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The icebox/refrigerator in the cold room was too small in scale for a house of that size. The stove in the stove room had been acquired from another Greene and Greene house. But it was a 1920’s stove, which was not the correct period for the Gamble House. The Gamble house incorporates Craftsman design in combination with deep Japanese influence.
Exterior and gardens
Low-pitched roofs, deep terraces, and titanic, unscreened sleeping porches dominate the exterior of the house. The street view is especially striking for the monumentally deep eaves that shelter the northeast porch, which visually expands the boundaries and overall form of the house well beyond the confines of its shingled walls. In the early years of the twentieth century, sleeping porches were popular and national periodicals promoted them to health seekers and the culturally alert, many of whom came to Pasadena for the winter season. Nowhere did these porches proclaim more boldly the promise of outdoor life than in the Gambles’ winter residence. Using Douglas fir posts and beams, redwood split shakes, local river stones, clinker brinks, and a creeping fig vine that literally and figuratively roots the house to its site, the Greenes skillfully choreographed a seamless integration of house and landscape.
Public Tours
The Gamble House is one of the finest surviving examples Greene and Greene designs because it is so intact. Frank Lloyd Wright coined the term “organic architecture,” which was used to describe his designs which feature indoor-outdoor connections, low-pitched rooflines, horizontal orientations, banks of windows, and extended rafters. The Greene brothers employ many of these same elements in The Gamble House design. The home also features a double-story front porch design, capitalizing on the beautiful surrounding landscape. The Greene brothers received little acclaim for their work during their active years. It wasn’t until 1948 (over two decades since they closed their architecture firm) that they received recognition from the Pasadena Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
A Brief History of Scent With Saskia Wilson-Brown
The Green brothers attend an exhibit on Japanese architecture while moving to California, and the influence is evident throughout their work. In The Gamble House, Japanese-inspired cherry blossom tree and cloud motifs can be seen on the front doors, windows, lighting, and more. Additional elegant Greene and Greene creations (still privately owned) abound 2 blocks away along Arroyo Terrace, including nos. 368, 370, 400, 408, 424, and 440. For occasional opportunities to actually go inside the homes, there's the annual Craftsman Weekend in October, and Bungalow Heaven in April.
The mission of The Gamble House is to inspire the public’s appreciation and understanding of architecture as a fine art through the example of The Gamble House, the most complete and best-preserved work of American Arts and Crafts architects Charles and Henry Greene. The prominent amount of lush outdoor space and sleeping porches on the property exhibit an appreciation that the Greenes had for nature. To accommodate a eucalyptus tree that existed on the land before the house was built, the Greenes created notches in the roof line where it could stand. The house’s art glass—shown here on the front door—acted as a way to bring light into the space before there was electricity. Inspired by Japanese architecture, the Greenes ensured that there were no hard edges to be found on the property. The exterior of the house is lined with Douglas fir and the extended overhanging eaves act as cooling agents while protecting the porch from the rain.
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USC to relinquish control of the Gamble House in Pasadena - Los Angeles Times
USC to relinquish control of the Gamble House in Pasadena.
Posted: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]
It is one of America’s most stunning house museums, and is a treasure to all who experience it’s beauty. The Craftsman style uses a nature-inspired color palette featuring browns, olive greens, and rust oranges. Allowing the structure to blend in with the surroundings helps establish a sense of unity with the landscape and a relaxed feel. After completion of the house, the Gambles invited Mary’s younger sister, Julia, to live with them. Julia continued to live at the house until her death in 1944, when one of David and Mary’s children, Cecil, and his wife, Louise, moved in. But, if I’m totally honest, I’m really not the biggest fan of the American Craftsman Movement of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Perhaps meeting the architects at the construction site, and certainly impressed with the other Greene & Greene houses in the Park Place neighborhood, the Gambles met with the brothers and agreed on a commission. It has patterned brick paving with planting areas, a large curvilinear pond, and garden walls made with distinctive clinker bricks and boulders. Paths made with large water-worn stones from the nearby Arroyo Seco are reminiscent of running brooks crossing the lawns. The overall landscape design and constructed garden elements are integrated with the architectural proportion and detailing.
Indigenous Japanese shapes appear throughout the house, in the contour of the dining room table, the cloud lift in the transom bar of each window, the recessed handles on drawers and the ebony frame of the master bedroom furniture. Karla found 1908 catalog images of the checkered linoleum, which gave Ted the confirmation he needed to proceed with the linoleum restoration. The Forbo company donated the linoleum material and a volunteer was able to install it. Ted was looking for confirmation on period correctness on the proposed replacement stove and icebox, and on the linoleum in the old black and white images. Karla was able to send him images of period advertisements, which corroborated the period of the icebox, stove and linoleum. While the kitchen was beautiful, it still was missing some important details to be truly reflective of the overall 1908 interpretation of the house.
Not only did the Greene brothers design the house, but they also designed the furniture, within to create a cohesive feel. It all began when David and Mary Gamble of the Proctor and Gamble family packed up their belongings and moved from Ohio to sunny California in 1893. At the time, many families from booming cities in the Midwest and on the East Coast were migrating to California in the hopes of a cleaner, warmer, healthier lifestyle. Many of them settled in Southern California and a large group set up camp in Pasadena. Enjoy a guided walk around the historic Arroyo Terrace neighborhood, a National Register historic district that’s home to nine Greene & Greene houses as well as the works of other noted architects such as Myron Hunt, Edwin Bergstrom, Elmer Grey, and D. Among these are the personal residences of Myron Hunt and of Charles Greene, whose house evolved between 1902 and 1915 as his family grew and his design ideas matured.
In fact, Isabelle Greene—the granddaughter of Henry Greene and landscape architect—has been working on revamping the garden that has been forgotten for years. She’ll be bringing it back to life based on the original vision that Mary Gamble had created. It had been her cherished cutting garden and was a place where Isabelle spent much of her childhood. Ever since the house was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1978, it’s been owned by the City of Pasadena and is operated by the University of Southern California. Marking the 50th anniversary of the house being gifted to the city, this entire year has been filled with celebratory events including lecture series, tours, family-friendly days, and reunion events. They're also planning to reveal a documentary that's been in the works by well-known film producer, Don Hahn.
While the home was constructed in the Craftsman style decades prior, the elements of indoor-outdoor connections, horizontal lines, and earthy color palette resonated with the era. “Architecture as a Fine Art,” was Charles Greene’s mantra (he wrote an article of this title in 1917), and his vision of marrying exquisite craft with beautiful and useful designs became central to the Greenes’ reputation, for better or worse. In the Gamble House, the two brothers could explore the full possibilities of this vision for clients who appreciated and could afford it. That their work was no longer in demand by 1915 is as much due to changing fashions (including the rise of interior decorators), as it was to the wartime economy and the high cost of materials and labor. Charles moved with his family to Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1916, where he continued some design work, though at a slower pace. Henry nominally carried on the joint practice in Pasadena until 1922, when it was formally dissolved.
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