Craftsman Bungalow Style of Architecture

Which Home is a Craftsman Bungalow?

Doncha Wanna Buy a Bangala?

1908 - The Bungalow is Born

Gustav Stickley and the Craftsman Magazine

Craftsman Farms, The Gustav Stickley Museum

Plan of an Aeroplane Bungalow, 1924

Homes From a 1926 Planbook

Plan of a California Bungalow

A Fire Sale on a Fireproof House

Exterior Paint Colors in the 1920's

Art is Thoughtful Workmanship - 1913

Resource Links for the A & C Movement

The Craftsman Bungalow

The aesthetic principles of the Arts & Crafts Movement had a big influence on the birth of the so-called "Craftsman Style Bungalow". After the Arts & Crafts Movement crossed the Atlantic from England to America, its principles (such as the idea of keeping materials simple and unadorned) were spread across the nation by Gustav Stickley in his magazine "The Craftsman". The widely published work of Greene and Greene Architects in California helped to define key elements of the bungalow style, although their homes were far too expensive for the common man. Planbooks began to feature stripped-down versions of the bungalow "look", and as that look became popular with middle-class homebuyers, builders filled the new suburbs with row upon row of Craftsman style homes.

Affordable New Housing For A New Century

The Craftsman Bungalow was the first type of American housing to evolve after the advent of the automobile, the widespread use of electricity in private homes, and the popularization of the telephone. It was the first "American" house style of the twentieth century. Around 1900, there was a great deal of concern in America for extending home ownership to the average American. This was seen as a worthy goal of the "modern era". The "bungalow" type of construction was the ideal, affordable building style to meet the perceived needs of the era.

Gables And Brackets

The typical Craftsman bungalow in the M-Street area is a one story home with a gabled roof. The roof has a wide overhang, extending past the wall of the house by one or two feet. Most houses from this period have multiple gables, often as many as five gables on a single home.

Exposed Rafter Tails

Heavy projecting wood brackets are located along the gables to support the extended roof overhangs, and the eaves are supported by exposed rafter tails. The ends of the rafter tails often have a "fancy cut" end.

A wide front porch is present on almost all Craftsman bungalows. The porch roof is supported by massive columns which begin at the ground instead of resting on top of the porch floor. This helps to create the desired impression that the house is firmly anchored to its site. The bottom half of the most common type of porch column is often made of brick, and the upper half usually consists of a four-sided wood box column with a pronounced taper. (The wood box column was assembled from standard mill trim that could be assembled by a carpenter on the job site.) Porch openings often feature long, unsupported spans between the porch columns. This helps to emphasize the horizontal line, in contrast to the "old-fashioned" Victorian emphasis on verticals.

Real Living Space

The front porch was meant to be a real living space, not just a decorative element. In the days before air conditioning, especially during hot Dallas summers, a great deal of entertaining and family life took place on the front porch.

Exterior Materials

Wood siding was used on craftsman bungalows built before 1920. The most common type of wood siding found in the M-Street area is a three inch drop-siding pattern. (Many homes on Willis Avenue and Richard Avenue have this type of siding.) Brick veneer emerged as the dominant exterior material in Dallas after about 1920. A few of the last Craftsman Bungalows were constructed with brick veneer exteriors. (Homes in the 5100 and 5200 blocks of Vickery Boulevard and Goodwin Avenue mostly have brick exteriors. These blocks have a mix of the "old-fashioned" Craftsman Bungalows and the emerging "Tudor Cottage" style of architecture.)

Ganged Windows

These three windows are ganged. Most bungalows built in the M-Street area have windows "clumped together" this way. As with most bungalows, the upper sash has multiple window panes divided by mullions, but the bottom sash has a single large pane of glass.

Mixing Arts and Crafts With Other Styles

Home exteriors often combine elements of different architectural styles. This home has the projecting eaves, exposed rafter tails, and heavily proportioned angle brackets which were essential elements of the arts and crafts design vocabulary. But the home has a small stoop instead of a big front porch, and the curved porch roof and round porch columns are neoclassical in inspiration. When it was built, this home would have been considered "Early American" in style.

Recognizing The Craftsman Bungalow

Look for the following elements of the style:
A relatively low-pitched roof
Wide overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails
Triangular brackets projecting from the gables (suggesting that you are seeing the actual structure of the house)
An enormous front porch
Massive porch columns that tie the house visually to the ground
A long horizontal span between porch columns (in order to accent the horizontal line)