Hubert Savage, Architect (6)

 

 

 

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

   

The smaller chimney once vented a heater to warm the bedrooms and bathroom

 

 

 

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 answer, I think, lies in poor functioning of his original method of supplying heat to the building. Initially, and for a very long time, he relied on open fireplaces for heat in the living and dining rooms (the fireplaces may also have been intended to supply heat to the kitchen as well). Accordingly, both rooms have fireplaces vented through a single chimney, each with its own flue - see top photo above, where the combination chimney sits on the right. Savage also had a second smaller chimney constructed, framed into the walls of two bedrooms just off the central corridor. It was there to vent gases given off by a small oil-burning stove (or a paraffin heater) that was once 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 the time I moved in in 1988, it was long gone and the chimney now inactive. In fact, I wasn't even aware that there was a second chimney when I bought the place, but soon discovered it. One of my first acts upon arriving was to rip out the deep-pile-shag wall-to-wall carpets covering wood floors in the three bedrooms and hallway (yes, deep-pile-shag had been a thing for a short while, until it became evident how dysfunctional it really was). I took it out in order to get back to the original tongue-and-groove fir flooring under it, which to that point had never been refinished. The adhesive binding holding the carpet's underlay to the floor proved difficult to remove, while the tacking strips securing the edges of the wall-to-wall had damaged the wooden floors slightly. Also, the installation of the wall-to-wall had come at the cost of the original quarter-round mouldings that made the transition between floors and the high baseboards (once the carpet was out, the rooms felt quite bare without it). On the plus side, removing the deep-pile shag revealed that there had once been a heater in the hallway (marks of wear on the fir flooring were evidence of use). Those marks led me to explore the possibility that there was a small chimney framed into the walls between the master and second bedrooms. A visit to the attic confirmed the presence of a second chimney (a fact I had not grasped in buying 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 revealed in my September 2023 post First Impressions in this blog.

 

Wall jog (right) containing the hidden chimney

Wall jog (left) disguising the second chimney

Second chimney that once vented a hallway heater

 

However effective the heater was, the two fireplaces were another matter entirely. They may always have been substandard as sources of heat, a fact that was attested by my early enthusiasm for decorative fires in the living room hearth. Although I didn't have to rely on these fireplaces for heat, I could tell from the beginning that they weren't particularly well-contrived to carry out this function - indeed, in my limited experience, the fireplaces actually sent as much heat up the chimney than they retained in the rooms. Fireplaces work by drawing oxygen over fuel, which requires a supply of air (or a draft) to achieve proper burning; in turn, smoke, fumes and a good deal of heat go straight up the flue. The necessity of removing smoke-laden air while drawing in fresh air to feed the fire needs to be taken account of in 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 is gas-fuelled device that imitates the look of a real fire]. In my experience, keeping a fire going in the living room hearth was involving, necessitating having the windows slightly ajar in order to ensure sufficient draft for reliable burning. But, if the windows were ajar, it caused the fire to burn more briskly and as a consequence, to use more fuel. And, it also entailed sending more heat up the chimney. The alternative, which I found distasteful, was to keep the windows shut and endure a fire that tended to smoulder. 

 

The idea of sending heat up the chimney was not unusual in bungalows built in Southern California (where the North American fad for bungalows first established itself) because there was no need to consider heat retention in a place with no real winter. In that milieu, the meaning of the fireplace - which was often quite grand, constituting a major point of emphasis in design - was primarily social, and conceived as a central place for family to gather and exchange stories around a version 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 real winter and a corresponding need for sustained heat. So while the heating function might be an afterthought in a benign climate, bungalows built in locales further north, in locales with real winters, typically came equipped with some form of central heat (usually involving a furnace housed in a basement). Remarkably, and rather naively in light of the 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 contained within the cavity between the studs). I'm sure he was glad to have the rear heater to warm the back part 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 rather a lot

Picture of the shed with abundant snowfall on the ground, 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 the building and offset the chill by bundling up. So Savage's misapprehension of needs may come down to this English tolerance for sub-optimal heating systems. Even today, English houses rarely take a systematic approach to heating, 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 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, and generating a marginal heat gain. I found myself caught in a dilemma: do I keep the windows ajar in order to ensure sufficient draft (thus consuming a lot more fuel) or close them and put up with the negative outcomes? Typically, I opted to feed the fire, as it was only occasional in nature. Even so, I found myself using the fireplace less frequently due to the inherent futility of the process. But over time 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 one that would only intensify as the years wore on.

 

 

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

 

 

As I learned from the reading I was doing to prepare to write this series of posts, Savage wasn't the sole 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 built to capture solar gain and displayed, according to author Jan Marsh, "an almost medieval disregard for heating." 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 for heat in his buildings. He held to this idea based on instinctive rejection of the entire notion of central heating, which he famously denounced as involving various "demonical contrivances" like pipes, radiators and a furnace. As a result, he opted for fireplaces for heat in his buildings, but understood their scientific design well enough to build in special 'draft lines' in order to ensure the airflow to sustain burning. Savage, on the other hand, may not have comprehended the science behind fireplace design, and simply trusted that his mason knew how to build them properly. In any event, after many years Savage gave up on the relying on the fireplaces, and began thinking more seriously about how to centrally heat the building (which he was already doing in the upper-end houses he was designing 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 had 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 as I pored over them, I was grateful to have more information about the original layout and features of the bungalow (it was from close reading of these plans that I learned there had once been a built-in radio in the living room, as well as a sideboard in the dining room). Originally I immersed myself in these details, but one day happened to notice that the two plans explored entirely different visions for heating the building (which turned out to be why there were two). Savage initially thought to introduce a system of hot-water-radiators to centrally heat it. The 1933 plan, I came to realize, shows a proposed placement of these hot-water-fed radiators, although it wasn't carried out. It isn't clear just where Savage would have placed the furnace either, which would have been challenging as he didn't have access to a basement. And selecting a fuel type would have complicated matters further: coal, for example, would have required storage space for piles of fuel, not far from the furnace either, while fuel oil would have required at the least a bulky storage tank outside the building, so somewhat more flexible but also highly visible. Both fuel types would have necessitated access from some sort of driveway to enable deliveries, a critical factor that wouldn't easily be accommodated with the existing infrastructure. Perhaps these stumbling blocks were why the 1933 plan was never 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, to be framed into the rooms and hallways of the bungalow (but this time the plan was carried out, in short order). But even that plan, as executed, was modified to a degree, as several wall heaters wound up in different locations than indicated on plan (the living room wall heater, for example, was installed beside the fireplace ultimately). It's evident that the 1951 plan resolved issues to do with central heating by means of a strategy that warmed only those areas that were being used. 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 designing school buildings, then applied the technology to his own home.  

 

 

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

 

Master bedroom, Wesix electrical 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 places) by the Wesix Heater Company, became 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 frequently replaced 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 that declares: 

 

"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 arriving at the ultimate solution. A simple electrical system comprised of knob-and-tube circuits had been wired into the bungalow at the time it was built. This served to supply overhead lights (or wall sconces) and power a few electrical outlets in each room. Practically from the start of such electrical systems, there were commercial devices available that allowed people to supplement their heat supply. One type of early unit for space-heating came with light-bulb-like screw-ins that one could just pop into light sockets (see picture below); I don't know that the Savages ever used such technology, but it was available early on 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 electricity to warm space (more safely engineered than the heaters shown above). Many brands of space-heating device were being marketed, some quite stylish. The images below show examples of Wesix portable space heaters dating from different eras. Again, I have no idea whether the Savages used such technologies to increase their comfort levels, but they were readily available and the Savages had the electrical circuitry to 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 to retain heat, including at some point having insulation blown into the exterior walls. The initial theory of frame construction was that the air pockets within the walls were deemed to have insulation value. A second stage in the progression involved hiking this value by filling in the cavity with a fibrous substance like cellulose, which I discovered had actually been done at the Savage bungalow. I became aware of this while examining the building after the initial repairs and prior to its full repainting, when I discovered that a series of circular holes, at regular intervals, had been drilled into the drop-siding. The 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 was, I simply assumed that Savage must have overseen the job (I didn't know back then how early he had passed away). But the energy-efficiency of buildings only became an issue as a result of the energy crisis in the early seventies, I subsequently learned. 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 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 annotated 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 to insulate attics (and is also very likely contaminated with asbestos fibre, which was interspersed with the vermiculite seams). Later someone also added bats of fibreglass insulation above the vermiculite, which is pretty much where things stand today.

 

 

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

 

 

One additional note on the heating system in place when I moved in, which it should be said still operates flawlessly: the Wesix wall heaters are of such high quality that they are surely the next best thing to having an actual furnace. Made on the model of a true capital good - that is, to last a long time - they simply do not readily break down. Their chief vulnerability (apart from being powerful, making them totally unlike modern baseboard heaters) is that if power happens to get cut off during a winter storm, you don't have a way to warm the building (I guess you could resort to using those fireplaces, if you had a supply of wood!). I didn't encounter this problem though in over 35 years of living there.

 

When I first landed there in 1988, there was an entire wall in the utility area given over to meters whose sole function was averaging the power going to particular uses. These meters served to apportion a 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 to increase the power supply to a 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 physically replace them if there was a short). This upgrading of the power supply made it possible to dispense with the wall of meters because there was now sufficient supply to support all uses, including those wall-heaters. As a result of the 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 (the most common cause of fire with knob-and-tube wiring). My initial electrician was Eddy Kop Senior, who upon seeing the wall of meters, said to me: "you don't see that much nowadays - but if we go to 100 amp service, you can get rid of them all". But why had this not been done sooner, I thought? The answer I think lies in the fact that when the Wesix wall heaters came in, 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 a year later, his wife Alys occupied the bungalow for several more decades - thus likely overseeing certain 'improvements', like the shag wall-to-wall and a comprehensive remuddling of the kitchen. When Alys herself was getting near the end of her time, she sold the bungalow to Pat Brown and her husband, sometime in the mid-1970s (see my post The Romance Of Possibility, in Century Bungalow, August 2016 for further elaboration).

 

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 their installation, the quality of the wiring and the durability of the heaters themselves, even about the high-quality carpentry that was so well done. The installation had to have been done while Savage was still practising architecture and while he had access to first-class carpentry skills, because one would never know that those heaters hadn't come with the original house (I know that's an impossibility given it was built in 1913, but the quality of the install makes it seem true). I was very satisfied with 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 on page 7.

 

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

 

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 that he says were characteristic of the Indian 'bangala' (from which the archetypal Anglo-Indian bungalow evolved).  The 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 in turn.

The Savage bungalow definitely lacks a basement (for more on this topic, please refer to Hubert Savage, Architect (1)). Building a low crawlspace over a natural, mostly shallow, hollow enabled Savage to design a building sited very close to ground - indeed, one that appears to rise directly from it. One byproduct of the crawlspace is external access to the building's underside, via a small door (with limited access to the northern third, where the depth of the hollow results in insufficient height). This proximity to ground was also characteristic of the original Indian bangala, which came sitting on a mud plinth, which 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 it would remain dry during the monsoon season. The use of plinths continued as the British evolved the Anglo-Indian bungalow, which leant it a similar horizontal emphasis. With the advent of the California-style bungalow (from about 1905 on) the plinth turned into a crawlspace under the building, allowing them to be built directly over soil. Construction on brick or cement piers topped by 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 gave bungalows similar horizontal lines, so they continued the 'look' of the bangala. It was also appropriate technology for the locale too, as it rarely rained there and the native soils tended to have good drainage. However, there could be occasional problems with crawlspaces arising from the tendency of moisture to collect there, 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 costs due to not having to build basements, making these savings integral to the real estate formula behind the bungalow's heady success. Alan Gowans reproduces an advertisement from Bungalow Magazine, from 1914, listing the price of various models of kit bungalows available through Sears, with prices ranging from as low as $393 for a smaller one to a high of $1407 for a deluxe model. These houses were pre-cut, shippable anywhere railways ran, 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 mostly above-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 Southern California manner, with low foundation walls imparting a similar sense of horizontality. But it has the additional twist of being placed organically on a natural feature of the site, allowing Savage to pull the building even lower. Brick piers supporting the bungalow vertically are combined with curtain walls of stone to close the building to the outside world. The 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 other commercially built bungalows of the era, which tended to come with full basements, to accommodate a furnace and heat distribution system, among other things. The practice of building a full basement tended to raise them higher than traditional bungalows, especially because it was convenient and cheaper to build basements sitting 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 outside Southern California - appearing in northern cities with real winters - 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 to be taller as it's approached from the front path, where the lay of the land and the use of cross-gables lend it 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 was carried over into the Anglo-Indian bungalow. When a derivative of the Anglo-Indian bungalow eventually landed in Victoria, B.C., where it was called a 'Colonial bungalow', it rapidly 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 added living space grew over time, so the dormers became bigger 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 own bungalow, but his attic was always intended for storage (something we can tell from the narrow steps providing access to it). This must have seemed reasonable at that time, but as bungalows went on to be ever-more-widely built (in sufficient quantities to qualify them as America's first 'dream home') the roof level was increasingly turned into living space, and especially 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. 

   

 

 

Early 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 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 to become habitable space, realized with dormers that were set tastefully and modestly into it. The Savage bungalow could still be expanded along these lines, despite only the west facade being available to carry a dormer (the east 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 usable space, it would be necessary to address the issue of the steepness of the existing stairs, which are precariously vertical; this could be done, in part, by relaxing the staircase's rise and adding a landing, which would see it turn and better exploit the ample attic space. This transformation would also allow bulkier objects to be schlepped 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 the sacrificing of existing closet space in the master and spare bedrooms). Assuming all this was done tastefully, it should be possible to add perhaps 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 separate tub and shower facilities, plus a large spare bedroom that could double as study/office space at the north end of the building). There would also be an access corridor serving these rooms, with an opportunity for storage closets along the east side. This added storage space would partially compensate for the missing 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 in a manner consistent with early bungalow standards. Bungalow dormers were set into the gable roof form tastefully, where they came well-proportioned and dressed in a fashion consistent with the overall design. The 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 not designated).

 

 

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

 

 

The resulting dormer should not look like an architectural excrescence, but rather fit within the available roof space and come appropriately detailed. The dormer may be on the large side (especially if, as with the Savage bungalow, it isn't visible from the road) but it should fit within the existing roof form and not ignore it. Any appearance of the bungalow turning into a two-storey building should be firmly resisted. This isn't always the case now (see the photo above, where the new window, the dimension 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 by ensuring that the new structure fit 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 on the large side

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

 

The problem with space gained by adding dormers is that it's temptingly easy to go too far. Today, people care less how a building looks to the public 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 edge of two storeys

Modernist dormer extends 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 use; it also became an important part of the California-style bungalow (although the verandah shrank 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 look 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 reinforced with other devices too, among these pergolas and outdoor dining spaces.

 

 

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

 

 

They also include windowed conservatories, lanais, sleeping porches, patios, and terraces, all of which, as Jane Powell remarked, are essentially verandah-like. And all of these functional extensions of the original verandah came to typify bungalows that were built in Southern California, where the climate is mostly benign and the indoor-outdoor theme easily reinforced. The Savage bungalow's compact verandah (at least by Anglo-Indian standards) nonetheless works similarly, providing an informal space perched high on a 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 sitting, is a typical feature of classic North American bungalows that would not be allowed under contemporary 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 does excel. This feature was characteristic of the original Indian bangala and it applies to bungalows everywhere - at least those that have any amount of land around them. Of course, as Gowans notes, by dint of the protected verandah alone, inside and outside are drawn into closer association. But Savage also explored other ways of connecting the outside to the inside that render this bungalow unique. To bring the abundant natural scenery indoors, he created 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 keeping in mind Gustav Stickley's comments 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 combines agreeably with the movement of the wall planes, which jog in and out on all four sides of the bungalow. This in-out movement strengthens the sense that the connection between inside and outside is by organic design. As noted above, many techniques for reinforcing the sense of interpenetration began as ways of taking advantage of the benign weather patterns emblematic of Southern California, which was where the North American mania for bungalows originated (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 taking shortcuts in building design that revealed the structure (for example, open soffits and exposed rafter-tails, both hallmarks of the Craftsman style, went with the tendency to forego gutters and downspouts entirely, which meant additional savings due to having a dry climate and well-drained soils). But the interpenetration of outside and inside consciously emphasized in modern bungalow design applied equally to the original bungalows built in India. The fact that this feature - connecting the building integrally to its immediate surroundings - was also characteristic of the original bangala and the Anglo-Indian bungalow, is intriguing. 

 

 

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 he had a method of shuttering the 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 prevailing winds blowing out of the west, which would have meant wear and tear on the environment due to having the back porch 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 changed out 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 the room, which saw this 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 and discordant quality of those aluminum windows. The summer tea room, however, still shows as being open to the elements on Savage's 1951 version of the floor plan. 

 

 

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

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 windows (thus lacking the south wall's complexity, height and the balanced asymmetry of elements). Then, because he chose to add a walk-in closet sometime after the original bungalow was erected, he had the opportunity of elaborating a more distinctive personality there too. The movement of wall planes was also exploited in ways that benefitted 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 had 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 movement of the wall planes.

 

 

Rumble the cat relaxes 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, thus decidedly a bungalow) there is another way to ascertain that this house was consciously designed to be a bungalow, and that occurs by consulting the 1933 floor plan. There we find the building described in the following manner: "frame construction of bungalow type" (first photo, below) a notation that to me stands as definitive. And yet by 1933, when Savage initialled this version of the floor plan, the bungalow era had already come to a close, supplanted first by World War I, 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 was so entirely the rage that he designed one for his lifetime home. Yet how quickly the bungalow era moved from a giddy sense of enthusiasm to utter oblivion, returning only recently when these modest structures were once again found worthy by today's middle class. Even while bungalows were still being 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 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 downturn these events triggered, 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 came 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 for the public, arising from the British adaptation of the native Indian bungalow. That building, which began life as a fairly primitive native hut, was modified over time to better suit European needs, eventually becoming what's known now as the Anglo-Indian bungalow. That additional feature, absorbed by bungalows to the degree that today they can feel rather naked in its absence, began as the idea of a compound around the building. Originally the compound was simply an area of land that could be controlled by those occupying the building (one which 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 an 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 defensive - 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 usually 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 this feature of having a gardened space around it. 

 

 

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

 

The compound thus gradually evolved into the gardened setting that came to typify the modern bungalow type - one where the natural pattern of movement is out onto the verandah and then straight into a garden room that's fused 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 where he lived in the following manner: "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, this idea of a bungalow as a house in a gardened setting travelled 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 more discussion). These realities became part of the successful marketing of bungalows, which began in Southern California and spread to 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 appears to enjoy (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 eventually came to be built all across North America, 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 accommodate 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 efforts. 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 inventiveness was soon to be exported to every city 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 enjoyed a 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 land around it, despite now being reduced to the dimensions 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 a little close for comfort, 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.