Endnotes
GREENE & GREENE: AN INTRODUCTION
PG. 17 1. “A Special Citation to Henry Mather Greene and Charles Sumner Greene,” Journal of the American Institute of Architects, 18 (July 1952), pp. 4-5.
2. Jean Murray Bangs, Greene & Greene, Architectural Forum, Vol. 89, No. 4, October 1948, p. 88.
PG. 19 3. M. H. Baillie Scott, On the Choice of Simple Furniture, The Studio, Vol. 10, No. 49, April 1897.
4. Jean Murray Bangs, Greene & Greene, Architectural Forum, Vol. 89, No. 4, October 1948, p. 86.
5. Henry Greene, quoted in “Domestic Architecture in the West”, The Craftsman, Vol. 22, No. 5, August 1912, p. 536.
6. As quoted in Randell L. Makinson and Thomas A. Heinz, Greene & Greene – Creating a Style, Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City, 2004, p. 25.
7. Anne Mallek, “The Beauty of a House: Charles Greene, the Morris Movement, and James Culbertson”, in A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, pp. 32-35.
PG. 20 8. William Morris, “The Beauty of Life”, Reprinted in Hopes and Fears for Art. Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1882, p. 108.
9. William Morris, “An Address Delivered in Support of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings”, London, 1882.
10. One should not assume that the attention to detail exhibited by Greene & Greene is the result of exposure to the writings of William Morris. It is likely that they arrived independently at the same conclusion.
11. According to Brewer’s Famous Quotations (Nigel Rees, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., 2006, p. 391), this quote is found nowhere is Ruskin’s available writings. However, Ruskin’s writings are certainly sympathetic with the sentiment.
12. “Domestic Architecture in the West”, The Craftsman, Vol. 22, No. 5, August 1912, p. 547.
13. In a June 5, 1903, letter to Lucretia Garfield, Charles wrote, “The reason why the beams project from the gables is because they cast such beautiful shadows on the sides of the house in this bright atmosphere.” In this case Charles referred to beams rather than rafters but the effect is certainly similar.
PG. 22 14. Anne Mallek, “The Beauty of a House: Charles Greene, the Morris Movement, and James Culbertson”, in A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, p.29.
A BRIEF HISTORY
PG. 24 1. Much of this paragraph gleaned from: Edward R. Bosley, Greene & Greene, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 2000, pp. 8-10.
2. Supporters of the movement were many. Former President Rutherford B. Hayes, as a member of the Ohio State University Board of Trustees, proposed a Department of Manual Training for the university. The proposal was adopted though opposed, before and after the fact, by some faculty. Ross A. Norris, “The Cultured Mind the Skillful Hand: A Story About Art Education at the Ohio State University and Some Other Places”, unpublished manuscript, pp. 83-84.
3. Calvin Milton Woodward, The Manual Training School, Ayer Publishing, Manchester, NH, 1969 (Reprint of 1887 edition).
PG. 25 4. The motto appears on numerous documents, including letterhead, pertaining to the Manual Training School. It was also engraved on a medal given each year to a top student.
5. Virginia Greene Hales and Bruce Smith, Charles and Henry Greene, A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, p. 42.
6. Manual Training School Prospectus, 1882-83, Washington University Archives, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis.
PG. 26 7. Woodward, The Manual Training School, pp. 38-49.
8. Bosley, Greene & Greene, pp. 14-18.
9. Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream — California Through the Progressive Era, Oxford University Press, New York, 1985, pp. 54-55.
10. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 25.
11. Ibid. p. 26.
PG. 27 12. Thanks to Tom Moore for exploring this line of reasoning.
PG. 28 13. The Culbertson house is still lovely though very different — an heir had the second story removed and made other significant modifications. The changes, designed by architects Smith and Williams were at least sympathetic to the original.
14. Anne Mallek, “The Beauty of a House: Charles Greene, the Morris Movement, and James Culbertson”, A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, pp. 18-24.
15. Thanks to Edward Bosley for clarifying the composition of the Darling house foundation.
16. Bosley, Greene & Greene, pp. 54-57. The drawing appeared in Academy Architecture, Vol. 24, 1903.
17. Ted Wells, “Greene & Greene in Long Beach: The Reeve-Townsend House,” (Part 1 of 3), October 26, 2005. Podcast retrieved from twls.libsyn.com/index.php?post_year=2005&post_month=10.
18. Ted Wells, “Greene & Greene in Long Beach: The Adelaide Tichenor House,” (Part 2 of 3), October 27, 2005. Podcast retrieved from twls.libsyn.com/index.php?post_year=2005&post_month=10.
PG. 29 19. Randell Makinson, “Greene & Greene: The Adelaide Tichenor House”, The Tabby, Vol. 1, No. 3, July/August 1997, pp. 23-28.
PG. 30 20. The Greenes created furniture primarily for public areas of the house.
PG. 32 21. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 74.
22. 1½-inch scale details of desk and chair for living room, furniture drawing No. 4, Charles Millard Pratt house. Environmental Design Archives, College of Environmental Design, University of California at Berkeley. Thanks to Rich Muller for pointing out this detail.
PG. 34 23. Bosley, Greene & Greene, pp. 227-236.
PG. 36 24. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2008. www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.
25. Arthur David (pseudonym for Herbert Croly) described a California bungalow as possessing these additional qualities: “Its whole purpose is to minimize the distinction which exists between being inside and outside four walls. The rooms of such a building should consequently be spacious, they should not be shut off any more than is necessary one from another, and they should be finished in wood simply designed and stained so as to keep so far as possible its natural texture and hue. The exterior on the other hand, should not be made to count very strongly in the landscape. It should sink, so far as possible, its architectural individuality and tend to disappear in its natural background.” Architectural Record, Vol. 20, October 1906, p. 310. David has overstated the extent to which a bungalow should forsake its identity but has captured a defining characteristic of Southern California homes. For further descriptions and discussion of bungalows, see Clay Lancaster, “The American Bungalow”, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 3, September 1958, pp. 239-253; M. H. Lazear, “The Evolution of the Bungalow”, House Beautiful, Vol. 36, No. 1, June 1914, pp. 2-5; “The California Bungalow”, The Craftsman, Vol. 13, No. 1, October 1907, pp. 68-80; Seymour E. Locke, Bungalows, “What They Really Are — The Frequent Misapplication of the Name”, House and Garden, Vol. 12, No. 2, August 1907, pp. 45-53.
26. I am grateful to Bruce Smith for an informative discussion on this topic.
27. Randell Makinson, personal communication. With respect to Mr. Makinson, I continue use of the term here because it is well-recognized and expected.
PG. 37 28. Randell Makinson, Tom Heinz and Brad Pitt, Greene & Greene: The Blacker House, Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City, 2000.
29. As originally built, the house’s entry was two stories with a balcony ringing the interior at the second floor. The second story was later removed.
PG. 38 30. Sadly, the Thorsen furniture is no longer in the house. Happily, much of it is on display in the Scott Gallery of the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California.
PG. 39 31. The last three paragraphs are condensed from Bosley, Greene & Greene.
OF ENGLAND, NEW YORK, JAPAN AND CALIFORNIA
PG. 42 1. The marvelous James Culbertson house, for example, was shorn of its second story, its first story enlarged and otherwise altered. The addition is decidedly more modern than the original house. See, for example, Carolyn S. Murray, “A Great Old House Lives On”, House Beautiful, Vol. 105, February 1962, pp. 118-123. One can argue that the renovation saved the house from demolition and was, therefore, beneficial.
PG. 43 2. Yost was not alone in his good fortune. Clay Lancaster noted, “Like the Gamble house, the Pratt house still contains much furniture designed and built by the Greene brothers.” “The American Bungalow”, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 3, September 1958, p. 248. Jean Murray Bangs was more impressively privileged. She came to possess hundreds of original drawings of Greene & Greene works.
3. L. Morgan Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 9, No. 1-2, March-May 1950, p. 11.
4. Chicago Architects Oral History Project, The Ernest R. Graham Study Center for Architectural Drawings, Department of Architecture, The Art Institute of Chicago, 1986 (Revised Edition Copyright 2000).
5. Ibid.
PG. 44 6. Ibid.
7. Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, p. 13.
8. Clay Lancaster, “The American Bungalow”, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 40, No. 3, September 1958, p. 253.
PG. 45 9. Charles Sumner Greene, “California Home Making”, Pasadena Daily News, Jan. 2, 1905, p. 26.
10. See for example, Charles Robert Ashbee, A Few Chapters in Workshop Re-construction and Citizenship, Guild and School of Handicraft, London, 1894. The second chapter has the wonderful title: On the need for the cultivation of the sense of Beauty and the questionable wisdom of looking for this from the British Middle Class.
PG. 46 11. Thorstein Veblen, “Arts and Crafts”, The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 11, No. 1, December 1902, p. 110. On the preceding page, Veblen prefaces the quoted conclusion thus: “Modern industry, in so far as it is characteristically modern, means the machine process; but according to the arts-and-crafts apprehension, only outside the machine process is there salvation. Since the machine process is indispensable to modern culture, both on business grounds and for reasons of economy, this limits the immediate scope of the arts-and-crafts salvation to those of higher levels of consumption where exigencies of business and economy are not decisive. The greater (90-99 per cent of the whole) range of industry must under present circumstances of business and household management remain untouched by any such proposed alteration of the character of the industrial process. The `industrial art’ methods are too costly for general business purposes, and the `industrial art’ products are (in point of fact) too expensive for general consumption; indeed it is of the essence of industrial art products, if they are to pass inspection by the adepts, that they must be sufficiently expensive to preclude their use by the vulgar.”
12. Eileen Boris, Arts and Labor — Ruskin, Morris and the Craftsman Ideal in America, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1986, p. 9.
13. Ernest Batchelder, as quoted in ibid., p.29
PG. 47 14. Charles Robert Ashbee as quoted in ibid., p. 16. Ashbee reportedly wrote this when asked about the metalwork produced at an arts and crafts colony in New York.
15. Ibid, pp. 8-9.
16. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 38.
17. Gustav Stickley, “An Argument for Simplicity in Household Furnishings”, The Craftsman, Vol. 1, No. 1, October 1901, p. iii.
PG. 48 18. Ibid, p. iii.
19. Charles Sumner Greene, “California Home Making”, Pasadena Daily News, January 2, 1905, p. 26.
20. Charles Keeler, The Simple Home, Paul Elder, San Francisco, 1904, pp. 30-31.
21. Elmer Grey, “Style in Houses”, House Beautiful, Vol. 7, March 1900, p. 199.
22. Henrietta P. Keith, “The Trail of Japanese Influence in our modern Domestic Architecture”, The Craftsman, Vol. 12, No. 4, July 1907, p. 451.
PG. 49 23. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 39.
PG. 50 24. House Beautiful, Vol. 102, No. 8, August 1960.
25. Ralph Adams Cram, Impressions of Japanese Architecture, Dover Press, New York, 1966, pp. 30-31. The quoted edition is a reprint of the 1930 edition of the work, which was published originally in 1905. Cram was a devotee of Gothic forms, and thus his concession that even that form never achieved perfection is telling.
26. As quoted in Japan-ness in Architecture, Arata Isozaki, MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 2006, p. 36.
PG. 51 27. Curtis Besinger, “Lessons We are Learning from Japan”, House Beautiful, Vol. 102, No. 9, September 1960, p. 193.
28. Ralph Adams Cram, Preface in American Country Houses of Today, Architectural Book Publishing Company, New York, 1913, p. v Cram wrote that, “The California style has Messrs. Greene & Greene and Mr. Mulgardt to set it forth…”
PG. 53 29. Wolf von Eckhardt, “The Just So of the Swerve and Line”, Time, August 1, 1983.
30. David and Michiko Young, Spontaneity in Japanese Art and Culture, 2006, Chapter 3, http://japaneseaesthetics.com.
31. House Beautiful, Vol. 102, No. 8, August 1960, p. 120.
32. Ibid, p. 88.
33. The list is not nearly exhaustive as there are many other terms that express notions of beauty in Japanese aesthetics. Some others are Aware, Miyabi, and Wabi-sabi. See, for example, David and Michiko Young, Spontaneity in Japanese Art and Culture.
34. House Beautiful, August 1960.
35. Jiro Harada, A Glimpse of Japanese Ideals, Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai, Tokyo, 1937. As quoted in David and Michiko Young, Spontaneity in Japanese Art and Culture.
PG. 54 36. House Beautiful, August 1960, pp. 55-56.
37. The cloud scroll was likely brought to Japan by Buddhists. See John Dower, The Elements of Japanese Design, Weatherhill, Boston, 1971, p. 40.
PG. 55 38. Stanley Appelbaum, The Chicago World’s Fair of 1893: A Photographic Record — Photos from the Collections of the Avery Library of Columbia University and the Chicago Historical Society, Courier Dover Publications, New York, 1980, p. 5.
39. Bruce Smith, Greene & Greene and the Duncan-Irwin House: Developing a California Style, Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City, To appear. See also, Randell Makinson, California Design 1910 (Timothy J. Anderson, Eudorah M. Moore and Robert W. Winter editors), Peregrine Smith, Inc., Salt Lake City, 1980, p. 98. (This is a reprint of the original 1974 edition by California Design Publications.)
40. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 67.
41. Letter from Adelaide Tichenor to Charles Greene, June 10, 1904. Environmental Design Archives, University of California at Berkeley.
42. Joe Sonderman & Mike Truax, St. Louis: The 1904 World’s Fair (Images of America), Arcadia Publishing, Mt. Pleasant, SC, 2008, p. 61.
43. The Main Hall of the Japanese pavilion is significantly smaller than the Shishin-den. Also, for some reason, the building at the fair includes a single gable on the roof on the front elevation. This is not present on the Shishin-den. The Shishin-den is the principle official building of the palace. It includes the throne room where enthronement ceremonies were conducted. See Tadashi Isikawa and Bin Takahashi, Palaces of Kyoto. Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1968.
PG. 56 44. Nonie Gadsden, “Greene & Greene: The Boston Years” (lecture), The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, November 8, 2008.
45. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 42.
46. Randell Makinson notes that due to similarity in form it would appear that Imperial architecture, rather than temple architecture, was the primary influence. California Design 1910 (Timothy J. Anderson, Eudorah M. Moore and Robert W. Winter editors), Peregrine Smith, Inc., Salt Lake City, 1980, p. 98.
47. Edward S. Morse, Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings, reprinted by Dover Publications, New York, 1961, p. 16. (Originally published by Ticknor and Company, 1886).
48. Sarah Handler, Ming Furniture. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, California, 2005, p. 103.
PG. 57 49. Ibid, p. 103.
PG. 58 50. Ibid, p. 19.
51. Ibid, p. 20.
52. M.H. Baillie Scott, “On the Choice of Simple Furniture,” The Studio, Vol. 10, No. 49, April 1897.
53. Charles Sumner Greene, “Bungalows”, Western Architect, Vol. 12, July 1908, p. 3. By the time Charles wrote that, the “style of a house” had come to include the contents he had designed in addition to the structure.
PG. 59 54. Michael Cannell, I.M. Pei Mandarin of Modernism, Carol Southern Books, New York, 1995, p. 313.
55. “Parks for the People”, The Craftsman, Vol. 22, No. 5, p. 523, 1912.
PG. 60 56. Alice Batchelder, as quoted in Robert W. Winter, Arroyo Culture, California Design 1910, Peregrine Smith, Salt Lake City, 1980 (reprint of 1974 original edition), p. 27.
57. For more on Charles Fletcher Lummis, see Inventing the Dream by Kevin Starr or Charles F. Lummis: Crusader in Corduroy by Dudley Gordon.
58. For more on George Wharton James, see Inventing the Dream by Kevin Starr. James is the author of numerous books on the Southwestern United States.
PG. 62 59. Charles S. Greene, “Bungalows”, p. 4.
60. H.A. Reid, “Natural Arroyo Park Caught President’s Fancy”, The Pasadena Daily News, November 26, 1904, p. 10. This article is pasted in the scrap book that Charles and Henry kept beginning and during their time at MIT.
61. Theodore Roosevelt to Charles Fletcher Lummis, as quoted in Robert W. Winter, Arroyo Culture, p. 11. Lummis and Roosevelt attended Harvard together and remained friends.
62. “Parks for the People”, p. 524.
PG. 63 63. Grace Ellery Channing, “The Meeting of Extremes”, Out West, Vol. XIX, September 1903, p. 249.
64. Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 58.
PG. 64 65. Helen Elliott Bandini, History of California, American Book Company, New York, 1908, p. 109.
66. According to Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 227, the house cost $2,800. The firm had completed more expensive commissions as early as 1895, the second year of the practice.
67. Excerpt from quote by Elmer Grey in “The California Bungalow”, The Craftsman, Vol. 13, No. 1, October 1907, p. 73.
PG. 65 68. Charles Keeler, The Simple Home, p. 18.
69. Victoria Kastner, “California Country Houses” (lecture), The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, November 8, 2008.
70. Clive Aslet, The American Country House, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2004, p. 3.
71. Henry Greene owned a copy of One Hundred Country Houses by Aymar Embury (1909). In addition to showing many very grand country residences, the author discusses the Tichenor and Irwin houses in a chapter on Japanesque houses.
72. Florence Williams, “Bungalows of Southern California”, House Beautiful, Vol. 36, No. 1, June 1914, p 16.
73. American Country Houses of Today, Architectural Book Publishing Company, New York, 1913.
74. John Galen Howard, Country House Architecture on the Pacific Coast, Architectural Record, Vol. 40, October 1917, pp. 323-355.
75. John Ruskin, Peace (The Eagle’s Nest Lecture IX), Reprinted in Little Masterpieces, Bliss Perry editor, Doubleday Page & Company, New York, 1903, p. 190.
POEMS OF WOOD AND LIGHT
PG. 66 1. If the quote is accurate, it is unclear whether he originated the phrase. See, for example, Frank Schulze, Mies Van Der Rohe: A Critical Biography, University of Chicago Press, 1985, p. 281.
PG. 67 2. I.M. Pei’s East Building of the National Gallery serves as an example of detail in modernist architecture. The angle of the triangular building is dictated by the adjacent streets: 19.5 degrees. Pei insisted on propagating that angle throughout the interior of the building even at the cost of convenience, despite the fact that few, if any, would ever notice. Designers in Pei’s firm referred to this quality as “Miesian” in reference to the quote mentioned above. See Michael Cannell, I.M. Pei: Mandarin of Modernism, Carol Southern Books, New York, 1995, p. 260.
3. For a fascinating discussion on the relationship between Greene & Greene and modernism, see Edward R. Bosley, “Out of the Woods: Greene & Greene and the Modern American House”, A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, pp. 230-257.
4. L. Morgan Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 9, No. 1-2, March-May 1950, p. 13.
5. The Gamble House Centennial Exhibition provided a rare opportunity to observe this. When the Exhibition was at the Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Gamble chiffonier was displayed away from the wall, allowing a view of the back, which is exquisitely constructed and finished using the same materials as the rest of the piece.
PG. 70 6. L. Morgan Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 9, No. 1-2, March-May 1950, p. 13.
7. Morgan Yost addressed this more eloquently than I: “Furniture was designed, not as stock pieces to be used in various houses, but individually. The characteristic details were repeated and carried through but in each case the furniture was thought out as an extension of the design of the house.” See Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, p. 13.
8. John Ruskin, The Poetry of Architecture: or The Architecture of the Nations of Europe Considered in its Association with Natural Scenery and National Character, George Allen, London, 1893, pp. 5-6.
PG. 74 9. L. Morgan Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, p. 19.
PG. 75 10. Edward S. Cooke, Jr., “An International Studio: The Furniture Collaborations of the Greenes and Halls”, A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrill, London, 1908, pp. 111-131.
11. Even after the appearance of the square ebony peg other materials were sometimes used for pegs. These include teak, mahogany and maple. Ebony was certainly the most common material for the characteristic square pegs. Thank you to Jim Ipekjian for sharing his considerable experience on this topic.
12. Darrell Peart, Greene & Greene Design Elements for the Workshop, Linden Publishing, Fresno, 2005, pp. 63-70.
PG. 76 13. In a typically Greene & Greene touch, shelves for case pieces in the Culbertson house are constructed with breadboards. These breadboards contain ebony pegs, likely concealing screws.
14. Work on the Blacker house began in 1907. Furniture design occurred early in the process though implementation trailed into 1909.
PG. 80 15. See Kazuko Koizumi, Traditional Japanese Furniture, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1986.
16. There are numerous books about wabi-sabi. They range in topic from design to philosophy, religion and self-help.
PG. 84 17. See Bruce Smith, “Sunlight and Elsewhere”, A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008.
PG. 85 18. Wenjun Xing, “Social Gospel, Social Economics, and the YMCA: Sidney D. Gamble and Princeton-in-Peking”, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, 1992.
19. Many of Sidney Gamble’s photographs were published in a retrospective after his death. See Sidney D. Gamble’s China 1917- 1932 — Photographs of the Land and Its People, Alvin Rosenbaum Projects, Chevy Chase, MD., 1989. His photographs are archived at Duke University.
PG. 86 20. Letter from Charles Greene to Mrs. Lucretia Garfield. Greene & Greene Archives.
21. Bruce Smith, “Sunlight and Elsewhere”, A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, p. 83.
22. Clay Lancaster, Japanese Influence in America, Walton H. Rawls, New York, 1963, pp. 115-117.
23. Charles Keeler, The Simple Home, Paul Elder, San Francisco, 1904, p. 29.
24. Bruce Smith, Greene & Greene Masterworks, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1998, p. 144.
PG. 88 25. Ted Bosley points out that the most chalet-like of the Greenes’ houses were not in Arroyo Terrace (Bosley, Greene & Greene, p. 93). The name stuck, however, likely due to the density of Greene & Greene houses in that neighborhood.
26. Charles Greene, correspondence, Environmental Design Archives, University of California-Berkeley.
27. For a wonderful discussion of the relationship between Swiss chalets, bungalows and Greene & Greene houses, see Bruno Gib-erti, “The Chalet as Archetype: The Bungalow, The Picturesque Tradition and Vernacular Form,” Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review, 3.1, 1991, pp. 54-64.
28. Early chalets were often constructed of logs, similar to an American log cabin. William S. B. Dana, The Swiss Chalet Book, William T. Comstock, Co., New York, 1913, p. 14.
29. Thank you to Ted Bosley for offering his opinion on the chalet influence.
30. See Dana, The Swiss Chalet Book, p. 19, 20, 31, 41, for examples.
31. Ibid. p. 127.
PG. 90 32. Ibid. p. 133.
PG. 91 33. Jean Murray Bangs, “Greene & Greene”, Architectural Forum, Vol. 89, No. 4, October 1948, p. 88.
PG. 93 34. In many cases the term baluster doesn’t apply in a traditional sense though the structure implemented serves that purpose. The Caroline DeForest house serves as an example.
PG. 95 35. Edward Cooke states that between 1907 and 1913, “…the Halls made about 400 pieces of furniture while working for the Greenes.” This figure doesn’t include Thorsen furniture which was made onsite. Edward S. Cooke, Jr., “Scandinavian Modern Furniture in the Arts and Crafts Period: The Collaboration of the Greenes and the Halls”, in American Furniture 1993, Chipstone Foundation, 1993, p. 7.
36. This number does not include various additions, alterations and commercial projects. Several of the commissioned designs were never constructed.
PG. 102 37. Kazuo Nishi and Kazuo Hozumi (translated by H. Mack Horton), What Is Japanese Architecture?: A Survey of Traditional Japanese Architecture, Kodansha International, Tokyo, 1996, pp. 36-38.
38. Thanks to David Young for several useful exchanges on the finer points of this topic.
PG. 104 39. Early tsuba were quite plain. The ability to convey status came via intricacy and applied ornament in later examples. See Edward Dillon, The Arts of Japan, A.C. McClurg & Co., Chicago, 1910, pp. 126-138.
40. Captain F. Brinkley, Japan: Its History, Arts and Literature, Volume VII, J. B. Millet Company, Boston, 1902, pp. 265-266.
41. For much more on the components of Japanese swords see ibid., p. 210. For an amazingly detailed discussion of the chiseling of sword mounts and guards, see chapters 6-8 in the same work.
PG. 105 42. Clive Sinclair, Samurai: The Weapons and Spirit of the Japanese Warrior, Lyons Press, Guilford, CT, 2004 (originally published by Salamander Books, 2001), p. 83. Mokko-gata is translated as “four-arched outline” in Brinkley, Japan: Its History, Arts and Literature, p. 264.
43. Sconces for the Adelaide Tichenor house exhibit a mokko-gata form in the leaded glass, the first use of that feature in a Greene & Greene furnishing. Drawings in the Greene & Greene archives give dates of October 20, 1906, for the Robinson table and March 22, 1907, for the Bolton table.
44. Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Scandinavian Modern Furniture in the Arts & Crafts Period: The Collaboration of the Greenes and the Halls, Chip-stone Foundation, 1993, p. 4.
PG. 108 45. As quoted in a eulogy by Richard Dawkins, September 17, 2001.
PG. 109 46. Edward S. Cooke, Jr., “Scandinavian Modern Furniture in the Arts and Crafts Period: The Collaboration of the Greenes and the Halls”, in American Furniture 1993, Luke Beckerdite, ed., Chipstone, Milwaukee, 1993. This article is required reading for anyone interested in Greene & Greene furniture.
PG. 110 47. See Bob Lang’s excellent book, which includes a discussion of this topic. Shop Drawings for Greene & Greene Furniture, Fox Chapel Publishing, East Petersburg, PA, 2006.
48. Special thanks to Jacqueline Dugas, The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, for her assistance in discovering details of the Thorsen sideboard.
PG. 114 49. Thanks to Nonie Gadsden, Museum Fine Arts, Boston, for confirming this number while the curio cabinet was on display there as part of the Gamble house centennial exhibition: A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene.
PG. 115 50. The golden ratio, denoted , is defined as follows. Consider a rectangle with side lengths in the ratio 1:x. Now break the rectangle into a unit square and the new rectangle that results is the unique value for x such that this new rectangle also has sides with the ratio 1:x. This value is, or about 1.618. Thank you to Tom Moore and Tom Volz for exploring this topic.
PG. 116 51. “Joints are emphasized and used as pattern.” L. Morgan Yost, “Greene & Greene of Pasadena”, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Vol. 9, No. 1-2, March-May 1950, p. 18.
PG. 117 52. See, for example, the dining room of the Laurabelle Robinson house.
53. For a detailed discussion, see Jack A. Sobon, Historic American Timber Joinery: A Graphic Guide, The Timber Framers Guild, Becket, MA, 2002, pp. 46-51.
54. Edward R. Bosley, Greene & Greene, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 2000, p. 94.
55. Okkake daisentsugi resemble the stop-splayed joints in American timber construction.
56. For informative discussions of many Japanese architectural details, see JAANUS, the Japanese Architecture and Art Net Users System at www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus.
PG. 118 57. Finger joints are also a form of open mortise and tenon. They are sometimes referred to as such by docents of the Gamble House during tours. Woodworkers have been known to scoff at the description only to learn later that the docent was, in fact, correct in the use of the term.
PG. 120 58. This author believes that the Laurabelle A. Robinson house should be included in the set of Ultimates. Constructed beginning in 1905, the Robinson house would then be the first Ultimate Bungalow. See Chapter 2 for further discussion of this topic.
59. Randall L. Makinson, Thomas A. Heinz and Brad Pitt, Greene & Greene: The Blacker House, Gibbs Smith, Salt Lake City, 2000. This book wonderfully chronicles the decline and restoration of the house.
60. Morgan Yost writes of visiting the Blacker house with Henry Greene in 1946 and reports that Mrs. Blacker died the next year. These two statements are slightly out of sync with respect to timing. Thus, the visit may have occurred in either 1945 or 1946.
61. “The inside of the house is perfect yet; apparently not a scar or shrinkage or blemish. Quite a number of years ago I had Savage go over all the woodwork and furniture; and so it looks and is as smooth as velvet yet…” As quoted in Makinson, et al., p. 103.
PG. 121 62. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see Makinson, et al., pp. 18-19, 41-56.
PG. 130 63. Edward Bosley as quoted in: Ted Wells, Greene & Greene in Long Beach: The Adelaide Tichenor House (Part 2 of 3), October 27, 2005. Podcast retrieved from twls.libsyn.com/index.php?post_year=2005&post_month=10.
PG. 134 64. Unfortunately, the pins were not always re-stowed before the arms were retracted. Scars on the table’s breadboard ends attest to multiple occurrences.
65. For a discussion of the mechanism on this table, see Alan Marks, “Greene & Greene: A Study in Functional Design,” Fine Woodworking, No. 12, September 1978, pp. 43-44.
PG. 135 66. Ibid, pp. 43-44.
67. The mechanism on the Robinson dining table is similar but that on the Gamble table is more refined.
PG. 140 68. Cutouts in the sconces are echoed by a similar detail on the tabouret.
69. One detail approaching a constant is the use of leather straps to hang lighting fixtures.
70. See, for example, the Daibutsuden at Todaiji (the Great Eastern Temple) in Nara, Japan.
71. I was unable to include a photo of the table lamp. See A New and Native Beauty: The Art and Craft of Greene & Greene, Merrell, London, 2008, p. 258.
PG. 144 72. See the section on Lighting for additional examples of Greene & Greene art glass.
PG. 146 73. Edward R. Bosley, Greene & Greene, Phaidon Press Limited, London, 2000, p. 116.
74. Thanks to Tom Moore for sharing the recent developments on this topic.
PG. 147 75. Thank you to John Hamm for sharing his experience with this topic.
PG. 149 76. An escutcheon is, in this context, a small protective plate around a keyhole.
PG. 152 77. This house is often referred to as the Cordelia Culbertson house.
PG. 153 78. Ralph Adams Cram, Preface in American Country Houses of Today, Architectural Book Publishing Company, New York, 1913, p. V.
79. The piece was almost certainly sold at the Prentiss estate sale (Elisabeth Allen purchased the house from the Culbertson sisters prior to marrying Francis Prentiss). What became of it between that time and its arrival at Warner Bros. is a mystery. Thanks to Ted Bosley for sharing his thoughts about this.