Apple-Pie Architecture

hough initially influenced by the English Arts and Crafts movement, the Craftsman style truly flourished in this country from the early 1900s until the Depression. This style is being now strongly revived in the building of neo-traditional communities like Seaside on the Florida Panhandle and Harbor Town right here on Mud Island. Craftsman may well go down in architectural history as the quintessential American style of house.

Seaside encourages standard Craftsman features like a large front porch, groups of vertical, operative windows and frame construction with painted wood siding. Unenclosed roof overhangs with triangular support brackets are typical. One of my favorite details is the very narrow horizontal board siding played off against an extremely wide siding below. The wider, heavy boards below visually tie the house to the ground the way a rough-cut stone foundation would be used on a more lavish home.

This digression is merely meant to inform you that the classic, cottage style is now enjoying an unprecedented revival all over this country, and here's your chance to have an original. In fact, the two-block stretch of Court that contains this house is full of similarly scaled cottages and is busy with current renovations. What 10 years ago was largely rental is now fast becoming all owner-occupied.

The finishes inside have all been recently redone. The oak floors gleam. A deep cobalt tile enriches the bath floor. The old clawfooted tub is still here, as well as the original wood medicine cabinet and its rather high-tech, antique wall sconces. The wall between the butler's pantry and the kitchen was removed, which nicely opens up this room. A new kitchen layout is now the next needed improvement.

The original Craftsman details are delightful. The 10-foot ceilings are coffered, with dark-stained beams in two directions in the dining room. A high, stained-glass window over the sideboard tints the late-afternoon sunlight that washes the room.

The light fixtures are outstanding. The living-room fixture is the grandest, with a copper ceiling plate from which four chains support round pendants. It's so fine I would relocate it to the dining room and ditch the all-too-delicate chandelier that was a later addition. Fortunately, a smaller two-chain pendant fixture in the hall could replace the current living-room fixture and create all period fixtures in the public rooms.

The owner has painted the interior in deep earth tones that are well suited to the Craftsman style. The original dark stain on the woodwork is also fortunately in great condition. The exterior would benefit from the same sort of earth tones preferably differentiating the narrow upper siding from the wider below with yet a third color for trim. This would be the perfect complement to this easy-living, all-American piece of apple-pie architecture.

1992 Court Avenue
Approx. 1,300 square feet
2 bdrms, 1 bath; $83,000
Realtor: Sowell & Co., 278-4380
Listing agents: Don Neilson & Donna Gilluly