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| A house made of old growth fir, intact after a hundred years and a succession of owners |
Our antique bungalow is made almost entirely from the old-growth Douglas fir readily available back in 1913 on Vancouver Island. Its original footprint and exterior cladding were intact when I bought it, although several sections along the base of the building would require replacing when the exterior was finally repaired. And, best of all, it turns one hundred in 2013, which is a pretty good go for a wooden artifact and, I feel, should be a cause for celebration.
It's not unusual to see a finely detailed bungalow with an architectural carbuncle sprouting from its roof, one that grabs additional interior space efficiently enough but does so at the expense of the original look of the building.
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| The new dormer is utterly out of keeping with this bungalow's original roofline |
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| This one is even more blunt, with some cheesy modernist elements added |
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| Here its the whole enchilada (a two-storey house) with more-discordant windows |
Other houses are made to suffer lesser but not inconsequential indignities, such as having original wood siding suffocated under stucco icing or covered with spraytex paint (photo below). You can usually tell if a building is stuccoed-over because its window frames no longer sit proud of the walls (as intended), adding a certain blankness to its rather forlorn look. This one has the added indignity of a lick-and-stick stone base course glued to its lower level - the bizarre lift beneath the art-glass window is utterly inexplicable.
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| Faux rock foundation, stuccoed walls, window frames submerged, detailing minimized |
Still others have had their original old-growth cedar shingle siding entombed by asbestos-cement shingles, or today covered over with vinyl replica siding, despite the original wood being in pristine condition. Some are further injured by having fine double-hung sash windows replaced by thin aluminum sliders or, more recently, vinyl thermopane windows.
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| Buried under asbestos shingles, the original drop siding reappears: caring restoration |
I still feel entirely fortunate, a quarter century on, that back in 1988 when I took possession, our bungalow’s exterior remained intact - after 75 years of continuous use, it may have been rather neglected and in need of renewal paint-wise, but at least it hadn't been monkeyed with. It could so easily have been otherwise!
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| Bare as a freshly shorn lamb, this small colonial bungalow awaits its new look |
In fact it’s surprising to me, in light of the Savage bungalow's relatively modest size, that it hadn't been awkwardly expanded, or raised by a storey, or simply bulldozed in favour of the humungous McMansion that could in fact now cover most of the lot under its RS-6 zoning. Nothing would have prevented that outcome before I came along and had the house, which was heritage-listed, designated in 1993.
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| Despite subdivision of its lot, this bungalow retains a sense of rural setting among oaks |
There are tons of reasons (or more realistically, 'excuses') to tear down older buildings, quite apart from the simple fact that their highly depreciated value in assessment terms, after such long duration, makes them sitting ducks for the wrecker’s ball (or his excavator, which is how the deed is done nowadays). For at one hundred years of age, even with considerable upkeep, a modest bungalow could easily be assessed at a mere fraction of its actual replacement costs, which means it could be disposed of (ie, sent to the landfill) for a remarkably low 'opportunity cost'. (If the building is worth just over ten percent of its actual replacement costs in assessed terms, then getting rid of it for a fresh start is a tiny fraction of the total costs of land and building, plus the minimal charges for an excavator, a dumpster, and some tipping fees). Today the lot's value is the major component of market value, while back in the day the lot was a fraction of the total cost of the building, which was itself quite low.
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| House be gone: all it takes is an excavator and a dumpster hauler, and it's landfill bound |
In fact, the spectre of demolition haunts buildings from a relatively young age. Canadian architect Witold Rybczynksi puts ‘the useful life of a building’ at 20 – 40 years, indicating that it takes 'special features' to double that lifetime or extend it to a full century. He’s speaking of commercial and institutional buildings rather than residential structures, which reflect different economics and respond to a narrower range of needs (those of a family rather than a corporation). But today almost no one invests in 'special features' for any kind of building, preferring a form of planned obsolescence to any enduring continuity (atrium entries and three-car garages notwithstanding). In such circumstances demolition remains the primary option by default, and 100 years is now a very long life for any structure.
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| Lack of maintenance and depreciating value reduce chances of survival over time |
One US study of building demolition found three main reasons that are given for tearing buildings down: area-wide redevelopment (34%), lack of maintenance (24%), and ‘no longer suitable for intended use’ (22%). For those buildings deemed ‘no longer suitable for intended use’, being too small and having antiquated services and systems are handy rationales for knocking it down. Lack of maintenance threatening physical structure is one that municipal councillors frequently hear from those hoping to tap the many rewards of new construction. But at one hundred years of age, all three pressures can combine to place a considerable weight on the future of a house. And simple accidents of placement – say, where someone decides the new freeway interchange should be built – can be the kiss of death for entire areas (as in Los Angeles, picture below).
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| LA's freeways consume colossal spaces, usually at the expense of neighbourhoods |
Lots of homes (and many buildings of more utilitarian purpose) are torn down within fifty years, long before they are in any sense worn out. It’s partly our throwaway culture, which assigns absolutely no value whatsoever to embodied energy, let alone period aesthetics. Collectively we tend not to care whether something is representative of its era, or whether its era holds any significance for the future. Yet today, bungalows enjoy increasing protection because families are once again breathing new life into these often remarkable structures, which embody workable ideas of home that modern stucco boxes simply do not. And bungalows - wooden buildings par excellence here on the west coast where forests abound - survive despite our collective tendency to think of houses made of wood as more fragile and transient than those composed of other materials.
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| Wentworth Villa (1863) a house made largely of wood |
As I write this article, a campaign is under way in Phoenix, Arizona to save a 2500 square foot classic Frank Lloyd Wright house that he designed for his son David in 1952 - a modular modernist bungalow elevated a storey above ground (but with none of those ugly pilotis that Le Corbusier so loved).
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| Wright playfully incorporated curves into this modernist 1952 bungalow |
The threat to this F.L.Wright design derives from a developer’s desire to subdivide the lot it sits on, simply to realize a capital gain in the housing market. Grabbing the value of two lots requires demolition of the existing structure, which is in restorable condition despite some recent neglect. The economics of the situation (ie. the building's depreciated value) mean the developer can disregard this home’s stature as a valuable work of art that the broader community actually treasures. Fortunately the community does care about the house, and with a public fundraising campaign ongoing, the building is likely to be saved. (It has since been purchased, restored, and is now on the market again, lot intact, thanks to direct action by citizens).
Poor building envelope condition, due to neglect of routine maintenance, is an excuse frequently given for demolishing both residential and commercial buildings (typically by those who want to redevelop land at higher densities in order to maximize gain). Yet rarely if ever is the implied structural deterioration real, even in houses made substantially of wood. Places are simply allowed to become shabby and neglected to the point of presenting a superficial impression of being structurally unsound. Which in turn establishes a great cover for today's economics to trump yesterday's, making preservation seem an almost irrational activity.
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| Neglected, maintenance deferred, this house is repairable but it seems unlikely |
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| Unless, that is, someone cares enough to see the house's potential to live on |
The fact of wood's durability was confirmed when repair of our own bungalow finally got under way. Structurally the building was just fine after 85 years in use, the wood framing solid, most of the exterior totally intact. There were some rotten spots close to the ground at the rear, where rainwater had splashed back against walls when downspouts were allowed to fail (lack of vigilance on the part of occupants), but mostly it just needed loads of prep before full repainting. Oh and there were some small errors of adaptation (like an unsightly cat door that had been skived into the spot where the lower vent for the original cooling cupboard had been located) standing out like blemishes on a pretty face, but these things, it turned out, were relatively easy to correct.
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| Some rot near the ground, but the cat door has been removed for good |
One thing predisposing our bungalow’s survival largely intact was the fact its original inhabitants, who designed it and oversaw its construction, inhabited it for over six decades. This was a very good thing for the house, as incompatible changes often come in tandem with new owners who tend to redesign elements without any experience of inhabiting the building (we have this narcissistic tendency to remake buildings in an image of what we imagined we were looking for). Important details are easily eviscerated in our quest for the new, walls come down and shiny aluminum patio doors casually disfigure intact facades, while strange carbuncular growths pop incongruously from rooftops (see photos at the outset for three examples of this).
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| Neglected, this small airplane bungalow is in danger of actually dilapidating |
It was also lucky that this building's creators inhabited it for their entire lifetime, tending to its needs while raising their family there, while overseeing a single, modest alteration of its footprint, in the form of a walk-in closet designed to be compatible with the building's exterior form. The legacy they bequeathed the community is a bungalow that is architecturally significant and worthy of conservation: designed by an architect in the era when bungalows were the entire rage, as a relatively pure application of arts-and-crafts principles, in order to create a setting for his own family's use and enjoyment, while exploring the notion of a building that connects inside and outside. And, perhaps also to create a compelling calling card that the young architect hoped would contribute to his future professional practice?
These were the Savages, Hubert and Alys, British immigrants on route to New Zealand back in 1912. He was a RIBA-trained London architect who stopped in Victoria to visit with a friend and fellow architect he'd worked with in London (Douglas James, brother of Percy Leonard James, a soon-to-be-famous architect). The James brothers convinced him there were good local opportunities (Victoria was then in the throes of a real estate boom that saw tons of offshore money careening around, triggering rapid housing growth, with a local population struck by the idea that one could buy as cheaply as rent, which was then true) and so they stayed on, and in the boom conditions of the time, Savage managed to secure a number of architectural commissions immediately. One of these commissions (a house at 11 Eaton Road, in View Royal, circa 1913) may have made him aware of the Garden City suburb, a major real estate play that was positioned to benefit from the building of a brand new Interurban electric railway line, and of the cheapness of lots that far out of town on what was still largely agricultural land dotted with rocky outcrops. Somehow, by early 1913, the Savages had managed to acquire a building site on a picturesque half-acre lying well beyond the city’s edge. On it they had constructed a small artistic bungalow of Savage's design, a new dwelling type then spreading all across North America from its suburban epicentre in Los Angeles. Interestingly, this house appears to be one of the rare occasions when Savage designed in a predominantly American arts-and-crafts style (despite the Tudor detailing and the obvious influence of local arts-and-crafts styling, expressed by the enclosed soffits). In his later professional practice, his designs were more often variants of English arts-and-crafts buildings (likely more marketable to middle-class Victorians in the post-war era) and upmarket to boot.
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| Sash windows, leaded glass, fir paneling: the hallmarks of a true bungalow |
Coming from dense, hectic London England, landing so quickly in a home of their own in such a pretty spot (if way out in the boonies by the standards of the day) must have felt like a magical turn of events - a dream suddenly come true. Home ownership was a rarity in England at that time – less than ten percent of the entire population enjoyed the status of owning their own home (from A. D. King, The Bungalow: The Production Of A Global Culture). Such sudden independence in a new house in pastoral countryside with few other people around must have been absolutely transformative.
The Savages were lucky enough to land in Victoria at the apex of an economic boom, then affecting all North American cities - a time when demand for architects abounded even in a place as small as Victoria (population 45,699 in 1911). Expectations of surging growth, on the nearby-Vancouver model, spread like wildfire, and speculation in land was rampant. There were over 300 real estate agencies operating in Victoria in 1913, and everyone was invited to join the speculative party because hordes of newcomers were coming shortly! However, within a year of occupying their new digs way out in the back of beyond, the Savages' access to the benefits of growth and prosperity would simply evaporate, as an economic slump that dried up commissions arrived hand in hand with the advent of global warfare.
Part of the Savages’ grand good fortune must have been the sheer cheapness of suburban land on the distant periphery. Rural lands around cities, opened up by new transportation technologies like electric streetcar systems, were by then on offer to former renters looking to buy or build. And bungalows, echoing the Los Angeles experience with land assembly and tract building, were then marketed as affordable housing, which they actually were at the time due to the relative cheapness of construction materials and rural lands. “Why pay rent?” was the pointed question posed by the Los Angeles Investment Company on one of its many brochures, “when you can own your own home as cheaply as renting” its snappy response.
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| Surrounded by gardens, intimately linking indoors and out-of-doors |
Due to the expanding reach of downtown trams and regional trains, which made building lots affordable, and the ready availability of cheap, top-quality wooden building materials, a newly arrived middle-class family could literally step off the boat into home ownership while paying no more for it than it cost to rent digs in town. However it actually transpired, the Savages set up house on a picturesque hillside overlooking a single dairy farm and the blue waters of Portage Inlet, with distant views across the Juan de Fuca straits towards the majestic Olympic mountains. And with no immediate neighbours, which was actually a selling point in those days!
Fate, luck and good timing landed the Savages on their upland parcel on the edge of an area known as Strawberry Vale, while skill, artistry and the magic of old growth timber (rendered dimensionally in local Victoria mills) helped create the building. It was lucky too that the few owners prior to my buying the house in 1988, on a Friday afternoon in early March, hadn’t altered the footprint or ‘upgraded’ the look of the exterior. For the ensuing quarter century I’ve been engaged in stewarding this heritage resource, gradually correcting some errors of decor (1980s kitchen, Cubbon Home Centre bog with cultured marble countertop and shower tub sans shower, back porch with a wall summarily ripped out in order to accommodate overscale appliances, and damaged built-ins like the tile apron in front of the living room fireplace) while enjoying the many artistic features of a house skillfully contrived to be intimate with its setting.
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| Intimate with its surroundings in arts-and-crafts style |
Houses built on rural lands subsequently overtaken by infill development do run the risk of further subdivision, an arbitrary process of gridding that typically takes no account of landscape features. Subdivision is exactly what happened when the Savage bungalow (sitting on its original half-acre lot) passed to the next generation: the larger original holding was subdivided into
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| Retaining wall for infill development, an 'engineered' solution leaving much to be desired |
three separate parcels, with two new houses settled onto what was a single landscape. Fortunately these homes were constructed at the same scale as the Savage homestead, so they don't visually encroach on the original dwelling and, as a result, now amicably share the landform they are built on.
I sometimes try to visualize what it would have been like out here without a built-up neighbourhood around it. But I always end up thinking that it was a miracle that just enough land remained around the original homestead to retain the sense of a house placed comfortably in a natural setting, a rare and unusual attribute in today's more closely built tract suburbs. Many an historic house has had its entire landscape context filched from it by insensitive infill development. The Savage bungalow got lucky, again (thanks to daughter Joy and her husband Albert, who cared enough about 'the old place' she grew up in to see that it wasn't mangled in the process of subdivision).
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| Vegetation heals an edge created by panhandling the original lot with a driveway |
I feel very privileged to be on the verge of seeing this special building through its century year. I wish I could say that it will be fully restored to its original glory in time for the centennial party we intend to hold, but I know from experience now that ‘fully restored’ is a moving target. In effect, with an older building like this, there will always be things to do, in order to meet William Morris's insightful maxim of watchful stewardship and timely repair.
I hope to use the Century Bungalow blog to share my experience with maintenance and restoration of an older wooden house, to place it in relation to the broader bungalow phenomenon in order to understand its character better, to inquire further into the intentions of its designer and the influences swirling around and through him, and also to sing its many praises, all the while creating a record of its condition as it turns 100. All of which I hope will improve, however slightly, its prospects for survival as it embarks on its second century - as well as allowing me to share it with you.
I hope you enjoy it, as I have been for more than a quarter century now!
Books for looks: Anthony D. King, The Bungalow: The Production Of A Global Culture.
William Morris, Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), Manifesto: file:///D:/David/Downloads/Morris-1.pdf
Postscript: in January 2022, this house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright was placed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (saved by citizen action in the service of preserving heritage).
