Greene & Greene Furniture by David Mathias

Author:David Mathias
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: epub, ebook
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2010-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

Perhaps the broadest overhang on any Greene & Greene house, this gable with brackets and beams is stunning. View of southwest corner, Robert Pitcairn, Jr. house, Pasadena, 1906.

Farther north, where the sun is less intense, broad eaves are less welcome. In particular, in the San Francisco Bay region, where temperatures are lower and fog performs the task of reducing sunshine, eaves are typically far less wide. Adapting to this climate for the William Thorsen house, Greene & Greene employed narrower eaves for the first time in more than six years. They did not adopt that region’s practice of indenting the eaves above windows. The iconic rafter tails still make their appearance and still cast “beautiful shadows” as Charles Greene explained to Mrs. Garfield years earlier.

The eaves employed by Greene & Greene were not, of course, purely functional. If protection from the sun was the only goal, awnings could be bolted on above the windows, particularly on the western and southern elevations. No, the eaves serve a decorative purpose also. Their width adds a horizontal aspect to some designs, such as the chalet houses, and enhances that dimension on others, such as the Gamble and Blacker houses. The former with a strong horizontal presence due to the sleeping porches that dominate the north side of the house, the latter due also to the porte cochere that is a signature feature of that house.

While Greene & Greene surely incorporated broad eaves into their houses in response to the climate, it is interesting to note that two of the styles that influenced them also included this feature but for different reasons. Swiss chalets typically have widely overhanging eaves so that snow falling from the roof does not accumulate too close to the house where it could block doors and windows. Broad eaves are present in much Japanese architecture as well, where one purpose is to protect delicate paper walls from rain and snow.

Sidney Gamble, the second son of David and Mary Gamble, was a teenager when his parents built the Gamble house. While the house was under construction, Mr. and Mrs. Gamble took Sidney and younger brother Clarence on a trip to the Orient. Sidney was smitten with what he saw. After graduating from Princeton, he undertook graduate study in sociology and economics and entered the relatively new field of social economics. His interest in Asia, China in particular, led him to make several professional visits to that part of the world. An avid photographer, he studiously chronicled his travels. His photos, which appeared in National Geographic as well as a number of books, were largely forgotten until rediscovered by his daughters after his death.18 In a truly wonderful quirk of fate, among the photographs19 are several from Japan including at least one that perfectly illustrates the Japanese precursor to the Greene & Greene use of broad eaves, such as those found on the house that still bears his family’s name.

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