Bungalow Love

Sep 16, 2005

While front doors often lead directly into a living room, this West Seattle bungalow has a generous entry hall with window seat, dark stained fir paneling and vertical spindle railing.

By Lawrence Kreisman

AFTER YEARS OF taking a back seat to their Southern California peers, Pacific Northwest bungalows are finally getting some attention.

A great number of books and articles about bungalows and Craftsman homes have been produced over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, early books on the topic ignored the Northwest entirely, preferring to focus on popular heroes of the Arts & Crafts movement such as Gustav Stickley in New York and Greene and Greene in California.

This omission was puzzling, considering the unparalleled resources of first-growth Douglas fir and cedar in the Puget Sound region, cut into posts, planks, siding and shingles at every turn. The nationwide trend to build these low-cost, sturdy homes had a huge impact on Seattle's neighborhoods in the first quarter of the 20th century, as it did in Bellingham, Everett, Tacoma, Portland and towns throughout the region.

Two authors, Paul Duchscherer and Jane Powell, have broken this pattern of ignorance by including Northwest examples of these homes in their growing catalog of books on bungalow culture. A number of them have been featured in Pacific Northwest magazine in the past 15 years.

Duchscherer set the stage with regional examples in a series of books — "Bungalows," "Outside the Bungalow" and "Inside the Bungalow."

Jane Powell did the same in two innovative studies, "Bungalow Kitchens" and "Bungalow Bathrooms." But she has recently gone further with what might be considered the definitive bungalow book, "Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts and Crafts Home," and another, more focused study, "Bungalow Exteriors: Details," both photographed by Linda Svendsen and published by Gibbs Smith.

Together, they offer readers the pleasure of appreciating the characteristics that make bungalows such enticing living spaces. But more than that, they offer practical advice and resources to follow through on restoring lost or damaged features of bungalows that have been neglected or unsympathetically remodeled during close to a century of changing ownerships and trends.

Powell writes as she speaks in her well-attended lectures and seminars — with wit, apt sarcasm and downright good sense. She is complimentary when it is deserved, sharply critical when others might demur, but always follows through with valid reasons for her criticism and suggestions for how things might have been done more appropriately. This blunt, passionate style encourages readers to move through each chapter effortlessly and take away something useful in the process.

Jane Powell has earned the right to approach her readers with that directness. She bought her first bungalow in 1987 and followed it with owning and restoring seven more, plus a Prairie-style house.

Here's an example of her unique style, an excerpt from "Bungalow Details: Exteriors" that addresses the notion of replacing original siding with "no maintenance" materials, such as vinyl:

"All building materials have to be maintained! If you want no maintenance, then buy a condominium . . . We are only the caretakers of these houses, which were here before we owned them and which will be here after we are gone. They contain the wood from the old-growth forests, they are monuments to the skill of those who labored to build them, they represent our cultural heritage. To destroy them, or allow them to be destroyed by neglect, to remove their original fabric in the pointless pursuit of 'no maintenance' is profoundly disrespectful both to the trees that gave their lives and to the labor and skill of those who built the houses — with hand tools, I might add."

Reading her books is both an education and a pleasure.

Lawrence Kreisman, program director of Historic Seattle, will present a lecture on the Arts & Crafts movement in the Northwest, 11 a.m. Sept. 25 at the fair.

This Seattle bungalow shares characteristics with bungalows nationwide. The vocabulary includes tapered wooden pillars, stone piers, multiple gables with wooden knee braces, wide overhangs and alternating wide and narrow shingle sheathing.

The paneled dining room of this Tacoma home has shallow cabinets with leaded glass doors above a plate rail. The chandelier is a combination gas and electric fixture. The living room beyond was completed later, in 1907, with a Grueby tile fireplace.

This Seattle dining room has a built-in sideboard with a grayish stain over the Douglas fir. Stained glass in cabinet doors complement that in the window. The shelf is supported on elaborate corbels.

Jane Powell will present a lecture, Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home, at Historic Seattles Bungalow Fair Sept. 24, 11 a.m., Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Ave. Tickets: $10. She will also do a presentation, What Would Stickley Do With a Computer? Incorporating Technology into Arts & Crafts Interiors, Sept. 25 at 2 p.m., included with fair admission.

It takes huge efforts to strip woodwork that has been painted by multiple owners. A Portland owner spent his time, instead, hand painting a dining room mural loosely based on William Morris tapestries with figure work by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones.

The Bungalow Fair features more than 50 craftspeople in metal, tile, glass, textiles, ceramics and lighting, antique dealers, architects and interior designers. The show and sale is an opportunity to learn about early-20th-century architecture and design.Other lectures are $10 each. A fair pass includes admission and three lectures for $35. Call 206-622-6952 or www.historicseattle.org.

The porch of a home near Lake Washington combines stone, river rock, concrete and wood for its pillars and porch railing. It also has some impressive ornamental rafters.

Hear the authors speak

Jane Powell will present a lecture, "Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home," at Historic Seattle's Bungalow Fair Sept. 24, 11 a.m., Town Hall Seattle, 1119 Eighth Ave. Tickets: $10. She will also do a presentation, "What Would Stickley Do With a Computer? Incorporating Technology into Arts & Crafts Interiors," Sept. 25 at 2 p.m., included with fair admission.