“Well, what do you think?” queried my cosmopolitan client. I stood there dumbfounded. My endlessly chic muse of a client – worldly, urbanely sophisticated, a devotee of neoclassic order and symmetry—a vision of classic taste and restraint, had just bought a cottage straight out of “Hansel & Gretel”!
Spadena House, photo: Hendricks Architecture (www.hendricksarch.com)
My Chanel clad muse spun around in her Manolos and said, “I just love it!” And despite my own predilection toward modern classicism, standing before me was the most charming stucco cottage, roofed with rolled eaves and cat-slide dormers, accented by rubble stone trim and crooked chimney, topped off with a three dimensional plaster relief articulating medieval scrolls, fruit leaves and doves. Leaded glass windows were flecked with stained glass scenes of turreted castles and noble ladies. A hobbit hole entryway trimmed in broken field stone sported a heavy oak door cross banded with rivets and held firm by overscaled strap-work hinges. The screen door exemplified an ironmonger’s skill, showcasing iron animals scampering across a tracery of metal curlicues.
Despite my snooty internationalist leanings and rigid opinion of anything edging towards cute or sentimental, I was captivated. Asymmetrical in form, with a skillfully handcrafted appeal, this home’s origins appeared to be inspired by domestic Norman architecture of the late medieval period. Modest in size, it blended well into mounding shrubbery and perennial cascades.
But upon entering, I truly became smitten. Old hand-planed oak floors, graduated from level to level, ending at a nook with a window seat here, and an intimate alcove there. Nothing sweeping or voluminous. The interior sported finely hewn details such as the hammerhead beams whose ends were carved as serpent heads, rustic lanterns and iron sconces with animal motifs, undulating plaster walls that exhibited the less than perfect human trowel marks. Hand glazed tiles with rich relief and large fireplaces warmed each cozily proportioned room. Above all, you knew upon entering, that this had an endearing sense of whimsy, specifically created by artisans who chose and executed their craft with a great deal of love.
Windamere photo by Linda Yvonne
Weak-kneed and silly, I wandered around this ever so human abode wondering where in the spectrum of architectural history this house had sprung from. Then I laid my eyes on a book called “Storybook Style, by Gellner & Keister.” Leafing through the pages, I discovered Storybook architecture’s familiar roots.
Somewhat similar to Marie Antoinette’s fanciful flight from the complications of the court of Versailles to her mock Medieval French hameau, Americans of the new 20th Century wished to sweep away the overcomplicated eclecticism of the Victorian period, the intensely detailed Italianate, Eastlake, Mansard and Rococo styles spoke of all icing and no cake. The intricate floor plans of the Queen Anne period grew tiresome. All painted surfaces, frenetic decoration and bombast drew to a close as Americans (also uncomfortable with the impersonal consequences of the Industrial Revolution) clamored for a return to natural materials, handcraftsmanship and straightforward expression of structure. Thus, under the influence of Pugin, Ruskin, and William Morris in England, and Stickley, Maybeck, Greene, and McKim Mead and White in the USA, the Arts & Crafts Movement was ushered in.
If the austerity of the Arts and Crafts movement leaves you a bit cold, you might appreciate the small offshoot movement of “Storybook Architecture”.
Returning veterans from the Great War had initially viewed and were charmed by the quaint European countryside architecture of Flanders, Germany and France. The appearance of photography magazines brought fairytale images to the armchair architect. And above all, Hollywood’s fantastically exotic films brought European architectural styles home to all the period revivalists, especially in California.
The Spadena House, with “crooked” and distorted” lines, “weather-beaten appearance,” paned windows, stuccoed half timbered walls, shake roof and irregular haphazard volumes became the rage for maverick architects who championed the handcrafted, the vernacular, the eccentric and the whimsical.
Soon these architects were imagining snuggly little cottages, nestled into cozy plots spilling over with rhododendrons, phlox and creeping myrtle. They employed exposed timbers, charred in lumberyard incinerators, rough cast stucco, out-of-plumb walls, and swaybacked roof-scapes with cat-slide eaves. Hallmarks of the storybook style also include “post medieval timber framing with plaster infill or wattle and daub,” superb ironwork (always appearing irregularly hand wrought), strap hinges, jerk-in-head gables, leaded glass, rolled eaves (lovingly simulating thatch), eyebrow turrets, massive stone fireplaces, incised reliefs, carved grotesques and of course medieval iron lanterns, sconces and chandeliers.
Craftsman and artisans between 1910 – 1935, just off the boat from Europe, or fresh from the studios of Hollywood, relished this kind of theatrical challenge, truly showcasing their talents and expressing their individual fantasy. They especially loved their freedom to expand upon the often vague architectural plans submitted to them.
Storybook architecture, though quite widespread in the California communities of Carmel by the Sea, Hollywood, Solvang, Los Angeles and San Francisco, made its whimsical mark across the country. As I stood bewitched by my client’s home in Salt Lake City, I was struck by similar structures and influences back home inNew York. Now springing up all over Long Island are the cat-slide rooflines, eyebrow windows and irregular shake roofs of the storybook style. It seems there is a bit of a return going on, a look backward at the early twentieth century and its moment of whimsy and heartfelt craftsmanship.
A brief, but influential blip in the 20th Century timeline, the Storybook style lasted only from the early 1900’s until the thirties. Though often dismissed as cute and insignificant, storybook architecture has its place in lending character, charm, whimsy and fantasy to our otherwise bland, witless suburban sprawl. And as a vernacular style primarily developed for more modestly scaled homes, it certainly deserves a renewed architectural peek.
