Recent Articles From The Craftsman Bungalow
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...
This post is part of our “Peek Inside” series where we showcase Arts & Crafts homes from across the country that have been listed for sale, or were recently sold. Some may be fixers that are just begging to be restored, others may be fully restored and move-in ready, and still others may be somewhere...
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...
After completing the restoration of our first home, we knew that at some point in the not-too-distant future, we would be starting a family. With that in mind, we quickly came to the realization that while our home had served us very well for the previous 5 years, a growing family would need more room...
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...
The Winter 2014 edition of American Bungalow magazine is out now, and I’m excited to have contributed three articles to the issue. The first is a feature article titled “A Family Bond: Craftsmanship Is In The Blood” (found on pages 78-89) about the home of Austin and Laura Whipple, owners of Scout Books, a custom-printed...
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...
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...
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...
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...
This week I traveled to Western New York State for business and while there I was able to spend some time in the Arts & Crafts artisan community of “Roycroft” in East Aurora, just outside of Buffalo. The Roycroft Campus was founded in the late-1890’s by Elbert Hubbard, who along with Gustav Stickley, is considered...
This article is Part One of a two part series highlighting the homes that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Oak Park, Illinois during the years 1889-1899. Part Two focuses on his transition to the Prairie Style and the Oak Park homes he designed from 1900 to 1913. Frank Lloyd Wright lived and worked in Oak...
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...
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...
The Craftsman Spotlight is an ongoing series where artists, businesses, and craftspeople are featured. We’re thrilled to spotlight American Bungalow, in this first installment of the series! If you’re reading this article right now – and are a fan of bungalows – there’s a pretty good chance that you’re familiar with American Bungalow magazine. Founded by...
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,...
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 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 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...
UPDATE: You voted and the results are in! It was neck-and-neck right up until the end, but “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park, Illinois Designs: 1889-1913” edged out the rest as YOUR favorite article of 2014. Thank you to everyone who voted, and Happy New Year! As I’ve done in years past, I thought it would...
Charles & Henry Greene were prolific architects who pioneered the Arts & Crafts Movement in California at the turn of the 20th century. Not long ago, my wife and I traveled down to Los Angeles to take part in a rare tour of six privately-owned Greene & Greene homes in Pasadena’s Park Place neighborhood, just...
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...
On a recent business trip to Cleveland, I had some free time one afternoon to check out the city’s rich history of Arts & Crafts homes. I recalled a great article in the Spring 2012 issue of American Bungalow that featured the Cleveland Heights neighborhood situated just a few miles east of downtown. Armed with...
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...
From the late 1800’s until the mid-1940’s, Pabst Brewery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was the largest brewer in America, and at times, the world. Originally established in 1844 as the Best Brewery – named after its founder, Jacob Best – the name changed to Pabst in 1889 when Best’s son-in-law, Frederick Pabst, became majority stockholder in...
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...
In light of the two recent great deals I’ve found on Craigslist (the oak desk and the Stickley nightstand), I thought I’d take the opportunity to show you some of the other Arts & Crafts items I’ve acquired through the site. It’s no secret that it can be very expensive to furnish your bungalow home...
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...
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...
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...
