Arts & Crafts Homes Spring 2017

PRESENTING AN ISSUE IN HOMAGE to the breadth and vitality of the ongoing Arts & Crafts Movement . . . had you any doubt about its range, read on! The Stickley-inspired kitchen is in a new Arts & Crafts home on the East Coast—a contemporary vernacular house designed for the site and built of local granite—which is not in any way a replica. We tour a handsome 1908 house, beyond a bungalow in size and intent, where the architect masterfully used English and American, Colonial Revival, and Japanesque elements. Then on to another new-build, once again site-specific, imagined by long-time admirers of Frank Lloyd Wright and a builder pushing the limits of energy efficiency. Our garden story brings us home to a typical California bungalow of the period—with a bar…

Petite Nightstand The Amish Craftsman nightstand with one door and one drawer is constructed with traditional dovetails and through-tenons. Perfect for smaller spaces, it measures 16" wide x 27" high x 19" deep. In solid quarter-sawn white oak, it’s $929.95. From Barn Furniture Mart, (888) 302-2276, barnfurnituremart.com Lights on the Water Floating Lantern commemorates the annual ceremony held in Seattle. Limited to 138 prints and signed by artist Yoshiko Yamamoto, the eight-color block print sells for $100 matted and $290 framed. From Arts & Crafts Press, (360) 871-7707, artsandcraftspress.com Living Tree Amy Brandenburg draws on inspirations from Art Nouveau style to architecture for designs like the Arts & Crafts Tree pendant, enameled in multiple colors. The pendant measures about 1¼" x 1¼" and comes with an 18" sterling-silver chain. It’s…

Organizations all over the country are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Frank Lloyd Wright (1867— 1959), the larger-than-life architect whose body of work ranges from early Prairie School houses to the iconic Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Frank Lloyd Trust in Chicago, Illinois, kicks off a year-long celebration of all things Wright with special features for its annual Housewalk, Wright Plus 150, in May. Among the 10 private homes on the May 20 tour this year are four designed by Wright himself. They are the 1909 Laura Gale House, the Arthur B. Heurtley House (1902), his Japanese-influenced Hills DeCaro House (1906), and his remodeling in the Harrison P. Young House (1895). The Ultimate Plus weekend package (May 18–21) offers four days of exclusive tours and activities.…

NOT FAR INTO OUR 22-YEAR MARRIAGE, we fell in love with the Craftsman or Mission aesthetic. We acquired Craftsman-era antiques and reproductions on a limited budget. We have some treasured family pieces as well. Decades ago, while still engaged, we realized we had much in common when considering building a dream home someday. When we made career shifts—to pastor and homemaker—we joked that we were the most downwardly mobile people we knew. The benefits were well worth the changes. After we adopted our first child, finances were even more restricted. Building was not discussed until some inheritance money surfaced. It allowed us to open the window, just a little bit, on the possibility of building a modest home. Could we do it for a mortgage not much more than we…

• Painted most of the interior ourselves, including lots of trim. • Carpeted upstairs rooms, used vinyl flooring in baths, mudroom, laundry room; freed budget for natural hickory flooring in main living area. • A local Amish company built the quartersawn oak cabinetry that we designed, along with bath vanities and mudroom cubbies. Not inexpensive, but well worth it and not much more than buildingstore cabinets. • Splurged on stone countertops in kitchen, saved on cultured marble aggregate in upstairs baths. • All faucets (except for fun water trough in powder room) are builders’ grade in chrome. • Our 80–100-year-old sink was free, salvaged from our church’s kitchen remodel. We live with the “charm” of a few chips and scratches. • Would have loved tapered columns, more stonework, and a…

MARCH 5–AUGUST 6 California Woodcuts A new exhibition, “Gustave Baumann in California,” presents the work of Baumann (1881– 1971), a pioneer in the development of the color woodcut in the United States. Inspired by his long drives along the scenic coastline between San Diego and San Francisco in the 1920s and ’30s, he made 12 color woodcuts that depict California’s natural beauty. The exhibition brings the California works together with a selection of Baumann’s formative color woodcuts of rural Brown County, Indiana, which were shown at the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco. The exhibition also includes works by the two California printmakers most directly influenced by the 1915 show, Frances Gearhart and William S. Rice. Pasadena Museum of California Art, (626) 568-3665, pmcaonline.org THROUGH APRIL 2 Kipling…