Hubert Savage, Architect (6)

 

 

 

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

   

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

 

 

 

So why did Hubert Savage feel the need to do up two floor plans for his bungalow, the first dated 1933, the second 1951? The answer, I think, lies in the poor functioning of his original method of supplying heat to the building. Initially, and for a long time, he relied on open fireplaces to heat the living and dining rooms (these may also have been meant to supply heat to the kitchen as well). 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 to the right. Savage also had a second smaller chimney constructed, framed into the walls of the bedrooms just off the central corridor. Its purpose was to vent gases from a small oil-burning stove (or paraffin heater) located in the hallway. This heater was likely intended to warm the bedrooms and the bathroom, but we don't know if it actually worked because, by the time I moved in in 1988, it was gone and the chimney was inactive. In fact, I wasn't even aware that there was a second chimney when I moved in, but soon discovered it. One of my first acts was ripping out the deep-pile-shag wall-to-wall carpets covering floors in the bedrooms and hallway (yes, deep-pile-shag was a thing for a short time, until it became evident how dysfunctional it actually was). I took it out in order to get back to the original tongue-and-groove fir flooring under it, which had never been refinished. The adhesive binding holding the underlay to the floor proved difficult to remove, while the tacking strips securing the edges of the wall-to-wall had damaged the floors slightly. Also, the installation of the wall-to-wall had come at the cost of the original quarter-round mouldings used to ease the transition between floors and tall baseboards (once the carpet was out, the rooms felt quite bare without it in place). 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). 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 second chimney (a fact I had not grasped in buying the house, perhaps because I would have had to venture far out into the back garden in order to see it). I also purchased the house without ever visiting the attic, for reasons stated in my September 2023 post First Impressions in Century Bungalow.

 

Wall jog (right) that contains the hidden chimney

Wall jog (left) that disguises the second chimney

The chimney that once vented a heater in the hall

 

However, the two fireplaces were another matter entirely, and they may always have been substandard as sources of heat, a fact attested to by my early enthusiasm for decorative fires in the living room hearth. Although I didn't have to rely on them for heat, I could tell from the start that they weren't well-contrived to perform this function - indeed, in my limited experience, the fireplaces actually sent more heat up the chimney than they kept in the rooms. Fireplaces work by drawing oxygen over fuel, which requires a supply of air (or a draft) for 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 needs to be taken account of in design, 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-fuelled device that tries to imitate a real fire). In my experience, keeping a fire going in the living room hearth was an involving task, necessitating that the windows be kept slightly ajar to provide sufficient draft for reliable burning. But, if the windows were ajar, causing the fire to burn more briskly, also entailed sending more heat up the chimney. The alternative, which I found more distasteful, was to keep the windows shut and put up with a smouldering fire. 

 

The idea of sending heat up the chimney was not unusual in bungalows built in Southern California (where the fad for bungalows first established itself) because there was no need to consider heat retention in a place without real winter. In that milieu, the meaning of the fireplace - which was often quite grand and constituted a major point of emphasis in design - was primarily social, so conceived as a place where family would gather for story-telling around 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 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 could be an afterthought in a benign climate, bungalows built in locales further north, in places with real winters, typically had some form of central heating (involving a furnace that was housed in a basement). Remarkably, and rather naively in light of this 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 trapped inside 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 as certain that it was often chilly in the principal rooms.  

 

 

Most years see some snow on the ground in Victoria, some years rather a lot

Picture of the shed with abundant snowfall on the ground, taken in December 2022

 

 

It turns out, however, that the British are renowned for taking quirky approaches to heat in their homes (especially in comparison to Canada, where central heating is the norm) preferring instead to under-heat the building and offset the cold 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 an organized approach to central heating, almost always warming only those rooms 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 circa 1951

 

 

So the word 'inadequate' pretty much summarizes my experience of the two fireplaces: difficult to operate, consuming large quantities of wood, and generating marginal heat gains. I found myself caught in a dilemma here: should I keep the windows ajar in order to ensure sufficient draft (thus consuming more fuel) or close the windows and endure more negative outcomes? Typically, I chose to feed the fire, as it was only occasional in nature. Even so, I found myself using the fireplace less frequently due to the futility of the process. But I came to realize that this would also have been an issue for the Savages, one more trenchant back in their heyday, and which 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 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 in 1860) created a dwelling that, while brilliant in many respects, was simply not built for solar gain and displayed, according to author Jan Marsh, "an almost medieval disregard for heating." Its fireplaces were too small to have their intended impact, and they smoked, 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. He held to this idea based on an instinctive rejection of the entire notion of central heat, which he famously denounced as involving "demonical contrivances" like pipes, radiators and a furnace. As a result, he chose fireplaces to heat his buildings, but understood their scientific design well enough to build in special 'draft lines' 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, Savage eventually gave up on this fireplace-reliance, and started thinking more seriously about how to go about centrally heating the building (which he may already have been 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 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 copies of the floor plan of the house, which I didn't immediately grasp the significance of. But I pored over them, grateful for information about layout and the bungalow's original features (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 such details, but then I happened to notice that the two plans expressed entirely different visions for how the building was heated. Savage initially thought about introducing a system of hot-water-radiators to centrally heat it. The 1933 plan, I realized, shows a proposed placement of hot-water-fed radiators, although that plan was not enacted. It isn't clear just where Savage would have placed the furnace either, which would have been challenging as he didn't have a basement. And choosing a fuel type would also have complicated matters: coal, for example, would have required storage space for tons of the fuel, not far from the furnace either, while fuel oil would have required a storage tank placed outside the building, so a little bit more flexible but also more visible. And both fuel types would have necessitated access from some sort of driveway for deliveries, a critical factor that couldn't easily be accommodated within the existing setup. Perhaps these stumbling blocks were why the 1933 plan wasn't ever acted on? I must admit I didn't twig onto the meaning behind the two plans until I happened to focus 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 the 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 (and this time the plan was carried out in short order). But even that plan, as executed, was modified to some degree, as several wall heaters wound up in different places than shown 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 those areas that were being used. I might speculate that Savage, who by this time had become a 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 their 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 runs: 

 

"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 finding their 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 of the rooms. 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 electrical supply for local heat gain (but more safely engineered than the heaters shown above). Many brands of space-heating device were being marketed, some of them 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 widespread 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 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 an insulation value. A second stage in this progression involved hiking this insulation value by filling the cavity with a fibrous substance like cellulose, which I learned had been done at the Savage bungalow. I became aware of this when examining the building after the initial repairs and prior to its repainting, when I suddenly discerned that a series of circular holes, at regular intervals, had been drilled into the drop-siding. These holes were obviously access points through which insulation could be pumped into the walls, after which they were 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 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 did the job who 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, to maximize heat retention in all the rooms (this fact is noted on the 1951 floor plan). Zonolite is a brand-name for vermiculite that came from the Libby mine in Montana, USA. It was marketed in Canada under that brand name and was widely used to insulate attics (and is very likely contaminated with asbestos, which happened to be found interspersed with the 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 high quality that they are surely the next best thing to a furnace. Made like a true capital good - that is, to last - they simply do not readily break down. Their chief vulnerability (apart from being powerful, so they are totally unlike modern baseboard heating) 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 there was a supply of wood!). I didn't encounter this problem though in over 35 years of inhabiting the building.

 

When I landed there back in 1988, there was an entire wall in the utility room given over to meters whose sole function was to average 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 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, which you had to physically change 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 enough supply to support all uses, including the wall-heaters. As a result of the enlarged panel, I had room for new circuits, which either facilitated novel uses (like overhead electric lighting and power outlets for 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 failure of knob-and-tube wiring). My initial electrician was Eddy Kop Senior, who upon seeing the 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". But why had this not been done sooner, I wondered? The answer I think lies in the fact that when the Wesix wall heaters came in, in the early 50s, 60-amp service was then the residential norm. Hubert Savage would have overseen their installation, before he retired from being an architect in 1954. After he passed on a year after that, his wife Alys occupied the bungalow for several more decades, and thus likely oversaw certain 'improvements', such as the shag carpets, and a full 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 the installation, the quality of the basic wiring and the durability of the heaters themselves, even about the quality of the carpentry that was done around installation. The job had to have occurred while Savage was still practising architecture, shortly after the second floor plan was drawn up, and while he still had 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 the bungalow was built in 1913, but the quality of the install makes it appear 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.

 

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 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 order.

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 sitting very close to ground - indeed, one that seems to rise directly from it. One byproduct of the crawlspace is external access to the building's underside, via a small door (with much more limited access to the northern third, where there is insufficient height). This proximity to ground also characterized the original Indian bangala, which came on a plinth made of mud, later modified, as the British adapted the building to colonial needs, to brick or stone. The plinth served to elevate the building slightly off ground, raising it a foot or two so that it remained dry during the monsoon season. The use of plinths continued as the British evolved the Anglo-Indian bungalow, giving it a similar horizontal emphasis. With the advent of the California-style bungalow (from about 1905 on) the plinth turned into a crawlspace beneath the building, allowing them to be built directly above soil. Construction on brick or cement piers topped with 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 a similarly horizontal look to the bangala. It was also appropriate technology for this locale too, as it rarely rained there and the native soils tended to drain well. However, there were occasionally problems with crawlspaces arising from the tendency of moisture to collect there, which could sponsor rot in a largely wooden structure. Addressing the problem required a method of venting the enclosed space so that trapped moisture escaped. Insects and rodents could also cause problems too. But one positive achievement of the technology was a dramatic reduction in building 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 small one to a high of $1407 for a deluxe model. These houses were pre-cut, shippable anywhere railways ran, to be assembled 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! 

 

The Savage bungalow is also built over a low crawlspace after the California manner, with low foundation walls emphasizing a similar 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 that support the bungalow vertically combine with curtain walls of stone to close the building to the world outside. The characteristic of sitting just above or even at ground level (especially on the West wall) sets the Savage bungalow apart from other commercially built bungalows of the era, which tended to come seated on a full basement, to accommodate a furnace and heat distribution system, among other things. The practice of building a full basement tended to raise them higher, especially those found in Victoria and Vancouver, where it was convenient to build basements that were mostly above ground. The resulting look is awkward compared to way a California bungalow sits - see first picture for a moderate example of this awkwardness). 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 projection, 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 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 its proximity to ground

 

 

The Savage bungalow is also a building of just one storey (although it appears to be taller as approached from the front path, where the lay of the land and the use of cross-gables lend it a more-grand presence). The ground floor is capped with 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. When a derivative of the Anglo-Indian bungalow eventually landed in Victoria, B.C., where it was known as a colonial bungalow, it rapidly set a fashion for utilization of the stylish roofspace for bedrooms, achieved with light-admitting dormers (see photos below). This tendency to utilize the roof for added living space got bigger over time, so the dormers grew larger. Bungalows built in California tended to take a similar approach, thus making bungalows one-and-a-half storeys almost immediately. Use of the roof for additional living space was well-advanced by 1913, when Savage designed his bungalow, but the attic was always intended as storage rather than for living space. This must have seemed reasonable at the time, but as bungalows became more widely built (in quantities that would make them America's first 'dream home') their roofs were increasingly used for living space, and especially for bedrooms, thereby confirming the bungalow's one-and-a-half storey status. 

 

 

Early thatch-roofed bungalow in India, circa 1865 - without any 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 allowing roof space to be habitable

Colonial bungalow with graceful dormers to expand the liveable space

 

 

Over time, the roof level of bungalows thus tended to be habitable space, which was realized by means of dormers set tastefully and modestly into it. The Savage bungalow could still be expanded in this manner, despite only the west facade being available to take a dormer (the east facade, being cross-gabled, isn't usable without incurring major damage to the building, which is ruled out by 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 access, which is precariously vertical; this could be done, in part, by relaxing that staircase's rise and adding a landing to it, which would change its direction and exploit the ample attic space. This transformation would allow bulkier objects to be carried upstairs. A more-relaxed staircase (one sloped less sharply than at present) is a necessity that may involve the addition of a small dormer above the walk-in closet roof (and would also likely require the sacrificing of existing closet space in the master and spare bedrooms). Assuming all this could be done tastefully, it should be possible to add as much as 700 square feet to the existing footprint (enough room for, say, a large master bedroom at the southwest end, flowing into a spacious ensuite bathroom with separated 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 to serve these rooms, as well as an opportunity to add 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 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, for improved access 

 

It's important, given the building's heritage status, that should 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 gable roofs tastefully, where they came well-proportioned and dressed for consistency with the overall design. The detailing didn't need to be excessive, but it came 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 remain undesignated).

 

 

Dormer addition bearing little 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 be appropriately detailed. The dormer may be on the large side (especially if, as with the Savage bungalow, it's not visible from the road) but it should fit within the existing roof form and not ignore it. Any appearance of the bungalow becoming a two-storey building should be firmly resisted. This isn't always the case today (cf. the photo above, where the new window, the dimension of the siding, and the blunt projection of the new roof line all ignore the 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 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 just a 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 (cf. the modernist dormer, photo above) 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 original building style, overloading the roof with them tends towards incompatibility. At some point it all becomes too much, and the original bungalow form 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

Dormer continuing the exterior wall plane upwards, imparting a 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 it was maintained in the version that 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 as built in tract developments). It is also a defining feature of the Savage bungalow. Verandahs on bungalows look best when they are furnished informally, which gives them the appearance of an outdoor room while acknowledging the transition between realms of outside and inside the building. 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, lanais, outdoor dining spaces, windowed conservatories, sleeping porches, patios, and terraces. All of these functional extensions of the original verandah became typical of the bungalows built in Southern California, where the climate was largely benign and the indoor-outdoor theme easily reinforced. The Savage bungalow's compact verandah (by Anglo-Indian bungalow standards, at least) nonetheless works similarly, as an informal space perched high atop a natural ridge. In this location, it evokes a strong feeling of prospect (views to scenery removed from the roadway) and refuge (weather-protected and secure). The low verandah railing, which invites people to sit, is a typical feature of classic North American bungalows that would not be allowed under contemporary bylaws (cf. photos below).

 

 

A sweeping roof protecting a prominent verandah is an essential bungalow feature 

 

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

A transitional environment conveying a strong feeling of prospect and refuge 

The fourth characteristic - inside and outside environments that interpenetrate - is where the Savage design really goes to town. This feature was characteristic of the original Indian bangala and it applies to bungalows everywhere 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 truly unique. To the abundant natural scenery he added a raft of generous windows that open compelling views, so that glimpses from within directly connect the building to the outside world. We chronicled the remarkable range of windows in our second post in this series (Hubert Savage, Architect (2)). But here we also have in mind Gustav Stickley's comments on windows as points of connection to the world outside the structure, made in an article promoting rural buildings 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 by means of windows

 

This feature of having many large windows also combines agreeably with the lively movement of wall planes, which are made to jog in and out on all four sides of the bungalow. This in/out movement strengthens the sense that inside and outside are connected, by design. As noted above, many techniques for reinforcing the sense of interpenetration started out as ways of taking advantage of benign weather patterns that was emblematic of Southern California, which was where the North American mania for bungalows began (and where a great many classy, architect-designed bungalows were erected).

 

"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 taken with building design (for example, open soffits and exposed rafter-tails, both hallmarks of the Craftsman style, went with a tendency to forego gutters and downspouts entirely, thus resulting in added savings made possible in a dry climate with well-drained soils). But the interpenetration of outside and inside that was consciously emphasized in modern bungalow design also applies 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 Anglo-Indian bungalow, is intriguing. 

 

 

Elegant airplane bungalow in Los Angeles: note the 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 like a sleeping porch. This idea evidently didn't hold up, over time. Although he had a way to shutter this open space in winter, this can't have been entirely satisfactory, as once shuttered, light and views would have been excluded during the long winter months (thus blinding the rear of the building). There is also the matter of rainfall that occurs beyond winter, as well as prevailing winds coming from the west, which would have meant wear and tear on the environment due to leaving the back porch open to the elements. Anyway, by the time I happened upon the scene in 1988, the summer tea room was fully glazed in, by means of a small wood-framed picture window that was flanked by a pair of aluminum sash windows with screens (which we changed to clear leaded glazing at the time of the first building remake). It's difficult to say whether Savage had anything to do with the remaking of the room that saw this area translated into windowed space, but I'm skeptical; we don't know the specifics, but he had generally better taste than the temporary and discordant quality of those aluminum windows. The summer tea room 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 maintained

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

The idea of designing each exterior wall differently - thereby imparting unique movement to each facade - was a fruitful one. Savage originally elaborated different treatments for the three most prominent walls, leaving the north wall as a plain, unwindowed version of the south wall (thus lacking its complexity, height and the balanced asymmetry of its elements). Then, by the addition of a walk-in closet sometime after the original bungalow was built, he gained an opportunity to create a more unique personality for the north wall too. The movement of wall planes was also exploited to the benefit of internal features, like the dining room window-seat built into a projecting bay window (see photo below) or the built-in radio in the living room that was also placed in a bay, or the walk-in closet with its built-in cupboards flanking a compact dresser. These innovations have all stood the test of time, as worthy ways of dressing the projections created by the lively movement of 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, thus assuredly a bungalow) there is another way to ascertain that this house was consciously designed as a bungalow, and that is by consulting the 1933 floor plan. There we find the building described as follows: "frame construction of bungalow type" (top photo, below) a notation that surely stands as definitive. And yet, by 1933 when Savage initialled this version of the floor plan, the bungalow era had already drawn to a close, supplanted first by World War I, followed a decade later by the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing depression. Still, even in 1933, Savage continued to acknowledge the building type that, back in 1913 just two decades earlier, was so entirely the rage that he designed one as his lifetime home. Yet how quickly the bungalow era moved from such giddy enthusiasm to utter oblivion, returning only recently when these modest structures were again discovered to be worthy dwellings 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 the contribution they made to the quality of the built environment, had now fallen from grace. The new reality in Victoria first became evident with the dawn of WWI, 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 this event triggered, extended 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 for people finally returned, 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 another feature that came to typify bungalows for the public resulting 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 such an extent that today they feel naked if they lack a semblance of its presence, started out 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 (which in India could be of substantial extent). 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 around the building, came to define the specifically British adaptation of the bungalow. "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 the compound for defensive purposes - buffering the bungalow from other uses and other people - over time this land-area was transformed by the bungalow's inhabitants (and their servants, of which there were often many) 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 to them the 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 comes to typify the modern bungalow type - one where the natural pattern of movement is out onto the verandah and into a garden room that is 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 he lived in as follows: "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 was travelling with the building form itself, as did the conjoined notion of the bungalow as "a retreat from the society around it". These realities became part of the successful marketing of bungalows, which started 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 lockstep with bungalows 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 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 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 of 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 north edge of the property, where ten foot setbacks arguably bring the neighbouring house a little too 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 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.