Some thirty years ago now, we managed to scrape together a down payment for a house. After looking at several houses in town, and realizing that we’d likely have to not only make do with one feature or another that we weren't completely happy with, but would also need to put money into these older houses on an ongoing basis to fix this or that, we decided to build a modest new house. One that would not need modernization for several decades. And since we were going to build a house, we might as well design it to suit ourselves. Which we did, having a professional designer draw up the actual plans and blueprints. All of this sparked an interest in house designs and I began to acquire books with house plans to see how things could be done.
Dover Books offered – and still offers – a ton of books with old house plans from the turn of the last century to the Twenties and Thirties. Dover Home Plan Books Many of these books are reprints of house plan catalogs offered by architectural companies and building associations. I believe that people would order the blueprints and material lists that their builders would use to build the house. Some of the catalogs offered mail order kit houses, like the ones sold by Sears. In that case, all the material for the house would arrive on a rail car to be erected on the prepared foundation by local tradesmen.
Even after we had built our house, I found it interesting to go through these old catalogs to see all the variations in houses and floor plans – as well as the common patterns. Some of them also included sections about the appliances, furnaces, and plumbing that was modern in the 1920’s. All very interesting.
To these catalog reprints I added some architectural books devoted to certain types of residences – shingle style, prairie style, Victorian, and a lot of books on my favorite style – bungalows. I have number of books on bungalows down through the ages. Including the classics of Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman style homes and missionary style furnishings. Plus a book on Charles & Henry Greene’s famous California bungalows dating from the turn of the last century. One of their most famous bungalows was used in the Back to the Future film. I even have several years worth of American Bungalow magazine.
While the plans are interesting, I also enjoyed many of the books for the drawings and art that the architects used to showcase their house designs. I’ve included a few samples above, but there were many more that evoke a bygone age.
The bottom picture on the above page is a large open room on the second floor that I thought would be really cool, especially if it was on a lake... And my little steam yacht was docked, down, beyond the terrace.
The book on the far left is called A Pattern Language, Towns, Buildings, Construction by Christopher Alexander, et al. It deserves a blog post of its own. If you're ever going to design a house, it is a book that you should look through. What they did was have people go all around the world and note the characteristics that made them feel comfortable, starting with what makes a city livable and working down to houses. From this study they proposed 253 "patterns." For houses these patterns range from #181 "There is no substitute for fire (i.e. fireplaces) #180 Window seats -- who doesn't like curling up with a book in a cozy seat next to a window. #196 Doors in the corners of rooms so that the traffic pattern does not run through the center of the room and conversational area. #203 Child caves .All kids like small places -- closets and such to hang out in. And all sorts of other observations. As I said, it's a blog post in itself. But it makes one think, and so often it made me say, "Yes, exactly. That's what I find attractive."
Anyway, that's my shelf of house plan books. One of those little passions of mine from my own bygone age. Though I have to admit it was fun paging through them again. I'll have to bring them out more often.
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