Craftsman Software Update

[Eliz Mettert]

Nomatter the size of the project, there's a CRAFTSMAN Mechanic Toolset for every skill set, from minors repairs to major overhaul. Select wrenches, sockets and accessories come with a LIFETIME WARRANTY so you can get the most out of your tools for years to come. Feel the pride in a job well done.

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For the past 20 years, the Craftsman Perspective has educated and inspired people interested in architecture and the homes they live in. This site is not connected to any business, nor does it sell anything. It exists purely for education and entertainment purposes.

The idea for this site came about as I explored my own passion for the Arts and Crafts style and decided to post the things I discovered along the way. The most popular area of this site is devoted to photographs of houses -- over 300 examples of traditional Arts and Craft, craftsman, mission, bungalows, and related styles from 1890 - 1925. But what started out as a virtual picture book has evolved into what I hope is a good foundation for anyone interested in the Arts and Crafts style.

Built in 1906, this home sits on the prominent downtown corner of Bath and De la Guerra streets. I wrote about it in 2016 and fell in love with its wide front porch, charming upstairs balcony, and the original vintage details throughout. Stepping across the threshold for the first time felt like I had traveled back to the early 20th century. Visiting a second time eight years later only intensified that sensation.

Just inside the front door, the living and dining room hold court at the front of the house, separated by hidden pocket doors. Built-in cabinetry and matching window seats show off the original gleaming wood. I smiled as I admired these classic features all over again, especially the concentrically patterned hardwood floors in these two rooms. Their obvious craftsmanship is well worth an encore of appreciation.

The kitchen is beyond the dining room, and a bedroom and one bath round out the downstairs floor plan. The remaining three bedrooms and two baths lie upstairs, along with my favorite feature: a huge balcony accessed by both front bedrooms. This veranda provides a perfect lounging spot high above the neighborhood, and it echoes the front porch as an extension of living space to bring the outside in.

Throughout the house, immense improvements have been made since I last visited. Dual-paned windows have replaced the originals, and full-house air conditioning has been installed, adding quiet and comfort while staying true to the original look and feel. Even bigger changes include a newly built, architecturally equivalent garage, plus a new interior staircase leading down to the basement, which has been finished to create ample additional living space. Additional history has been uncovered as well.

In 2016, I noted what a marvel it was that all the fine shaping and finish work would have been done by hand at the turn of the century. Since then, historical documents and photographs have been uncovered, showing that the first owner of the house was a grocer named JC Kenney. Kenney used his horse-drawn cart to bring loads of sand up from the beach to use at the site of the home as it was being constructed.

Visiting 803 Bath Street for the second time really was like visiting an old friend. All the qualities that I looked forward to revisiting were on full display, and the years since we last spent time together revealed changes that made me appreciate the good old days even more.

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American Craftsman is an American domestic architectural style, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which included interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its immediate ancestors in American architecture are the Shingle style, which began the move away from Victorian ornamentation toward simpler forms, and the Prairie style of Frank Lloyd Wright.

"Craftsman" was appropriated from furniture-maker Gustav Stickley, whose magazine The Craftsman was first published in 1901. The architectural style was most widely used in small-to-medium-sized Southern California single-family homes from about 1905, so the smaller-scale Craftsman style became known alternatively as "California bungalow". The style remained popular into the 1930s and has continued with revival and restoration projects.

A successor of other 19th century movements, such as the Gothic Revival and the Aesthetic Movement,[2] the British Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction against the deteriorating quality of goods during the Industrial Revolution, and the corresponding devaluation of human labor, over-dependence on machines, and disbanding of the guild system.[3] Members of the Arts and Crafts movement also balked at Victorian eclecticism, which cluttered rooms with mismatched, faux-historic goods to convey a sense of worldliness.[4] The movement emphasized handwork over mass production. In some ways, it was just as much of a social movement as it was an aesthetic one, emphasizing the plight of the industrial worker and equating moral rectitude with the ability to create beautiful but simple things. These social currents can especially be seen in the writings of John Ruskin and William Morris, both highly influential thinkers for the movement.[5] In addition, adherents sought to elevate the status of art forms that had previously been seen as a mere trade and not fine art.[5]

The American movement also reacted against the eclectic Victorian "over-decorated" aesthetic; however, the arrival of the Arts and Crafts movement in late 19th century America coincided with the decline of the Victorian era. While the American Arts and Crafts movement shared many of the same goals as the British movement, such as social reform, a return to traditional simplicity over gaudy historic styles, the use of local natural materials, and the elevation of handicraft, it was also able to innovate: unlike the British movement, which had never been very good at figuring out how to make handcrafted production scalable,[5] American Arts and Crafts designers were more adept at the business side of design and architecture, and were able to produce wares for a staunchly middle-class market.[2] Gustav Stickley, in particular, hit a chord in the American populace with his goal of ennobling modest homes for a rapidly expanding American middle class, embodied in the Craftsman Bungalow style.[6]

In architecture, reacting to both Victorian architectural opulence and increasingly common mass-produced housing, the style incorporated a visibly sturdy structure of clean lines and natural materials. The movement's name American Craftsman came from the popular magazine, The Craftsman, founded in October 1901 by philosopher, designer, furniture maker, and editor Gustav Stickley.[7] The magazine featured original house and furniture designs by Harvey Ellis, the Greene and Greene company, and others.[8] The designs, while influenced by the ideals of the British movement, found inspiration in specifically American antecedents such as Shaker furniture and the Mission Revival Style, and the Anglo-Japanese style. Emphasis on the originality of the artist/craftsman led to the later design concepts of the 1930s Art Deco movement.[citation needed] The architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright, himself a member of the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, was inspired by the style to become an innovator in the Prairie School of architecture and design,[1] which shared many common goals with the Arts and Crafts movement.[9]

The Arts and Crafts Movement emerged in the United States in Boston in the 1890s. The area was very receptive to the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement due to prominent thinkers like the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson and Harvard Art History professor Charles Eliot Norton, who was a personal friend of British Art and Crafts leader William Morris.[10] The movement began with the first American Arts and Crafts Exhibition organized by the printer Henry Lewis Johnson in April 1897 at Copley Hall,[11] featuring over 1,000 objects made by designers and craftspeople.

The exhibition's success led to the formation of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts in June 1897 with Charles Eliot Norton as president.[12] The society aimed to "develop and encourage higher standards in the handicrafts."[13] The Society focused on the relationship of artists and designers to the world of commerce and high-quality craft.

This Society was incorporated for the purpose of promoting artistic work in all branches of handicraft. It hopes to bring Designers and Workmen into mutually helpful relations, and to encourage workmen to execute designs of their own. It endeavors to stimulate in workmen an appreciation of the dignity and value of good design; to counteract the popular impatience of Law and Form, and the desire for over-ornamentation and specious originality. It will insist upon the necessity of sobriety and restraint, of ordered arrangement, of due regard for the relation between the form of an object and its use, and of harmony and fitness in the decoration put upon it.[14]

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