Hubert Savage, Architect (6)

 

 

 

The larger chimney (on the right) has a single stack that vents both fireplaces 

   

The smaller chimney once vented a heater to warm the rear of the bungalow

 

 

 

So why did Hubert Savage feel the need to create two sets of floor plans for his bungalow, the first dated 1933, the second 1951? The deep answer, I think, lies in poor functioning of his original method of heating the building. Initially, and for a very long time thereafter, he relied on open fireplaces for heat in the living and dining rooms (the fireplaces may also have been intended to heat the kitchen too). Accordingly, both rooms have fireplaces that are vented through a single chimney, each with its own flue - see top photo above, where the combination chimney is on the right. Savage also had a second smaller chimney constructed that was framed into the walls of two bedrooms just off the central corridor. It was there to vent the gases given off by a small oil-burning stove (or paraffin heater) that was originally located in the hallway. This heater was intended to warm the bedrooms and the bathroom, but we don't know if it actually worked well because, by 1988 when I bought the place it was long gone and the chimney was now inactive. In point of fact, I wasn't even aware that there was a second chimney when I bought Grange Road but soon discovered it. One of my first acts upon arrival was to rip out the deep-pile-shag wall-to-wall carpeting covering the wooden floors in the three bedrooms and hallway (yes deep-pile-shag was a fad for a short time, until it became evident how dysfunctional it actually was). I took it out in order to go back to the original tongue-and-groove fir flooring lying beneath it, which to that point had never been refinished. The adhesive binding holding the shag carpet's underlay to the floor proved hard to remove, while the tacking strips securing the edges of the wall-to-wall had damaged the wooden flooring somewhat. Also, the installation of the wall-to-wall came at the cost of the original quarter-round moulding that made the transition between floors and the high baseboards (once the carpet was out, the rooms felt quite bare without it). On the positive side, removing the deep-pile shag carpets revealed that there had once been a heater in the hallway (marks of wear on the fir flooring were the evidence of use). Those marks led me to explore the possibility that there was a hidden chimney framed into the walls between the master and second bedrooms. A visit to the attic confirmed the presence of this second chimney (a fact I had not grasped when purchasing the house, perhaps because I would have had to venture quite far out into the back garden in order to see it). I also purchased the house without ever visiting the attic, for reasons discussed in my September 2023 post First Impressions at this blogspot.

 

Wall jog (right) containing the hidden chimney

Wall jog (left) disguising the second chimney

Second chimney that vented a small hallway heater

 

However effective the heater may or may not have been, the two main fireplaces were another matter entirely. The pair may always have been substandard as sources of heat, a fact that was brought home by my early enthusiasm for decorative fires in the living room. Although I didn't have to rely on these fireplaces for heat, I could tell that they weren't particularly well-contrived for their function - indeed, in my limited experience, the fireplaces actually sent more heat up the chimney than they retained in the rooms. Fireplaces work by drawing oxygen over fuel, which requires a supply of air (fed by a draught) to achieve consistent burning; in turn, smoke, fumes and a good deal of heat go straight up the flue and into the airshed. The necessity of removing smoke-laden air while drawing in fresh air to feed the fire needs to be taken account of by design, especially in order to maximize the heat that remains. Henry Saylor, in his informative book Bungalows (1913), impresses on readers the necessity of ensuring "that the fireplace and its flue are built along scientifically correct lines - a fireplace that smokes is of less real practical value than a gas-log" (a gas-log being a gas-fuelled device that imitates the appearance of a real fire). In my experience, keeping a fire going in the living room hearth was involving, necessitating keeping the windows slightly ajar in order to ensure sufficient draught to keep the fire burning reliably. Yet in turn, if the windows were kept ajar, it caused the fire to burn that much more briskly, and as a result, to consume more fuel. And this enhanced burning also entailed sending more heat straight up the chimney. The alternative, which I found more distasteful, was to keep the windows closed and endure a fire that smouldered. 

 

The idea of sending heat up the chimney was not unusual in bungalows that originated in Southern California (where the North American fad for them first took off) because there was no need to consider heat retention in a place without a real winter. In that milieu, the meaning of the fireplace - which was often quite grandly made, constituting a major emphasis in design - was primarily social, conceived as a place where family would gather and exchange stories around a sample of the primordial flame. But these fireplaces were decidedly not about keeping the bungalow warm.

 

 

"A mystery still clings to the hearth, and it still is the centre of the world." William Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism and Myth, 1891.

 

"The focal point of the main living area is invariably the fireplace, usually located for maximum visibility and impact, and forming a kind of altar to the cult of of hearth and home that is fancifully associated with bungalow living." Paul Duchscherer, The Bungalow, America's Arts and Crafts Home, 1995.

 

 

This Southern California nonchalance towards heat retention would have fared less well in Victoria, which perhaps doesn't see snow accumulate every year, but where there is nonetheless a real winter most years and a corresponding need for sustained heat. So while the heating function could be an afterthought in a benign climate, bungalows built in locales further north, in places that experienced real winters, typically came equipped with some form of central heating (which usually involved a furnace housed in a basement). Remarkably, and rather naively in light of reality, Savage's reliance on open fireplaces underestimated Victoria's winter severity (especially as his building was not insulated for many years, other than by the air within the cavity between the studs). I'm sure he was glad to have the rear heater to warm the back end of the house, but I'm also certain that it was often chilly in the principal rooms.  

 

 

"The greatest single factor making the Comfortable House comfortable was central heating." Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House. 

 

 

 

Most years see snow on the ground in Victoria, some years quite a bit

Picture of the shed with abundant snowfall around it in December 2022

 

 

It turns out, however, that the British are renowned for their quirky approaches to heating homes (especially in comparison to Canada, where central heating is the norm) preferring instead to under-heat buildings and offset the chill by bundling up. So Savage's misapprehension of heating needs may come down to the English tolerance for sub-optimal heating systems. Even today, English houses rarely take a systematic approach to heat, almost always warming only those rooms that are actually in use. For the most part, they make do with things as they are (see end notes for further reference and more discussion). 

 

 

Right, a fireplace that Savage relied on to heat the living room, until 1951

 

 

So the word 'inadequate' pretty much summarizes my experience of the fireplaces: difficult to operate, consuming large quantities of wood if burning efficiently, and generating only marginal heat gain. I found myself caught in a dilemma: do I keep the windows ajar in order to ensure sufficient draft (thus consuming substantially more fuel) or close them and endure the predictable outcome of a smokey fire? Typically, I opted to feed the fire, as it by then was only occasional in nature. Even so, I found myself using the fireplace less frequently over time due to the inherent futility of the process. I came to realize that this would also have been an issue for the Savages, one that was more trenchant back in their heyday, and would only intensify with age.

 

 

Dining room fireplace, sharing a common chimney with the living room

 

 

As I learned from the reading I was doing to prepare for this series of posts, Savage wasn't the only English Arts and Crafts architect to struggle with heat. In fact, Philip Webb, the original Arts and Crafts architect and the designer of Red House for William Morris, back in 1860, created a dwelling that, while brilliant in many respects, was simply not constructed for solar gain and displayed, according to author Jan Marsh, "an almost medieval disregard for heating." It turns out its fireplaces were too small for the intended impact, and they smoked too, which was "a serious design flaw". "In 1861 the main chimneys had to be heightened in order to remedy the problem." (William Morris and Red House, by Jan Marsh, 2005). Another famous Arts and Crafts architect, C. F. A. Voysey, also relied on fireplaces to provide heat in his buildings. He held to this idea based on an instinctive rejection of the whole notion of central heat, which he famously denounced as involving various "demoniacal contrivances" like pipes, radiators and a furnace. As a result, he opted to heat his buildings with fireplaces, but understood their scientific design sufficiently to build in special 'draught lines' to enable sufficient airflow to sustain lively combustion ("fireplaces fed with air through small tubes direct from outside, so as to avoid draughts under doors and consequent cold feet"). Savage, on the other hand, may not have comprehended the science behind fireplace design very well, and simply trusted that his mason knew how to build them properly. In any event, after many years Savage gave up on relying on the fireplaces, and began thinking more seriously about how to centrally heat the building (which he was presumably already doing in the upper-end houses he designed for wealthy clients, which would have had basements).

 

 

Classy home on Beach Drive designed by Savage in 1929, for W.S. Mitchell

 

 

In the later 1990s, I reached out to Joy and Al Barth for background on the house - Joy was the Savages' only child, and she and Al were kind enough to respond to my efforts to restore her father's handiwork. Among the many gifts they sent me were two annotated copies of the floor plan of the house, which I didn't immediately grasp the significance of. But poring over them, I was grateful to garner more information about the original layout and features of the bungalow (it was from close reading of these plans that I learned that there had once been a built-in radio in the alcove in the living room, as well as a sideboard in the dining room). Originally I immersed myself in these details, but one day I chanced to notice that the two plans explored entirely different visions for heat supply in the building (which turned out to be the reason there were two of them). Savage initially thought of introducing a system of hot-water-radiators to centrally heat the bungalow. The 1933 plan, I came to realize, shows the proposed placement of the hot-water-fed radiators, although it wasn't ever carried out. 

 

"Around 1930 many families removed the old systems and changed over to hot water radiator systems..." The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005.

 

It isn't clear just where Savage would have put the furnace to heat the water for the radiators either, which would have been challenging as he lacked a basement. And selecting a fuel type would only have complicated matters further: coal, for example, would have required dedicated space to store the fuel (typically, a separate room) and not far from the furnace either, while fuel oil would have required a bulky storage tank placed somewhere highly visible at the back of the building, so somewhat more flexible than coal, but still highly intrusive. And both fuel types would have necessitated access from some sort of driveway to enable deliveries, a critical factor that couldn't easily be accommodated with the existing infrastructure. Perhaps these stumbling blocks were why the 1933 plan wasn't acted on? I must admit I didn't twig onto the meaning of the two plans until my eyes came to rest on the first note on the 1933 version (picture below). 

 

 

 

Detail from 1933 plan, "note: proposed h. water radiators shown thus"

1951 plan indicating proposed locations to install electric wall heaters

 

The 1951 plan (photo above) lays out prospective locations for a series of individual electric wall heaters, that are to be framed into the rooms and hallways of the bungalow (this time the plan was carried out, in relatively short order). But even that plan, as executed, was modified to some extent, as several of those wall heaters wound up located differently than indicated on the initial plan (the living room wall heater, for example, was ultimately installed next to the fireplace). It's evident that the 1951 plan resolved the issues with central heat by means of a strategy that would warm principally those areas that were in active use. I could speculate that Savage, who by this time was an accomplished designer of public schools (including Tolmie, Duncan High, Courtney Senior High, and with Eric Clarkson, Mount View High School) had familiarized himself with Wesix electrical wall heaters from his experience in designing these buildings, then applied the technology in his own home.  

 

 

Wesix electric wall-heater (on the left) in corridor 

 

Master bedroom, Wesix three-bar wall-heating unit (lower right)

Kitchen unit (right, partially obscured), three-bar Wesix electrical wall-heater

These wall heaters, manufactured in San Francisco, Seattle, and Los Angeles (among other locations) by the Wesix Heater Company, were very popular throughout the Pacific Northwest, especially in the 1940s and 1950s. Known for durability and innovative design, in the post-war boom they appeared in many homes where they offered safe, clean, efficient room-by-room heating. Marketed under the brand of "Wiredheat", they were frequently used to replace older, wood-based heating systems. A full-page ad in the Pacific Northwest Book of Homes for Wesix wall heaters (1949) depicts a woman lounging comfortably in an armchair beside one, with copy declaring that: 

 

"Wesix Wiredheat has brought happiness to many thousands of homes in the Pacific Northwest where natural resources and man's ingenuity have combined to place the luxury of electric heating within the reach of every homeowner. For it indeed is a luxury to have instant radiant and circulating warm air at your fingertip command, without waiting for the entire house to warm up. And there are savings too! Wesix Wiredheat is  safe...clean...and famous for long, trouble-free operation. Your dealer or neighbor can testify to that."

 

 

Of course, Hubert and Alys may have acted on the problem of heat generation long before discovering their ultimate solution. A simple electrical system comprised of knob-and-tube circuits had been wired into the bungalow when it was built. This power source supplied overhead lights (or wall sconces) and a number of electrical outlets in each room. Practically from the launch of these residential wiring systems, there were commercial devices on the market that allowed people to supplement their heat supply. One type of early unit for space-heating came with light-bulb-like screw-ins that allowed it to be popped directly into light sockets (see picture below); I don't know that the Savages ever used this sort of technology, but it was available early in the history of domestic wiring (I would have had reservations myself).

 

 

These space heaters screw in like light bulbs, employing the same socket

 

 

There were other options that soon came available too, based on using electrical power to warm space (but more safely engineered than the heaters shown above). Many brands of space-heating device were then marketed, some quite stylish. The images below show examples of Wesix portable space heaters dating to different eras. Again, I have no idea whether or not the Savages ever used such technologies to raise their comfort level, but they were readily available and the Savages had the electrical circuits that could make it happen (see photos below).

 

 

 

Deco-era vintage aluminum space-heating unit manufactured by Wesix

 

 

1935 Wesix space heater 'quickly warms any small room'

Wesix space-heating unit, portable, three bars, 240 volts: very powerful

 

 

There are other things Savage did in order to improve the bungalow's capacity for heat retention, including at some point having fibrous insulation blown into the walls from the outside. The initial theory of frame construction was that the air pockets within the walls were deemed to have insulation value. A second stage in what became a sharp progression involved hiking this value by filling the cavity with a substance like cellulose, which I realized had at some point been done at the Savage bungalow. I became aware of this while examining the building after the initial repairs prior to a full repainting, when I discovered that a series of circular holes, at regular intervals, had at some point been drilled into the drop-siding. These regular holes were obviously access points through which insulation could be pumped into the walls, after which they had been carefully filled with wooden plugs. Given how tidy the work had been, I simply assumed that Savage must have overseen the job (I didn't know at that time how early he had passed away). I subsequently learned that the energy-efficiency of buildings only became a pressing issue as a result of the energy crisis of the early seventies. So, it may have been the building contractor who actually did the job that took so much care in the doing. 

 

At some earlier point too, perhaps back in the 1940s, Zonolite insulation had been added between the ceiling joists in the attic, in order to maximize heat retention in the rooms below (this fact is revealed on the 1951 floor plan). Zonolite is a brand-name for vermiculite originating at the Libby mine in Montana, USA. It was marketed in Canada under that brand name and was widely used for insulation in attics (and it is also very likely contaminated with asbestos fibre, which was interspersed with the seams of vermiculite). Later someone also added bats of fibreglass insulation above the vermiculite, which is pretty much where things stand now.

 

 

Zonolite (vermiculite) insulation visible between ceiling joists in the attic

 

 

One additional note on the heating system I found in place when I moved in, which it should be said still operates flawlessly: the Wesix wall heaters are of such remarkably high quality that they are surely the next best thing to a real furnace for heating a building. Fabricated like a true capital good - that is, made to last a very long time - they simply do not readily break down. Their chief vulnerability (apart from being powerful, which sets them apart from today's passive baseboard heating) is that if the power happens to go out in a winter storm, you don't have a way to heat the building (I guess you could resort to using those fireplaces, if you keep a supply of wood). I didn't encounter this problem though in over 35 years living there.

 

When I first landed at Grange Road in 1988, there was an entire wall in the utility area that was given over to meters whose sole function, I learned, was to average the power supply drawn for particular uses. These meters served to apportion the severely constrained 60-amp service, in order that the full range of possible high-intensity uses could function to some degree. Among my first acts in the new house was thus upgrading the power supply to 100-amp service, which involved, among other things, a new and larger panel, with more potential circuits and no physical fuses (remember those - you had to actually replace them if they were tripped). This upgrading of the power supply also made it possible to dispense with the wall of meters entirely, because there was now sufficient supply to support all uses, including the intense wall-heaters. As a result of this enlarged panel, I had room for additional circuits too, which either facilitated new uses (like overhead electric lighting and power outlets in the attic) or replaced existing knob-and-tube circuits where new high-output uses would otherwise have been loaded onto old circuits (this is the most common cause of failure of knob-and-tube wiring). My initial electrician was Eddy Kop Senior, who upon viewing the old-fashioned wall of meters, said: "you don't see that much nowadays - but if we go to 100 amp service, you can get rid of them all". It lead me to wonder why this had this not been done already? The answer I think lies in the fact that when the Wesix wall heaters were installed in the early 50s, 60-amp service was still the residential norm. Hubert Savage would have overseen their installation, before he retired from architecture in 1954. After he passed on the next year, his wife Alys occupied the bungalow for several more decades - thus likely overseeing certain improvements, such as the deep-pile shag wall-to-wall in the back of the house and the comprehensive 'remuddling' of the kitchen. When Alys herself drew near the end of her time in the house, she sold the bungalow to Pat Brown and her husband at some point in the mid-1970s (see my post The Romance Of Possibility, in Century Bungalow, August 2016 for further discussion).

 

Another thing worth mentioning here: I've had the wall heaters inspected thoroughly by three professional electricians, all of them seasoned journeymen: Eddy Kop Senior, Monty Gill, and David McLellan. Each raved about the installation, the quality of the wiring and the durability of the heating units themselves, even about the quality of carpentry that went into the installation. This all had to have been done while Savage was still practising architecture and retained his access to first-class carpentry skills, because one would never know that those heaters hadn't come with the house (I know that's an impossibility given it was built in 1913 and the heaters only went in in the early 50s, but the quality of the installation makes it feel true). I was very satisfied to have this fifties heating system during my many years of dwelling there (see next photo).

 

 

Four-bar Wesix electrical wall heater in the living room shows seamless installation

 

 

Books for Looks

 

Readers with access to The Globe And Mail online might want to check out the article I Thought Canada Was Cold. And Then I Moved To England, by Barry Rueger, 2025. Speaking to the quirkiness of British heating systems, it suggests the following: "the British find their greatest pride in being cold"; "I had of course heard the jokes about slippers and cardigans, and about the British obsession with not spending money on heat. What I now know is that these weren't jokes - they were the very foundations of a national culture." "What I've learned since arriving in Britain is that yes, everyone wears layers of clothing indoors, and that yes, likely only one room is heated at any time." "Like a lot of Canadians, we've spent many evenings watching programs like The Crown and Downton Abbey. In both shows the most memorable set pieces show people in deep discussion beside a roaring fireplace. What I now realize is that 10 feet away from the hearth people were likely shivering frigidly." "Because the heating systems in British homes are so spartan, almost every single room in the house - including the bathroom - has a small, plugged-in, electric heater 'to take the edge off' the cold. These inefficient little boxes do warm things up a bit, but are an expensive solution."

 

William Morris and Red House, Jan Marsh, 2005.

Bungalows, Henry Saylor, 1913.

W. R. Lethaby: His Life And Work, Godfrey Rubens, 1986.

 

Pacific Northwest Book Of Homes, 1949, full page advertisement for Wesix wall-heaters on page 7.

 

The Bungalow, America's Arts and Crafts Home, Paul Duchscherer, 1995. 

 

The Life and Times of Victoria Architect P. Leonard James, by Rosemary James Cross, 2005. 

 

Charles F. A. Voysey, Architect, by David Gebhard, 1975. 

 

Hubert Savage, Architect (5)

 

 

Modest Victoria bungalow, Finlayson area, ca 1920: note full basement

 

How can we know with certainty that the house Savage designed is in fact a bungalow rather than a chalet or a cottage? Alan Gowans, in The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890 - 1930, offers guidance on how we can decide whether a building is a bungalow, elaborating four features he says were characteristic of the original Indian 'bangala' (from which the archetypal Anglo-Indian bungalow was derived).  Those four features can be summarized as follows: there is no basement; the building is one or one-and-a-half storeys high; a roof sweeps out over a prominent verandah; and, inside and outside environments interpenetrate. Let's consider each of these factors in turn.

The Savage bungalow definitely lacks a basement (for more on this topic, please refer to my article Hubert Savage, Architect (1)). Building a low crawlspace over a natural, mostly shallow, hollow enabled Savage to design a building sited near ground level - indeed, one that appears to rise directly from it. One byproduct of the natural crawlspace is external access to the building's underside, via a small door (and limited access to the northern third of the crawlspace, where the shallow depth of the hollow results in insufficient height). This proximity to ground was also characteristic of the original Indian bangala, which came on a mud plinth that the British later modified by making it of brick or stone. The plinth served to elevate the bungalow slightly off ground, raising it a foot or two so that it would remain dry during the monsoon season. This use of plinths continued as the British evolved the Anglo-Indian bungalow, lending it the same horizontal emphasis. With the advent of the California-style bungalow (from about 1905 on) the plinth turned into a crawlspace under the building, allowing bungalows to be built directly over soil. Construction on brick or cement piers topped by structural timbers resulted in "a very low foundation, thus emphasizing its mainly horizontal lines" (Robert Winter, The California Bungalow). The use of crawlspaces in Southern California leant bungalows similar horizontal lines, continuing the bangala's look. It was also appropriate technology for the locale too, as it rarely rained in Southern California and the native soils tended to be well-drained. However, there could be problems with crawlspaces arising from the tendency of moisture to collect under the building, which could promote rot in a largely wooden structure. Addressing this problem required a method of venting the enclosed space so the trapped moisture could escape. Insects and rodents could also be problems too. One positive outcome of crawlspace technology was to dramatically reduce overall building costs due to not having to build a basement, making such savings integral to the real estate formula behind the bungalow's heady success. Alan Gowans reproduces an advertisement from Bungalow Magazine, dated 1914, listing  various models of kit bungalows available through Sears, with prices that ranged from as low as $393 for a small one to a high of $1407 for a deluxe model. These houses were pre-cut, shippable anywhere with rail access, for assembly on-site: the price included "all lumber, lath and shingles, siding, ceiling, flooring, doors, windows, moldings, frames, porch work, stair work, finishing lumber, building paper, sash weights, pipe, gutter, hardware, paint and varnish," and with no knots in the old growth timber to boot! 

 

 

Excessively high bungalow with its basement largely above the ground

 

 

"Anyone who has seen very similar bungalows in Vancouver, B.C., some of them beautifully designed, realizes that when compared to their California relative, they seem gawky on their often unnecessarily high basements that are usually mostly above ground. The California bungalow seemed to hug the earth." Robert Winter, The California Bungalow.

 

 

The Savage bungalow is also built over a shallow crawlspace in the South California manner, with low foundation walls imparting similar feelings of horizontality. But it has the added twist of being placed organically over a natural feature of the site, allowing Savage to pull the building even lower. Brick piers supporting the bungalow vertically combine with curtain walls of stone to close the building off from the outside world. This characteristic of sitting just above or even at ground level (especially along the West wall, towards the North end) sets the Savage bungalow apart from most other commercially built bungalows of the era, which tended to come on full basements that accommodated a furnace and heat distribution system, among other things. But, the practice of building a full basement tended, in Victoria and Vancouver, to raise them higher than a traditional bungalow, especially as it was convenient and cheaper to build basements that sat mostly above ground (see photo above). The resulting look is awkward ('gawky' in Robert Winter's words) compared to the way that a California bungalow sits. Indeed, as bungalows came to be successfully marketed beyond Southern California - appearing in northern cities with real winters, like Chicago - the need for full basements to accommodate furnaces grew too. The Savage bungalow, with its ultra-low-lying appearance, is thus more consistent with the look of the original bangala, the follow-up Anglo-Indian bungalow, and the California variant that ultimately came to inherit the bungalow mantle (see photos below).

 

 

 

Small door accessing the bungalow's underside

 

Northwest end of the building, where the crawlspace is too shallow for easy access

Building under repair, showing proximity to ground

 

 

The Savage bungalow is also a building of just one storey (although it appears taller as approached from the front path, where the lay of the land and the use of cross-gables lend the house a much-grander presence). The ground floor is capped by a long gable roof, which is more apparent from the west side of the building (see first photo below). The original Indian bangala was also a one-storey structure, and this feature carried over into the Anglo-Indian bungalow (which originally had a thatched roof). When a derivative of this Anglo-Indian bungalow eventually landed in Victoria, B.C., where it was known as a 'Colonial bungalow', it set a fashion for using the stylish roof to provide extra bedroom space, which was achieved by means of light-admitting dormers (see photos below). This tendency to utilize the roof for additional living space only grew over time, so the dormers got larger too. Bungalows built in California tended to take a similar approach, thus turning many bungalows into one-and-a-half storey structures almost immediately. Use of the roof to gain extra living space was well-established by 1913, when Savage designed his bungalow, but his attic was always intended for storage (something we can tell from the narrow steps accessing it). This must have seemed reasonable back in the day, but as bungalows went on to be ever-more-widely built (in quantities sufficient to qualify them as America's first 'dream home') the roof level was increasingly used as living space, and especially space for bedrooms, thereby confirming the building's one-and-a-half storey status. 

 

"A fundamental point to remember is that a bungalow is not a housing style but a planning format...Today, it is most widely accepted that a 'true' bungalow may be defined as a house that has most (if not all) of its bedrooms on the same floor as its primary public spaces. This...rightly separates the issue of the planning format from the home's architectural style...Although a first-floor location for the bedrooms is technically what defines a 'true' bungalow, the term can also be correctly assigned to homes that may have some additional attic-level bedrooms." Along Bungalow Lines, by Paul Duchscherer, 2006. 

   

 

 

Rudimentary thatch-roofed bungalow in India, circa 1865, showing no dormers

"Although the advantage of the bungalow was that it was mainly on one floor, the limited space usually necessitated a staircase leading to the attic or more likely a tiny sleeping porch that by the twenties was usually windowed in. The literature, a little embarrassed by this cheating on the original single story idea, suggested that this space might be used for a study, a game room or a guest room. As the bungalow developed, more and more often the upstairs space was enlarged and used as a sleeping area. In fact, even the early bungalows often have an upstairs bathroom." Robert Winter, The California Bungalow

 

 

Elegant colonial bungalow, with dormers enabling the roof space to be inhabited

Same colonial bungalow with large, graceful dormers to expand living space

 

 

Over time, the roof level of bungalows thus tended more and more often to become habitable space, which was often realized with dormers set tastefully and modestly into the roof. The Savage bungalow could still be expanded along these lines, despite only the western facade being available to carry a dormer (the eastern facade, being cross-gabled, isn't usable without doing major damage to the building, which is ruled out by its heritage designation). In order to transform the current storage attic into additional habitable space, it would be necessary to address the issue of the steepness of the existing staircase, which is precariously vertical; this could be done, in part, by relaxing its rise and adding a landing, which would let it turn and in this way make better use of the ample attic space. This transformation would also allow bulkier objects to be brought upstairs. A more-relaxed staircase (one sloped less sharply than at present) is a necessity that could involve adding a small dormer over the roof of the walk-in closet (and would also likely require some sacrifice of existing closet space in the master and spare bedrooms). Assuming all this was done tastefully, it should be possible to add some 700 square feet to the existing footprint (enough room for, say, a large master bedroom at the southwest end of the building, flowing into a spacious ensuite bathroom with separated tub and shower facilities, plus a large spare bedroom that would double as a study or office space at the north end of the building). There would also be an access corridor serving these rooms, with an opportunity to build storage closets along the eastern side. This added storage space would partially compensate for the lack of a basement. It would also be useful to take down the upper section of the now-redundant second chimney (to the left, second photo below) in order to simplify routing the new staircase and access corridor. 

 

 

Western roof form that could accommodate a shed dormer for added living space

 

Unused chimney to be removed to improve access 

 

It's important, given the building's heritage status, that should any of this work occur, it be done right - which to my mind means done in a manner consistent with early bungalow standards. Bungalow dormers tended to be set into the gable roof form tastefully, where they came well-proportioned and dressed in keeping with the overall design. Their detailing wasn't necessarily excessive, but it tended to define an authentic look for classic bungalow dormers. Modern dormers have a tendency to ignore the character of the original building (in typical Modernist fashion) adding features that are often jarringly incongruous, perhaps on the pretext of 'making a statement'. This move should be resisted by heritage advisory committees with a say on proposed changes (one can only pray for buildings that are heritage-listed but undesignated).

 

 

Dormer addition bearing no relationship to the bungalow's original lines 

 

 

The resulting dormer should not look like an architectural excrescence, but rather fit within the available roof space with appropriate detailing. The dormer could be on the large side (especially if, as with the Savage bungalow, it wouldn't be visible from the road) but it should fit within the existing roof form and not simply ignore it. Any appearance of the bungalow becoming a two-storey building should be firmly resisted. This isn't always the case now (see the photo above, where the new window, the dimensions of the siding, and the blunt projection of the new roof line all ignore existing details). This is why it's important that architects be guided by original bungalow values when adding dormers, principally to ensure that the new structure fits comfortably into the space available rather than designing as if there are no limits. It's easy to go wrong here, because what's called for is restraint, meaning it's never a simple question of maximizing spatial gain.

 

 

Modest dormer, sitting comfortably within the roof, likely added recently

 

Large shed dormer done right: quality windows and compatible detailing

Fairfield bungalow with shed dormers that are well detailed, if somewhat large

Vic West bungalow with gabled dormers set modestly into the roof form

 

The problem with space gained by dormer-addition is that it's temptingly easy to go too far. Today, people care less how a building looks from the outside and more how the addition works internally (that is, we tend to overvalue spatial gain). Even if one has a commitment to dress the new dormers consistent with the style of the original building, overloading the roof with them tends to lead to incompatibility. At some point it all becomes too much, and the original bungalow form now appears as a two-storey house.

 

"...the minute you put on a [palpable, obvious] second floor, away flies your bungalow roof. You may have a house, but you haven't a bungalow." Mabel Chilson, What is a Genuine Bungalow?, Keith's Magazine, April 1916. 

 

 

Bungalow with multiple dormers, teetering on the verge of being two storeys

Modernist dormer extending exterior wall plane upwards, imparting two-storey look 

A roof sweeping over a prominent verandah is another original bungalow feature that introduces a sheltered space around the point of entry. This was true of the original bangala, and was carried over in the version the British adapted to European purposes; it also became an important part of the California-style bungalow (although the verandah did shrink in size over time, especially in tract developments). It is also a defining feature of the Savage bungalow. Verandahs on bungalows look best when furnished informally, giving them the the feeling of an outdoor room and marking the transition from outside to inside. The interpenetration of outside and inside set in motion by the verandah's broad, sweeping roof lines was often reinforced with other devices too, among these pergolas and outdoor dining spaces.

 

 

Pergola worked into the facade of a historic bungalow, in Kitchener-Waterloo

 

 

These also include windowed conservatories, lanais, sleeping porches, patios, and terraces, all of which, as Jane Powell remarks, are essentially verandah-like structures. All of these functional extensions of the original verandah came to typify bungalows built in Southern California, where the climate is mostly benign and the indoor-outdoor theme was easily reinforced. The Savage bungalow's compact verandah (at least by Anglo-Indian standards) nonetheless works similarly, providing an informal space perched high on the natural ridge. In this location, it evokes strong feelings of prospect (views to scenery removed from the roadway) and refuge (weather-protected and secure). The low verandah railing, which invites us to sit on it, is a typical feature of classic North American bungalows that could not be built under current bylaws (see photos below).

 

 

A sweeping roof protecting a prominent verandah is essential to bungalows 

 

June light reflecting mature oak leaves as shadows on a projecting cross gable

A transitional environment conveying strong feelings of prospect and refuge 

The fourth characteristic - inside and outside environments that interpenetrate - is where the Savage design really excels. This feature was characteristic of the original Indian bangala and it applies to bungalows everywhere - at least, those with any amount of land around them. Of course, as Alan Gowans notes, by dint of the protected verandah alone, inside and outside are drawn into close association. But Savage also explored other ways of connecting the outside to the inside that render his bungalow unique. To bring the abundant natural scenery indoors, he designed many generous windows that open compelling views, so that glimpses from within directly connect the building to the world outside. We chronicled the remarkable range of windows in our second post in this series (Hubert Savage, Architect (2)). But here we are also bearing in mind Gustav Stickley's words on windows as points of connection to the world outside the structure, made in an article promoting a rural building in The Craftsman magazine:

 

"As the object has been to bring as much outdoor feeling as possible into the house, especial attention has been given to the windows, of which there are a great many." Gustav Stickley, The Craftsman, October 1909.

 

 

 

Savage established a vital sense of connection to scenery through windows

 

The feature of having many large windows also combined agreeably with the movement of the wall planes, which jog in and out on all four sides. This in-out movement strengthens the sense that the connection between inside and outside is organic by design. As noted above, many techniques that reinforce a sense of interpenetration began as ways of taking advantage of the benign weather patterns characteristic of Southern California, which was where the North American mania for bungalows began (and where a great many classy, architect-designed bungalows were built).

 

"As a writer of bungalow books put it, 'the bungalow cannot be built too close to the ground and, indeed, the purpose should always be to make the bungalow a harmonious part of the grounds surrounding it....so that the indoors and outdoors may be said to join hands.'" Robert Winter, The California Bungalow

 

 

In Southern California, moderate weather supported shortcuts in building design that revealed the structure (for example, open soffits and exposed rafter-tails, both hallmarks of the Craftsman style, went with tendencies to forego gutters and downspouts entirely, which meant additional savings due to living in a dry climate with well-drained soils). But the interpenetration of outside and inside consciously emphasized in bungalow design back then applied equally to the original bungalows built in India. The fact that this feature - of connecting the building integrally to its immediate surroundings - was also characteristic of the original bangala and the Anglo-Indian bungalow, is an intriguing fact. 

 

 

Elegant airplane bungalow in Los Angeles: note lack of gutters and downspouts

 

Honey Grove, Texas: brick bungalow, sheltered verandah, Japanesque features

  

One of Savage's notions involved leaving what he identified on plan as a "summer tea room" open to the elements, almost as if it were actually a sleeping porch. This idea evidently didn't hold up over time. Although Savage had a method of shuttering this opening in winter, this can't have been entirely satisfactory, as once shuttered, light and views would have been excluded throughout the long winter months (thus blocking off the rear of the building). There is also the matter of rainfall occurring beyond the winter months, as well as the prevailing winds blowing out of the west, which would have meant wear and tear on the internal environment due to the back porch being open to the elements. Anyway, by the time I happened upon the scene in 1988, the summer tea room had been glazed in, with a small wood-framed picture window flanked by a pair of aluminum sash windows with screens (which we exchanged for clear leaded glass windows at the time of the first building remake). It's difficult to say whether Savage himself had anything to do with remaking this room, which saw a once-open area translated into windowed space, but I'm skeptical; we don't know the specifics, but he certainly had better taste than the temporary, discordant quality of those aluminum storm windows. The summer tea room does however show as being open to the elements on Savage's 1951 version of the floor plan, so perhaps the aluminum sliders weren't a product of his handiwork. 

 

 

Back garden seen through the small picture window, which we retained

View through the small picture window in the conservatory room, in spring

The idea of designing each exterior wall differently - thus imparting unique movement to each facade - was an entirely fruitful one. Savage originally elaborated different treatments for the three most prominent walls, leaving the north wall to stand as a plain version of the south wall without major windows (thus lacking the south wall's complexity, height and the balanced asymmetry of its complex elements). Then, because he added a walk-in closet sometime after building the original bungalow, he got an opportunity to elaborate a more distinctive personality there too. The high diamond-paned window above the incised bookshelf may have been added at the same time, as it has a more severe quality to the flattened arch. The movement of wall planes was also exploited in ways that benefitted the building's internal features, like the dining room window-seat built into the projecting bay window (see photo below) or the built-in radio in the living room that also enjoyed its own bay, or the walk-in closet with its built-in cupboards flanking a compact built-in dresser. These innovations have all stood the test of time, as worthy ways of dressing the projections created by Savage's movement of the wall planes.

 

 

Rumble the cat relaxing on the built-in window seat

 

 

While that covers off the four items on Gowans's list that typified the original bangala in India (Savage's building exhibiting all four of them, thus decidedly a bungalow) there is yet another way of ascertaining that this house was consciously designed as a bungalow, and that occurs by consulting the floor plan done in 1933. There we find the building described in the following manner: "frame construction of bungalow type" (first photo, below) a notation that to me is definitive. And yet by 1933, when Savage initialled this version of the floor plan H.S., the bungalow era had already drawn to a close, supplanted initially by World War One, then followed a decade later by the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing great depression. Still even in 1933, Savage continued to acknowledge the building type that, back in 1913 had been so entirely popular that he designed one as his lifetime home. Yet how quickly the bungalow era moved from this sort of giddy enthusiasm to utter oblivion, returning only recently when these modest structures were once again found to be worthy by today's middle class. Even while bungalows continued to be built during the 1920s - in subdivision quantities in cities across North America - the building type itself had already lost considerable cachet, and bungalows, however well they much they had anticipated people's needs for the latest in modern technologies, and however singular a contribution they had made to the quality of the built environment, had by then fallen from grace. The new reality in Victoria first became evident as WW1 began, a time when younger Victorians in large numbers enlisted to fight in far-away Europe (some 66,000 Canadians died in WWI, out of a total population of eight million, which, given the scale of the country, was substantial). The economic downturn these events triggered, which was reinforced by the depression of the thirties, held local aspirations in check for many decades. Housing as it had been in the bungalow era left town for good; and when the market for new houses finally did come back, it took forms that gave far less to the street and community than was standard in the bungalow era.

Detail drawn from 1933 Floor Plan: 'frame construction of bungalow type'

Savage initialled his 1933 floor plan of the Grange Road bungalow

 

 

Floor plan of Hubert Savage's residence, Summer Tea Room and California Cooler

 

 

There is one further feature that came to typify bungalows in the public mind, which arose from the British adaptation of the native Indian bungalow. That building, which started out as a fairly primitive native hut, was modified over time to better suit European needs, eventually becoming what's now known as the Anglo-Indian bungalow. And that additional feature, absorbed by bungalows to the degree that today they feel rather naked without it, began as the idea of having a compound around the building. Originally this compound was simply an area of land that could be controlled by those occupying the building (an area of land that in India could be substantial). As Anthony King notes, in The Bungalow: The Production of a Global Culture, "the bungalow was invariably situated in a large compound, an area of marked territory which, in turn, was located at a distance from other buildings or places of settlement."

 

The compound then, as the area of land surrounding the building, came to define the specifically British adaptation of the native building type. "The spacious compound...was a prerequisite for the bungalow's development. Being of only one storey, and with an extensive thatch [roof] covering the whole, the dwelling depended on the space around it for ventilation and light. In fact, the compound was simply an extension of the bungalow's internal space, an outdoor room..." While the original rationale for having a compound was a defensive one - buffering the bungalow from other uses and people - over time this land-area was transformed by the inhabitants (and their servants, of which there were often a lot) into a gardened setting. The Anglo-Indian bungalow thus conserved all of the basic characteristics of the native building type during its evolution, but added the feature of a gardened space around it. 

 

 

Anglo-Indian bungalow in a gardened setting or compound, with servants

 

This compound gradually evolved into the gardened setting that comes to typify the modern bungalow type - one where the natural pattern of movement is out onto a verandah that's surrounded by a garden room, which ultimately fuses with the dwelling. This phenomenon of appropriating a surrounding area of countryside was so ubiquitous that, by the time the young Winston Churchill visited India, towards the close of the 19th century (as recounted in his book My Early Life) he would describe the bungalow settlement he lived in in the following way: "All around the cavalry mess lies a suburb of roomy, one-storeyed bungalows standing in their own walled grounds and gardens..." Thus, by the late nineteenth century, the idea of a bungalow as a house in a gardened setting began to travel with the building form itself, as did the conjoined notion of the bungalow as "a retreat from the society around it" (see Winter and King for further discussion of this idea). These realities became part of the successful marketing of bungalows, which began in Southern California and spread to other cities across North America.

 

And the phenomenon of the compound, after transitioning to a gardened space around the building, moved along with the bungalow as an export product, making its way first to Australia, then back to England proper, and then finally on to North America, where it landed in Victoria, British Columbia (and also perhaps in Northern California, see below).

 

 

Worcester bungalow in Piedmont, San Francisco Bay, by artist William Keith

 

Jane Powell, in Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts and Crafts Home, has this to say about the Worcester bungalow: "It is generally agreed that Joseph Worcester's house, built in 1876 across the Bay from San Francisco in Piedmont, was the first Arts and Crafts house in California." That house is manifestly a bungalow, likely modelled after the Anglo-Indian type, the shape of which it seems to share (see photo detail below).

 

 

Clearly, Worcester's building is a bungalow modelled after the Anglo-Indian form

 

 

The bungalow as launched in Southern California was something different again, a unique product that would eventually come to be built everywhere, including in Victoria. Mostly these buildings differed somewhat from true California bungalows for the simple reason that they weren't sited as near to the ground as was the fashion there (see essay above). However, even with a greater projection above ground as built in Victoria, California-style bungalows are still evident to my eye (see photos below).

 

 

 

California-style bungalow in Victoria, higher than in California to incorporate a garage

 

California-style bungalow in Victoria, lower than normal for a house on a basement

 

Another California bungalow in Victoria BC, sitting lower than typical local bungalows

 

In California, home to the modern bungalow-type, the compound that morphed into a gardened setting was integral to bungalow marketing. As Robert Winter writes, in The California Bungalow, "...the idea of the extension of the bungalow into a garden is important for the understanding of the bungalow mystique. Landscape architecture, usually the province of the few, was [now] the property of the many." Winter is writing about the modern California bungalow, built extensively from 1905 on; but this product of American invention was soon to be exported everywhere in North America.

 

"The Arts and Crafts garden in California shared the general ideals of garden design elsewhere in the country in creating unpretentious designs out of local materials, in relating buildings to the broader landscape, and in treating garden space as an outdoor room." David Streatfield, The Arts and Crafts Garden in California, in The Arts and Crafts Movement in California - Living The Good Life, edited by K. R. Trapp 

Hubert Savage's bungalow shared the appearance of being built with a gardened compound around it, simply because it initially enjoyed its own half-acre of space, with no other structures standing nearby. Indeed even today, in a much-more built-up suburbia, it retains the appearance of having dedicated lands around it, despite now being reduced to the dimension of an RS-6 lot. While this fact entails that the landscape buffer is a bit thin on the northern edge of the property, where ten foot setbacks arguably bring the neighbours too close for comfort (fortunately there's a fence) both the front and rear of the building retain the appearance of having a landscape unto themselves. All of which reinforces the idea that the bungalow on Grange Road is rightly still seen as an icon of Arts and Crafts architecture.

 

Books for Looks:

 

Toward A Simpler Way Of Life, The Arts and Crafts Architects of California, edited by Robert Winter. 

The Arts and Crafts Movement in California: Living The Good Life, edited by K.R. Trapp. 

The California Bungalow, Robert Winter. 

The Bungalow: The Production of a Global Culture, Anthony D. King.

The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890 - 1930, Alan Gowans. 

Bungalow: The Ultimate Arts and Crafts Home, by Jane Powell.

The Bungalow - America's Arts and Crafts Home, by Paul Duchscherer.

Along Bungalow Lines, by Paul Duchscherer.