Lovable Place No. 2
Simply put… Home. What is there not to love about white clinker brick, steel windows, slate roof, old towering oak trees and whistling radiators, all filled with children laughing and lots of love. Living in a “lovable old home” there is much I gripe about, but in the end my affection for it always wins out.
The home is a simple arts-and-crafts inspired English Tudor built by a father-son/builder-architect team in 1927. The concept is classic Tudor: side facing gable ends with a single dominant front facing gable, and of course, the well proportioned entry turret. It is on an up-hill site, has a wonderful walled courtyard in the back to retain the terrain above. Some fascinating details include the use of teak wood for the interior paneling and trim, no interior wood casings on the windows, self-supporting precast concrete spiral stairs, and no exposed exterior wood – truly a low maintenance home.
The architect (the son) Edwin Peckinpaugh was 24 years old when he designed the home, a recent graduate of Penn University. He went on to design some of our city’s great homes before moving to Sacramento, CA in the 1940’s – he was a real talent. You can read more about Edwin at the now Stafford King and Wiese Architects.
Lovable Place No. 1
Sustainable buildings must be Lovable, Durable, Flexible, and Frugal. ”The first of the four foundations of sustainable buildings is Lovability, because it does not matter how efficiently the building performs if it is demolished and carted off to the landfill in a generation or two because it cannot be loved. ” - Steve Mouzon
Thank you Steve for your profound observations. I was so inspired after listening to Steve’s interview on Treehugger that I wanted to dedicate a series of blogs to Loveable Places that are often old, inspiring, restful, natural, and places I love to spend time. Odds are these places will long outlast most of our LEED certified buildings of today.
This first lovable place is a Georgian Cottage that I am blessed to stay at while traveling. The photo says it all, no fuss just a perfect proportion, with proper scale, material, and detail. Placed perfectly at the end of a terraced garden on the edge of the wood. I will write more about it’s mother estate and Architect in subsequent blogs.
Think smaller. Space costs money to build and maintain, and most people live in a fraction of what they build. If you think you need 5,000 square feet, cut your wish list in half. Toss out the space you won’t use, and you might find that 2,500 is perfect.
We came across the above quote by Russell Versaci in the March/April 2009 edition of Southern Accents and were intrigued by the possibilities. Reducing the size of houses that we design is something we are interested in, especially as many of our clients begin to come to us with reduced budgets. Continue reading ‘Living Smaller’