The style: Craftsman is a residential style of architecture that was extremely popular between 1900 and 1940. It grew from the Arts and Crafts decoration movement as a reaction to the mass-production of the industrial age and the ornateness of late Victorian styles such as Queen Anne.

Taking inspiration from the bungalows of English colonial houses in India, the simple, economical Craftsman bungalow spread from California around the nation.

Characteristics

The Craftsman style deliberately celebrated the hand-made, the rustic, the natural and the spiritual.

Outside, the form was horizontal and low to the ground (the “Bilbo Baggins look,” says architect Michael Sullivan). Overhanging eaves had exposed brackets and rafters, roof pitches were flattened, porch columns were pyramidal, and there was often only one story. Hand-laid river rock was used in porch columns and exterior chimneys or as veneer over concrete foundations.

Inside, details included open plan rooms, oak floors, a cozy fireplace with artisan tiles or river rock and flanking bookshelves, a pony (half-height) wall with square-tooled columns to frame the view to another room, tooled wooden banisters, handmade objects (such as Tiffany glass), wooden box beams on the ceiling. Tool-marks were often left on wood or metal to show it was hand-made.

By the 1920s, Craftsman houses “began to be dressed differently,” says Sullivan, the exterior mimicking Cape Cod, Tudor or Art Deco styles. The interior stayed the same.

WHAT THE EXPERT SAYS

“I think of Craftsman as the Arts and Crafts aesthetic applied to architecture – the equivalent of Stickley furniture or Morris tile,” says Sullivan. “It was hugely popular in Tacoma; wooden Craftsman is the most common house here. People bought them from the Sears, Roebuck catalog and had them shipped out on the railroad. There’s even a bunch of 1920s silent movies, like Buster Keaton’s, with slapstick about putting a house together from these numbered boxes.”

WHERE TO SEE THE STYLE

Tacoma: The most ornate examples are in the North Slope and Stadium historical districts. Simpler worker cottages are found in the South end.

The Tacoma Historical Society will hold free walking tours of the Wedge Neighborhood, which features Craftsman homes. Tours start at the triangle pocket park on the corner of Division and Ainsworth Streets at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Saturday.

Olympia: The neighborhood uphill from the Capitol building.

Reference: “The Arts and Crafts Movement in the Pacific Northwest,” Lawrence Kreisman (Glenn Mason, 2007).

OTHER FAMOUS EXAMPLES

Craftsman bungalows began in California, with designs by brothers Henry Mather and Thomas Sumner Greene; good places to look include Pasadena and San Francisco.

Rosemary Ponnekanti: 253-597-8568

rosemary.ponnekanti@thenewstribune.com

The Olympia Heritage Commission and Michael Sullivan of Artifacts Consulting, www.artifacts-inc.com, helped with this article.