 |
The “ultimate bungalow” gets a long-overdue makeover.
The extensive conservation, the first ever of the 1908 Arts and Crafts National Historic Monument, begins this spring. Owned by the city of Pasadena and operated by the USC School of Architecture, the Gamble House is the most complete and best-preserved example of the work of renowned architects Charles and Henry Greene. It’s also, in USC architecture dean Robert H. Timme’s words: “the ultimate bungalow from the Craftsman period.” Built as a winter home for David and Mary Gamble, heirs to the Procter & Gamble fortune, the house attracts 30,000 visitors a year. Exquisite art glass graces the interior, but its real beauty lies in “the rare woods – ebony, Burma teak, Honduras mahogany, walnut, cedar and oak – and in the painstaking craftsmanship,” according to a Los Angeles Times article on the renovation. With all its woods and overhanging eaves, the Gamble House seems dark by today’s standards. Compared to the fashionably funereal décor of the age, however, “this was lightness itself,” says Gamble House director Edward Bosley.The only notable previous “redecoration” happened in the 1930s, when “Aunt Julia” Huggins – Mary Gamble’s maiden sister, who lived in the house until her death in 1943 – had the exterior redwood shakes painted green. Aunt Julia’s green paint, which has since faded to mustard, is now being removed. The original shakes have held up well and can be reused after treatment. Solid pine beams exposed in the exterior eaves are also being restored. “The public will be very surprised at how the house will look when we are done,” says Bosley. Seismic retrofitting is also underway, and plans call for updating the electrical and plumbing systems. A historical landscape report has been commissioned to guide experts in restoring the grounds and gardens.The Greene brothers were born in Brighton, Ohio. In 1893, at their parents’ urging, they moved to the “little country town” of Pasadena. While traveling West, they stopped at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, where they first encountered examples of Japanese architecture. The style became a strong influence on their later designs. Their art culminated between 1907 and 1909 with the construction of airy bungalows that celebrate beauty in necessary and useful things. This Old E-House
Ever-Greene
Not content to preserve just the bricks-and-mortar legacy of the Greene and Greene masterpiece it maintains as a museum in Pasadena, USC is extending its preservation activities into the digital realm. With a $300,000 grant from the Getty grant program, the university library’s Archival Research Center is cooperating with the Gamble House to build a Greene and Greene virtual archive. The plan, says Gamble House director Edward Bosley, is to put 4,500 digital images online by the end of 2002.
“The material will include architectural drawings, photographs, watercolor renderings, invoices, letters and other material from the Greene and Greene firm,” Bosley says. The images will be accompanied by full catalogue records as well as descriptive texts on other projects the brothers undertook. The archive draws on materials from USC, Columbia University and UC Berkeley.
– Eric Mankin
Other Stories
Worth the Gamble
Features -- Rock of Aging - Next-Generation War Games - A Voyage Through Time
Departments -- Mailbag - What's New - In Support - Alumni News - The Last Word