In a historic district in
Pasadena, California, boundedby a Domino’s Pizza on one corner and a 7-11 on the other you’ll find heaven. Bungalow Heaven. This type of house, the bungalow and particularly the Craftsman bungalow is now celebrated in historic districts from Raleigh, North Carolina to
Seattle, Washington. But the Craftsman bungalow
only became a phenomenon through the evolution of a
socialist artist’s philosophy to a mass market factory operation. The definition of a Craftsman bungalow
is really slippery but to explain it, let’s take
three 1911 examples. From the American founder of the
Craftsmanmovement, Gustav Stickley. These bungalows are all low, and wide, with roofs overhanging a porch. Compare that to a Queen Anne Victorian house,
common in the late 1800s. The Queen Anne has turrets and a wraparound
porch and all sorts of ornamentation. It was also huge and expensive. But bungalows aren’t just small — you can see the difference when you compare
the shape to a New Orleans shotgun house, which is small and low, but also
long and skinny. The bungalow interiors feature
relatively open floor plans like this: no long hallways, just connected spaces. And materials are hopefully natural: highlighting simple wood and stone
over artifice. An ideal Craftsman interior
might look like this: with built-in features like
this window seat and piano, beams showing off the materials, and details like these hanging lanterns
that hang from the ceiling. A true Craftsman bungalow is simple,
but well-appointed. Built carefully, with attention to every detail. And that highlights the
Craftsman bungalow paradox. How did a meticulously crafted movement
become a mass movement? I’ll be honest, before I started this video I kinda thought Craftsman tools
is where Craftsman came from. And it is true that they are kinda connected but it started somewhere else entirely. These chairs are from the Crystal palace exhibition
of 1851, in London. It was a massive exhibition showing off
the newest, most advanced...everything. The arts and crafts movement was born in response: a push to stop making these chairs
and start making ones like these. Cleaner. Simpler. Poet slash artist slash textile guy
slash socialist William Morris was one of many Arts and Crafts figures. But he became key to the Craftsman movement,
in America, after his death. Today, he’s best known for his gorgeous designs. Like on these playing cards I’ve got that
were made in some factory in China. And you can get stuff with his original designs
printed on it almost anywhere from playing cards to your quaint,
pandemic face masks. Morris reacted against industrialization
and artifice that was happening during the industrial revolution. He was in favor of craftsmanship and beauty. He inspired Gustav Stickley-- the guy who wrote that book of Craftsman plans
and made that chair-- to promote the Arts and Crafts movement
in America with his 1900s magazine, The Craftsman. The first issue was all about William Morris,
including his Socialistic career which united with his art, in that a workman could pursue the “creation of beauty
as necessary as daily bread.” Craftsmen, he claimed, found value
in the quality of their work not as disengaged factory employees. Future editions of “The Craftsman” promoted
similarly eclectic topics, from poets to Factory reform. And there was a lot of furniture,
since that was Stickley’s background. The magazine’s name, Craftsman, became the
way to identify Arts and Crafts in America. Entire Craftsman homes started to show up
in the magazine as well, including, in 1903, the Crafstman bungalow. “How to build a bungalow” noted that the word started
"near the banks of the ganges" but had since been transformed
to a new architectural form. The Craftsman had recommendations
for how to build it all properly. Over time, the magazine featured
more and more Craftsman house plans including plans for bungalows. Adhering to those Arts and Crafts tenets:
natural materials, intentional construction and as bungalows, a low slung shape and relatively
open floor plan. Stickley tied the bungalow
to the Craftsman movement. And then dollar signs showed up on the plans. Craftsman and bungalow had become
these buzz words kinda like “Tiny House” today. And nobody controlled that brand. So all the bungalows started getting
lumped together. I love these two papers — by Janet Ore and
Kim Hernandez that show how bungalows got commercialized
in the “development of the Seattle Suburbs” and in a Los Angeles “Bungalow Boom”. Across the country in the 1900s,
new areas needed hundreds of homes. Stickley himself started selling floor plans
so Craftsman fans could build their own homes
with their own builders, including craftsman bungalows. Originally, Craftsman homes
came from Stickley’s plans or a few other esteemed practitioners. But anybody could sell floor plans or build
houses and make a lot of money off that style. In Seattle, an entrepreneur
named Jud Yoho— Jud Yoho. Do not trust Jud Yoho. Jud Yoho sold “Craftsman bungalows” with no real affiliation to the
Arts and Crafts movement and the “creation of beauty.” His goal was to turn “craftsman”
into a volume business. The same thing happened down in Los Angeles where “Practical Bungalows” were built
by the Los Angeles Investment Company a real estate firm that developed land,
took Craftsman style and built tons of homes with the help
of a massive mill and shops. Sears — then a catalog company — was the
Amazon of the era. And they joined in. They sold 70,000 kit homes
between 1908 and 1940 including a bunch of bungalows
with Craftsman flair. Salesman from Portland to Topeka
packaged bungalow style, all of which had a similar floorplan and,
often, a Craftsman-like style but without Gustav Stickley or the philosophy
of the Arts and Crafts movement. By 1909, the New York Times was publishing
full blown trend pieces about the “call of the bungalow” it was the “Latest Dream of Spring Poet
and Real Estate Man.” By the 1920s, “Craftsman”
was such a strong brand that Sears bought the Trademark in 1927 and they put it on tools. What started as a movement for a socialist
textile maker had become a goldrush where different types of bungalows capitalized
on the “Craftsman” cachet. A craftsman bungalow can look like
an artistic expression of individual mastery. Or it can look like hustlers
capitalizing on a trend. But really, it can look like
both of those things. And that, to a lot of people, looks just like heaven. Okay so there is a whole world of people who are obsessed with these kit homes and
where they actually ended up. And a lot of those include Craftsman homes. I found one blog called
"Oklahoma Houses By Mail" and this woman had found the
Los Angeles Investment Company catalog that I show earlier in this video. And then she tracked down the location of
the house that is on the cover. And you can find it on streetview today. It's got a different coat of paint
but it is the same building.
