If you’d like to see some pictures of a truly beautiful home, take a gander at the pictures in this gallery. That’s the Anthony-Kerry home in Beverly Hills, it’s up for sale, and it can be yours for a measly $9 million.
As those of you who are aficionados of this sort of thing may recognize, it’s a Green and Green home. Greene and Greene were a pair of brothers who were architects and building contractors back at the turn of the last century. The most prominent G&G home is probably the Gamble House in Pasadena. The Gamble House is now jointly owned by the University of Southern California and the City of Pasadena and it’s open to the public. It was used for the exteriors of Doc’s house in Back to the Future.
It’s not just the design of this house that’s beautiful but the materials and the remarkably fine craftsmanship, something for which the Greene brothers were noted. A Frank Lloyd Wright house may have a gorgeous design but if you’ve ever been in one you’ll acknowledge that it’s obvious that the attention to craftsmanship can’t hold a candle to a Greene and Greene home.
Houses like that are lovely, no doubt, but not terribly homey. Everything in it from the furniture to the hand towels needs to be done by an interior decorator or you’re just ruining the look of the place.
In the mythical world in which I win $200,000,000 dollars and decide to buy that place, where do the inevitable piles of books go? What about my beloved ten dollar coffee table? Heck, from an aesthetic standpoint my table isn’t worthy of going in the fire place….
Yep. It’d be like living in a museum.
I have the image in my head of all those places in Architectural Digest. There’s always vast open spaces and sleek furniture and a single orchid. Back here in reality I’m looking at the Legos on the coffee table to my right, the bag of corn chips and salsa my daughter left out, dog toys, sneakers, a cat tree, my wife’s impromptu office now partly concealed by Shoji screens, a small weight bench, a cat-clawed couch, a basket stuffed full of magazines and catalogues, a bookshelf full of assorted crap, my laptop charger — and that’s just the living room.
Beautiful house, but it would not look that way if occupied by people with kids, animals, and a home office.
I think that livability and coziness are as much factors of the people who live there as it is the house. The pictures represent a house that’s being staged. I have no idea what the house looked like when the family was actually living there.
Having been inside a Greene and Greene house (the Gamble House) I can testify that they have a sort of warmth to them completely lacking in a Wright house. We might ask the architectural students living in the Gamble House. Check the picture of the kitchen out. I think that’ pretty livable.
Livability and warmth are two different issues, IMO. While it is hard to keep a lived in home looking pristine (or even close to it), at least this architectural style does have warmth and a homey feel. I don’t get icepick’s concern about books, for instance…this place practically screams “library”.
Besides, complaining that architectural magazine pictures don’t look real is like complaining that the perfect human forms of models are unattainable in real life. That’s kind of the point…no one dreams of Cheetos on the couch or muffin tops around the midsection.
Architecturally the ceiling is too low for me. (It is in the house I currently occupy also.) I like a good nine or ten feet. That looks like a standard 8 or even a bit less. It feels less homey than oppressive to me, but then my dream house would be mostly glass, in southern California, on the water, with pretty much everything open to the breeze at all times. Also maids to keep everything clean and organized. And my kids would probably be at college.
CStanley, a library doesn’t cut muster for me. Books just accumulate on flat surfaces. I’ve got plumbing books on the stand in the bathroom and on the dining room table. A book on the philosophy of mathematics on the dresser next to my bed. A scattering of chess books and Ellroy novels are on top of one of the three book cases in the hall. (On top of, not on the shelves below where you might suspect they belong.) I’ve got books on both the couches, on end tables, in the garage (books by Derrida and the like, as well as stacks on various foreign languages), and on and on.
With the exception of the books in the garage, which are in storage, the books all have shelves. But they’ve ended up in these places because that’s where I was when I put them down. The hell of it is that I can find what I’m after more easily in the piles of seemingly random detritus than the stuff organized on the shelves. I know right where to find LA Confidential, could pick it out of the pile without fail in pitch darkness, but I’d have to work to find my book on Godel, which got shelved last fall. THAT’S what I’m talking about, and a lovely library, while nice, wouldn’t help me.
And Schuler, the kitchen may look livable, but it doesn’t look lived in!
…
And I agree the house looks very inviting and warm (in an emotional sense), but man, I’d hate to be the person that leaves the mail on the dining room table or spills cereal on the family room rug. The house needs to be occupied by the models CStanley mentioned, but only if they’re anal retentive neatness freaks.
Much of my furniture, glassware, etc. (not my electronics) is more than 150 years old. My general view is that I shouldn’t be reckless or careless but if there’s another mar or scratch, so what? It will become part of the history of the piece. The furniture is there for me not the other way around.
Nearly every room in our house is full of books. I’ll need to take a picture of our upstairs library some time.
My husband’s grandfather’s brother owned an early Greene and Greene home in Pasadena. I’ve seen old photos of it and can only say it was magnificent in it’s design. Unfortunately, when it was sold, it didn’t go to a Greene and Greene aficionado, but instead was torn down and replaced with another home.
Perhaps it was this generational link which has been the source of our current admiration of Craftsman type homes, furniture, lighting etc. Whatever it was, our home has many touches of the craftsman era, coupled with mission oak furniture, usually gleaned from interesting, eclectic places. We’ve even built a replication of a craftsman, tiger oak staircase, which IMO adds warmth, strength and a wonderful sitting place for staircase conversations.
As for what makes a home environment ‘comfortable’, I think it involves putting personal energy into a place. Our “things” are such a diverse mixture of memories and stages in our own life. We have spool stools from our ‘salad’ days of collecting residual wood utility spools, and then converting them into tables and stools. Hatch covers became dining room tables. We’ve refinished old furniture bought at flea markets and from private parties. Art work is from friends/family we know, and even wall weavings I’ve woven on a loom. Consequently, everything we live with seems to have a personal story attached to it’s origination, creating not only fond recollections, but also translating into surrounds of hominess and instant comfort zones.
Anecdotally, a friend we went out to dinner with yesterday even asked us if we had a ‘decorator.’ He kind of smiled when we told him everything just fell into place over the years, and turned out looking like they belonged there. Magic!
“That looks like a standard 8 or even a bit less. It feels less homey than oppressive to me…”
The ceilings in these homes tend to look lower because the beams bring them down visually. Also, the application of so much wood, on the walls, built-in cabinets, furniture, along with large overhanging eves outside, can darken the interiors. Lighting, though, being in hues of yellow, even greens, can soften some of these deficits, changing interiors into more of a coziness.
All too frequently the bones of these houses had become more valuable than the houses themselves. They were sold, stripped, torn down, and something else built in their places.
Or, alternatively, it just might not have been to the tastes of the new owners. An anecdote told about the Gamble House by the docents was that when the heirs were attempting to sell the place the wife of the prospective buyers said to the husband “Oh, don’t worry about how dark it is. It’ll look a lot lighter when we paint over all that dark wood.” The heirs took the house off the market and worked out a deal with the city and the university.
There was a recent trend right at the end of the housing boom here in Atlanta, to build homes with craftsman features but painted casework details. Sheepishly, I have to admit that I like the look. I would never buy a period home and paint over the wood, but I can’t deny that the modern take on it was appealing.
Michael, if that table on the right wall is a standard 30-31 inches, you’re at eight feet at the top of the paneling.
I love Greene and Greene. And I think it would be easy to live there, even with children. It is staged, but I can imagine a pile of Legos on the floor next to the piano pretty easily. And cat toys all over the place.
Cat toys might be all over the place, but imagine what the cats would do to the furniture!
Honey, if you can buy a $9 mil home, you can replace the furniture. Or live with it, if you prefer.
My cats didn’t scratch furniture, and they had claws. Must be something I inherited from my mother.
I’m pretty sure Michael wants the house at the top of this article.
I do, too. I and my designers would need to redesign the bird cages.
I’m pretty sure Michael wants the house at the top of this article.
I do, too. I and my designers would need to redesign the bird cages.
I like the Stahl house.
Does it leak, like the Wrights?
I think I’d rather tour a Wright house, but live in a G&G, except perhaps Fallingwater, that would rock. But do you have to pee all of the time?
The impetus: trickle, trickle. Probably.
I would humbly suggest you all look at potential properties at Desert Mountain, in Scottsdale, if this excites you. I’m looking at half the price, in my opinion twice the value, and stars, and stars, and stars at night. Look down on the Phoenix lights. The sunsets. The golf…..the SW food…..
My RE taxes would be 25% of Chicago or Naples………..except I’m stuck in the Naples piece.
I know there will be no sympathy for the devil.
You won’t tempt me this time, Guarneri. Do it yourself.
Janis, I might be able to afford to replace it, but I’d still hate spending the money and I’d still feel guilty about ruining the original piece!
But you have $9 mil at least, luv. You might get over it.
Oh hell, Guarneri:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3uTLHEGm-M&feature=kp
You might get over it.
I don’t know. I’d still feel bad about destroying a pretty piece fo furniture. Now if it was an ugly piece…. But that’s very looksist of me, isn’t it?
Well, like that American Sheraton. I sold that. The bed was something less than full, and I like a queen. But I hated letting it go.
Oh, I’d be fine selling anything I didn’t want. As I’ve gotten older I’ve discovered I’m not sentimental, at least not about mere things.