CA Dreamin' 23 - Gamble House 03

Here you can see a typical Craftsman signature, large covered porches, widely overhanging roofs, and projecting roof beams. This picture is of a flower box (remember it was November) on one of the large porches. The Gamble boys were expected to sleep out there "to get the night air," a belief at the time in order to prevent sickness.

It's a belief still held by us, but having no Craftsman covered porch to go out to, we let the night air in.

CA Dreamin' 22 -Gamble House 02

Ah, at last a real look at the house itself, not just its parts.  

When this Craftsman Style house was first built in1908 everybody else with money was building Queen Anne Victorian styled houses.

This drawing is of a Queen Anne Victorian house built in San Francisco at the same time the Greene brothers were building the Gamble House in Pasadena. Imagine the two houses side by side. How super-modern the Gamble House must have seemed back then. There are no high vertical lines, no soaring towers, no busy details and gingerbread trim everywhere, just a simple horizontal feel along with plain earth colors. Above all, in all its details, was a hand-craftsmanship that could not be duplicated in mass production. That was an idea shared by Art Nouveau, a contemporary artistic movement. 

The Craftsman Style, also called Mission Style, became a movement in the United States thanks to this house. It encouraged originality, simplicity of form, local natural materials, and the visibility of quality handicraft.

Smaller houses imitating features of the Gamble House ennobled the modest homes of the rapidly expanding middle class. Those house became the "Craftsman Bungalow" style. That style flourished until the Depression of the 1930's.

Notice on the Gamble House picture the "natural" sidewalk to the rear. The mound on the front lawn was built up so that from the sidewalk along the street pedestrians could not see the brick carriage road in front of the house, and it would all look like a continuous lawn.

CA Dreamin' 21 - Useful & Beautiful 05

This was taken in the Gamble House Gift Shop. It shows the attention to detail of the Arts and Crafts Movement. The exposed joinery on the table is shaped like clovos, decorative nail heads.

I saw this only once before, in Berea, Kentucky, where a fellow had a chair shop. They were more than chairs, each was a work of art. The joinery had the same look--in the chairs the narrow tenons of the leg posts came through the arms and had this same slightly protruding antique nail head look.

The two objects on the table in the picture are glass vases. It looks like the brown one casts a shadow of its swirly lines onto to the table, but that is simply the grain of the table revealed where the light is not glaring.

CA Dreamin' 20 - Useful & Beautiful 04

Even a rain gutter can be pleasant to look at. It was the angles and colors here that caught my eye.

CA Dreamin' 20 - Useful & Beautiful 03

A garden lantern, the Greene and Greene version of a Japanese idea.

CA Dreamin' 19 - Useful & Beautiful 02

There is a design motif in the Gamble front door that is used throughout the house. It's simply a straight horizontal line that has a slight curve up and then continues on horizontally. It's of Japanese origin and is called the "Cloud Lift" design. You can see it in the upper frame of the stained glass panels of the front door.

The Greene brothers used the Cloud Lift design throughout the house, on doors, windows, lamps, carpets, furniture, picture frames, and elsewhere both in the interior and on the exterior of the house. It is clearly apparent on the lantern, where it does have a sense of a cumulus cloud "lifting." 

The Greenes used lanterns like this all around the exterior of the house for lighting stairways, walkways, and entrances. Truly "useful & beautiful."

CA Dreamin' 18 - Useful & Beautiful 01

This picture is from The Gamble House gift shop, the best I could manage of things interior. Everything in the shop as well as the house had that Craftsman sense of "useful and beautiful." This beautifully useful clock imitates the "Tree of Life" front entrance doors in another favorite Craftsman medium--tiles.  The original tiles were done by Ernest Batchelder. There is still a Batchelder Art Tile Company in Pasadena.

The tiles reflect the mosaic-like windows of the front doors, easily seen here from this outside picture.

CA Dreamin' 17 - Gamble House 01

At last our walk brought us to The Gamble House front door. The first thing our "docent" (Californian speak for tour guide) told us was that we could not take any pictures inside the house. Pshaw!

These front entrance doors all have Tiffany stained glass and together form one picture entitled "The Tree of Life."  From the inside it was arresting. Here's an "allowed" picture from the web:

You can see in my picture of the exterior that the side doors have screens. They were not used for entering or exiting, but simply were opened up from the inside to allow a cross breeze to blow through the whole large hallway at the end of which where similar doors that were also opened. It was early air conditioning.

"Useful and beautiful."

CA Dreamin' 16 - Green and Green

A visual pun on Greene & Greene.

This is finally what we had been waiting for, their Craftsman masterpiece, The Gamble House. Notice the cedar shingle siding and the window sill that extends beyond the window frame. Give-away Greene and Greene-ish. 

CA Dreamin' 15 - In the Hood 11

This is a side garden that has the elements of a Japanese Garden, including a large pergola/gate.

A Greene and Greene feature is the shingle siding that goes nearly to the ground.

CA Dreamin' 14 - In the Hood 10

Garden of Three Friends: Kasuga Lantern, Ground Holly, Aged Master.

I love Japanese Gardens with their un-busy look. Americans make a garden and say, "Oh, look, a space. What can I put in there?" The Japanese make a garden and say, "What else can I take out? For their gardens the Japanese use stones, shrubs,and water, if possible. No flowers. They try to capture the feel of a landscape, the serenity of simplicity, the peace of seclusion. It's been said that the Japanese can make a garden out of two stones. I tried it once and liked it enough to bring to Atlanta. Sad to say, my birthday gift stone was too heavy to dig up. But I did get another going away gift-stone and brought that one.

The Greene brothers, as well as Frank Lloyd Wright, were influenced by Japanese aesthetics, and reflections of it can be seen throughout their houses.

CA Dreamin' 13 - In the Hood 09

There was a quiet dignity to that neighborhood.

CA Dreamin' 12 - In the Hood 08

Useful and beautiful.

CA Dreamin' 11 - In the Hood 07

A Craftsman garage on a Hillside House. The garages were built with as much carefulness and craftsmanship as the houses.

CA Dreamin' 10 - In the Hood 06

It's the colors and textures here--redwood, weathered green copper, bricks, cedar shakes, stained glass, rafters, leaves, sky.

This fence was between a brick wall and a large, solid wooden door that shut off the driveway. The holes in the decorative copper pieces made a way of seeing who was there before opening the door. I'm not sure what those copper things are, but they were used in the Gamble House over the basement windows. Perhaps they are decorative window grates used for security. Whatever they are, here they are used for a "see-through" in this charming little fence. 

"Useful and beautiful."

CA Dreamin' 09 - In the Hood 05

The Craftsman Style has a simple elegance, here enhanced by a simple landscaping.

CA Dreamin' 08 - In the Hood 04

Here's a Craftsman feature that the Greene brothers liked a lot--exposed and extended roof rafters and purlins. In a Craftsman home the emphasis was on "craftsmanship." Everything was done with great care and accuracy. This roof corner is a good example of the Craftsman principles. Did you notice the rain gutter?

In this composition I like the three diagonal colors flanked by black and white.

CA Dreamin' 07 - In the Hood 03

Two California architects, the Greene brothers, designed not only the Gamble House (of Procter and Gamble fame), but also many houses in that neighborhood. It made for a fascinating walk. These "In the Hood" pictures are from that walk. I was looking for designs and interesting compositions rather than full examples of any one house--except, of course the Gamble House. But that's a bit down the street.

The Greene brothers developed their own Californian versions of the Craftsman style. In their attempt to be plainer and simpler than the flamboyant Victorians they often incorporated into their homes things normally thought of as spoiled or of no value. In this case it's the curved bricks. The curves happen when bricks are too close to the fire in the kiln. Because they are not flat, they were considered not suitable for building. But as you can see, the Greene brothers used them to make a curvy wall that is quite charming. I like that notion of finding a use for the flawed. It's like God using us for beautiful purposes.

Another characteristic of Greene and Greene houses is projecting roof beams and rafters. They are a great place from which to hang things, as was done with this lantern. 

One of the phrases to come out of the Arts and Crafts movement was "useful and beautiful." I l just love that.

CA Dreamin' 06 - In the Hood 02

This is a typical house in the "Craftsman" neighborhood around the Gamble House. They are all are part of the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900's. These houses must have seemed hyper-modern compared to the current trend of the day, the soaring Queen Anne Victorian style with it's vertical lines, lofty towers, gingerbread decorations everywhere, and many-colored exteriors--those "painted ladies." In contrast this kind of house with its natural materials and simple lines must have looked not only modern, but totally without conspicuous opulence.  Perhaps they seemed to the very wealthy even humble.


The bricks used as balusters is a unique feature of this house.