Welcome to my series on Craftsman Bungalows. This is part one of my ongoing blog series, that will introduce to the author (me) and the craftsman bungalow. Here, you will find a blend of my personal experience, hopefully something informative, but most of all a bit of entertainment. So, as my daughter’s first grade teacher always used to say, “Let’s proceed.”
As early as I could remember, I was drawn to old houses. On the way to my elementary school was an old mansion surrounded by mid-century homes. The contrast of old and new architecture fascinated me and I found it mysterious. The house rambled across it’s property. It’s ornate expanse was covered with hand carved wood embellishments. The obvious time, talent and caring that had gone into creating the beautiful home, were a bright contrast to the simpler architecture of the modern homes surrounding it. The child that I was on that day, hoped that I could live in it or an old house just like it. I was a child that loved fairies, fantasies and magic and my favorite book was a collection of Hans Christian Anderson tales. The house appeared to be of another world, magical and safe. The funny thing was, that my Mom had just remarried and she and my new step-dad were considering it. They ended up finding a another home that ended up being a better fit for us. My parents had seven children combined and taking on a rambling old Victorian was a bit much for newly blended family.
Time passed and life happened. I was settled into my career as a nurse and I’d entered into a stage of life where I wanted to have a home, a nest for myself and my children. It was a time when the economy was severely depressed and people were not buying houses. Hundreds of brand new homes were empty and waiting. They were beautiful homes, but the climate wasn’t friendly for buyers. Industry was being outsourced and moved to other countries and thousands of people had lost their jobs and futures. The old neighborhoods suffered even more. The old homes were used as rentals and tax write-offs. Restoration was not even on the horizon. I wanted a bargain, so that’s where I went. The old beauties sat and waited patiently. Most of the homes had paint that was peeling and the exteriors in need of repairs. Broken wood, cracked cement, roofs disintegrating, overgrown yards and sheds that were practically falling over. There were several domains of historic architecture represented. There were Craftsman Bungalows, Victorian Farmhouses and Spanish Colonials. I didn’t see them as old and ugly. They looked like treasures to me with infinite possibilities. I felt at home here. Maybe because I came from a lineage of immigrants, farmers, people that had to fix things. My ancestors arrived on the shores of the United States with the clothes on their backs and a few meager possessions. They had to work hard to make a life. I had grown up at the knees of my grandparents who loved to tell stories of working with their hands. Stories about baking the perfect loaf of bread, hiking five miles through the frozen plains of Iowa to get to a one room school house or preparing meals by hand in a pot bellied stove for a team of ten men who had just hiked in from the fields. That’s how I found my bungalow and decided to invest my life in making a home. That was a beginning of a journey that would take me to new and exciting places and to meet fascinating people.
How could a style of architecture inspire journeys and friendships that would develop into a lifestyle? I started picking up journals about bungalows and surfing the internet to learn more. At first I was mostly looking for information on how to refinish old floors, fix lathe and plaster, take down popcorn ceiling. I found swaths of information. I found out that there were many houses just like mine in the older neighborhoods of most American cities. These areas were called “Bungalow Belts”. My smallish city didn’t have a bungalow belt. What we had was a small collection of well-preserved bungalows with well documented history and several of the bungalows have become city landmarks registered with the state of California. The bungalows were located in and around the old city circle; a historic twentieth century race track that was once a national road race with the largest purse in America during it’s time. My downtown neighborhood was eclectic and combination of every known demographic. I loved people, so it was perfect for me.
As I met my neighbors, life became exciting and fun. I loved hearing my neighbors stories about their lives and the countries that had travelled so far from for a new and hopefully better life. They reminded me of my grandparents, all of them immigrants and hard workers, they had believed in the American dream and never gave up on it. Some of my neighbors were what I called the ‘originals’. Their families had been in my neighborhood since before the turn of the twentieth century and had been witness to decades of change. They were able to give first hand accounts of the evolution of a booming citrus colony into a modern day bedroom community.
Slowly, as I settled in, I began to hear of lectures and events that centered around history and old architecture. I began to attend these and then I was making my own personal history. My budding interest became a full immersion into learning about the past, old architecture and local history. I was an amateur anthropologist and I found it incredibly fascinating and fun. I began to meet people that felt the same way. They were called ‘historicals’. Like most people that loved history; the joy was in the telling of what you had learned and keeping it alive by telling it over and over again to people that never tired of hearing it.
So that was how living in bungalow changed my life. A simple antique cottage; worn and adorable. A small thing that changed my life for the better.
