Reprinted from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Saturday
April 6, 2002
A passion for bungalow living, even creating a Web site
By Kevin Kirkland, Post-Gazette Homes Editor
In 1996, Ken Lonsinger was looking for a home, not a hobby. The Dormont native and University of Pittsburgh graduate had just moved back from New York City and was looking in his old neighborhood to buy his first home. The one he settled on - with a broad, overhanging roof, bay windows and wide front porch topped by brick pillars - wasn't a showpiece. But something about its shape and flowing floor plan - similar to the early 1900s houses they had grown up in - was appealing.
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Ken Lonsinger discovered a love for Craftsman style when he moved into this 1918 Dormont home. Its roofline and bay windows are loosely based on the California bungalow. (Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette photos) |
"The more I learned about it, the more I liked the simplicity, the idea of nature and not overdoing things - it really spoke to me and my ex-wife," he said.
Stripping and staining the 1918 house's woodwork, painting and wallpapering, creating a garden where there was only grass - all made the couple eager to learn more about the Craftsman credo of natural materials, functional design and solid workmanship. While they worked together on the house, the pair devoured books and magazines about Craftsman style - also known as Arts & Crafts and Mission.
They planned vacations around visits to bungalow enclaves such as the West End of Toledo, Ohio; homes built by the Greene brothers in Pasadena, Calif.; and the Grove Park Inn, a masterwork commissioned by the Vanderbilts in Asheville, N.C. And they surfed the Web, hungry for more information.
Then, less than a year into their search, Ken, a professional Web developer, decided he ought to share what he had learned and created his own Web site, the Craftsman Perspective (http://www.craftsmanperspective.com/).
What began as two or three pages of basic information on American bungalows has morphed into 38 pages under five headings: History, Architecture, Advice, Resources and Renovations. Best of all, it includes more than 230 photos, organized by region, depicting houses united only by elements of Craftsman design.
Though his site averages 2,200 visitors a month and is used as a resource in several architecture classes and by universities, libraries and preservation organizations, Lonsinger shuns the title of "expert."
"Architects don't need my site. It's everyone else - people like me and Stephanie - who like something about their house but don't know what it is," he said.
His site has put him in touch with those people - both nationally and locally. It bothers Lonsinger that local Realtors and others who ought to know better tell buyers their houses are Colonials, Victorians or some other misleading label. His Mid-Atlantic photo archive is packed with bungalows in Dormont, Beechview, Brookline and Mt. Lebanon that are often misidentified.
Lonsinger is modest about his own home. He says it's a work in progress and far from the best example on their street, which abounds with different kinds of bungalows and Craftsman style houses.
So far, the couple have refinished the boxed beams in the living room and dining room and the pillared divider between the two rooms. Ken has built an oak window seat around a low radiator and is now fashioning a mantel and flanking cabinets from quarter-sawn oak for the living room fireplace. Stephanie adds plants each year to the front and back cottage-style gardens, which will grow with the addition of a pergola, retaining walls and brick patio.
Someday, they hope to replace the leaded glass that once graced the foyer, add oak wainscoting to the dining room and tear off the aluminum siding on the second story.
"Everything done to this house, Stephanie and I have done ourselves," Ken said. "It may not be perfect. In my opinion, that is what the Craftsman ideal is all about."
The Renovations page leads off with the words "Als Ik Kan," an old Flemish phrase that translates "As best I can." It was the shop motto of Gustav Stickley, one of the founders of American Arts and Crafts style. Stickley was inspired by the work of Englishman William Morris, who abhorred the cheap, machine-made furniture, homes and other goods of the Industrial Revolution. Morris surrounded himself with like-minded architects, artisans and craftspeople, creating both items and a lifestyle that exemplified a belief in the goodness of nature, no-frills practicality and honest human labor.
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| Lonsinger is framed by a pillared divider between the living and dining rooms. |
"When your passion is so great, you want everything Arts and Crafts."
But he says he has "mellowed" over the years. He owns a Prairie-style settle, tile-top cocktail table and Morris recliner, all made by Stickley Furniture, which still operates in Manlius, N.Y. But they also have a more Victorian-looking antique dining room suite and other furniture not exactly of the style.
"The idea is to integrate your house into your lifestyle, not the other way around," he said. "The Craftsman house is really accepting of many styles."
He also doesn't have much time for Arts and Crafts snobs.
"If you feel a strong need to own Stickley, buy it, but you don't have to decorate your whole house that way. ... This is Arts and Crafts for the rest of us."
Lonsinger, a former graphic designer and fashion journalist, said he has no hopes of making the Web site his career; he wants it to remain a hobby. While he used to update the site monthly, he now sticks to one major update a year. And he's stopped answering most questions because it was taking too much of his time away from his house and Stephanie, who works at the Carnegie Science Center. They're now planning a trip to Paris and Provence, France. No bungalows there, but lots of gardens for Stephanie to enjoy.
She said she's always had a love for gardening, even as a child living in half a Shingle-style duplex in New Jersey. Her interest in Arts and Crafts and her artistic side come out in Stickley-style stenciling on their home's curtains and embroidery on pillows. Ken offers opinions on color and design.
But their gardens, which are shown on a new page under Renovations, are her domain. "He lets me take the lead there, because that's my interest and passion," she said.
Even before she had read about famous Arts and Crafts gardeners like Gertrude Jekyll, Stephanie, 35, was already into an informal garden with drifts of color, free-form beds and hardy, indigenous plants.
"The most exotic things I have are four hybrid tea roses," she said. They're surrounded by sturdy standbys such as English ivy, bearded iris, black-eyed Susans, veronica, coneflowers, daylilies, phlox, poppies, lilies, and a variety of herbs such as lavender and thyme.
She has no illusions that her steeply sloped lot ever will hold the perfect Craftsman garden, just as their home will never be the archetypal bungalow.
"When you first become appreciative of something, you see people who collect museum-quality pieces," she said. "The reality is that most people living at that time didn't have houses that looked like that."
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Craftsman Perspective is created and copyrighted by Ken Lonsinger. © 1997-2010. All rights reserved.