laid back vibe for long before that. Once part of the aboriginal Cherokee Nation, and first visited by Europeans in the mid 1500s,...
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...
The Spring 2014 issue of American Bungalow is out now, and I’m very excited that my article entitled, “Wharton Esherick: Integrating Life, Art and Craft” made the cover! If you’re not a subscriber or haven’t received your copy yet, you can read the article here. Wharton Esherick (1887-1966) was a classically trained Impressionist painter in...
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...
Some time ago, we took a trip down the California Coast during which we explored some of the countless arts & crafts cottages in and around the oceanside artist community of Carmel. The highlight of our time there was getting to take a tour of Tor House – the handcrafted stone cottage of poet Robinson...
To understand what we were dealing with when we initially bought the house, let’s go back to late 2009… This is what the exterior looked like when we first moved in (we have since painted it). I came to find out later that the house had been for sale earlier in 2009 through a realtor,...
The Frank Lloyd Wright Home & Studio in Oak Park, Ill., is a microcosm of the prolific designer’s ever-evolving architectural aesthetic. It’s an expression of his early formative years, and through a series of additions, it embodies the changes that his philosophy and style underwent during the twenty year span (1889-1909) that he lived in...
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...
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...
When Sandy Evans and her husband Richard Herbold purchased this handsome 1915 bungalow in Delmar, New York, it was about to turn 100 years old. But on the inside, its previous owners had tried to re-imagine its interior as a contemporary, industrial space that more resembled a post-modern office building than a cozy, century-old residence. ...
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...
I’m very excited that an article I wrote for American Bungalow magazine made the cover of the Winter 2013 Issue #80! The article is about an amazing home on the Oregon Coast that sits on a secluded cove with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean, the rugged Oregon coastline and a 1920s-era bridge that was...
When I packed up my car and headed West to Portland, Oregon in November of 2000, I had no idea how that decision would impact the rest of my life. Like our pioneering forefathers who took a similar leap of faith – I didn’t know what I’d encounter, who I’d meet, or if I’d ever...
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...
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...
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...
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...
This article is a continuation of The Sagamore Hotel, Part I: The History Of The Iconic Resort On New York’s Lake George, which covered the hotel’s first 30 years (1883-1914). This article picks up from there and takes you through the 20th Century and right up to today… The Sagamore II, prior to the 1914...
From Our Bungalow To Yours: Wishing You Happy Holidays From The Craftsman Bungalow!
Dec 10, 2020
Peek Inside: A Grand 1910 Bay Area Residence, Once Home to CA Supreme Court Justice
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