By Edward R. Bosley; originally published in American Bungalow
Little did David
and Mary Gamble suspect when they commissioned Charles and Henry
Greene in 1907 to design a winter home for them in Pasadena, Calif.,
that nearly a century later the 8,200-square-foot home would represent
a high-art paradigm within the American Arts and Crafts movement.
This masterwork of Greene and Greene, along with its architect-designed
furniture and fixtures, has been widely acknowledged as an icon
of the turn-of-the-last-century style — a work of passionate dedication
that demonstrated how far it was possible to go with William Morris'
edict to blend the useful with the beautiful. The burnished interiors
of teak and mahogany, jewel-like leaded art-glass windows and obsessive
details of craftsmanship and artistic grace have brought wonder
and awe to hundreds of thousands of visitors since The Gamble House
opened to the public in 1966.
While
few clients could afford the particular luxe of the Greenes' best
work, their houses have nonetheless inspired countless architects,
builders and homeowners in the decades since, primarily through
a scrupulously elegant blend of material craft and design-based
art that is now recognized as the brothers' signature product.
Indeed, the Greenes and The Gamble House seem to enjoy shrine-like
status today, not only among serious students but for less scholarly
lovers of historic beauty, as attested to by the 30,000 annual visitors
to Four Westmoreland Place.
The architectural
pilgrims come from far and wide, and do so with apparent joy — even disbelief — that such compelling beauty can exist in today's
rushing world. Now, following seven years of planning, preparation,
fund raising and painstaking preservation treatments, The Gamble
House exterior reflects the Greenes' original vision again, and
is poised to celebrate its upcoming centennial in a condition worthy
of its international importance.
A Public
Gesture
The Gamble House opened for tours in the fall of 1966, thanks mainly
to the philanthropic impulse of the heirs of Cecil and Louise Gamble,
who stipulated that the house — by then already recognized as an
important local landmark — would be held in trust by the City of
Pasadena and preserved and cared for by the University of Southern
California School of Architecture. USC agreed to operate the tours
and develop educational programs at the house, while the city accepted
responsibility for maintenance of the grounds and utilities. The
Gamble family was also to remain involved in perpetuity in an advisory
capacity. The legal gift instrument, signed in 1966, has proven
to be a vital preservation tool to ensure the well being of The
Gamble House. It lies, too, at the heart of the institutional mission,
which is to preserve the house and educate the public about the
vital role of historic architecture in understanding the richness
of the past and the potential for the future.
Preservation
Leadership, Expertise
Continuing a
legacy of support for historic preservation, the Gamble family was
instrumental in launching the recently concluded exterior conservation
project. The late James N. Gamble, a grandson of the original clients,
served as chairman of The Gamble House Board of Overseers from 1966
until his death early in 2004. Mr. Gamble, who liked to be called
Jim, was a staunch advocate of family involvement in the preservation
of the house, but he reserved particular appreciation for the thousands
of dedicated volunteer docents who have been trained over the years
to interpret the house to the public. It was the human connection
that the house routinely inspires that Jim strongly felt should
be preserved.
In
1998, he established the James N. Gamble Preservation Fund, generously
encouraging others to embrace the challenge of preserving the house
as an example for other historic sites. This proved to be a winning
idea. That same year, The Gamble House received $59,000 from the
Getty Grant Program, a unit of the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles,
for the purpose of producing a Historic Structure Report (HSR).
This comprehensive and voluminous document fills two large binders
and a CD. It details the maintenance history of the house and recommends
treatments to mitigate wear and weathering in the future, given
its heavy public use. Historic Resources Group, based in Hollywood,
Calif., played a major role in creating the report, which has been
an indispensable component of managing conservation activity at
the site.
One of the more interesting characteristics of the HSR was the interactive
CD-ROM database that accompanied it. The disk was designed as an
internal tool to allow staff to check the existing conditions and
recommended treatments for nearly any element in the house. Digital
images of these elements, hundreds of them, each contain a wealth
of information relevant to the cause of preservation. If a light
fixture becomes damaged or malfunctions, for example, a base-line
photograph with the fixture's specific maintenance history can be
brought up immediately on a computer screen to guide a conservation
effort.
With the HSR completed in 2000, the next step was to determine which
of the thousands
of recommendations could reasonably be accommodated with available resources. We began with the most urgent emergency work,
including treatment of active fungus and termites in beams and rafters.
A hazard mitigation grant from FEMA funded a seismic retrofit of
the foundation, which was vulnerable to earthquake damage. While
this took place, the development office of the USC School of Architecture
launched a feasibility study to determine how ambitious a fund raising
campaign we could expect to undertake successfully. There was a
lot of expensive work to do and we needed to know if there was a
good chance of raising the money to do it in a reasonable amount
of time.
By the time
the campaign for the restoration of the Gamble House was publicly
launched, we already had more than $1 million of the estimated $3.5
million needed to proceed. As the funds accumulated, we became increasingly
ready to proceed with the work itself.
Work
Underway: Scaffolding Hides House
In October 2003 an office trailer for Voss Industries, Inc.,
our excellent contracting team, arrived and workers erected
security fencing and scaffolding around the historic house.
For the next 11 months, under the watchful eyes of USC's Capital
Construction Development team, preservation consultant Peyton
Hall (Historic Resources Group), project architect Kelly Sutherlin
McLeod (Kelly Sutherlin McLeod Architecture) and conservator
John Griswold (Griswold Conservation Associates), the 96-year-old
wooden structure was carefully inspected and treated, square
inch by square inch, removing rot from rafters; fungus from
beam ends; deteriorated varnishes from windows, screens and
porch railings; and failing paint from fragile redwood shakes.
The rafters
and beams were a particularly touchy problem. In 1985, timber-construction
specialists had applied an inert epoxy compound to the deteriorated
ends of the rafters and beams. While this effectively masked
the rotted condition of the wood, it also created a moisture
trap behind the epoxy, so that during the rainy seasons a
perfect environment for rot was created behind the old epoxy
when the wood expanded and the filler did not.
A lot
of the exterior work performed by California Restoration and
Waterproofing involved removing old epoxy and excavating rotted
wood, leaving the remaining sound wood to which replacement
epoxy — a new "breathable" variety — could be
applied. This epoxy surface was then sculpted to match the
original profile of the rafter or beam, and the artisan subcontractors
working on the project even extended the natural splits and
checking into the epoxy surface to create channels along which
rainwater could escape. Finally, two coats of clear preservative
were applied to the finished rafter or beam, and a third tinted
coat was applied to visually integrate the adjacent surfaces.
The roofing
membrane, which was last replaced in 1987, had long since
failed, resulting in chronic leaks in several areas of the
house including the dining room and the second floor hallway.
Restoration project architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod (who
had lived in The Gamble House as a Scholar-in-Residence in
the early 1980s) spent countless hours producing detailed
drawings to guide the correct installation of the replacement
roof. The new roof would need to perform to today's standards
but also appear very much like the original Malthoid sheet
roofing of 1908. We chose a cold-application sheet that had
the substantial advantage over the more popular "torch
down" method of not requiring an open flame for installation.
The disadvantage
was a tendency of cold application roofing to wrap unevenly
around the integral gutters, a particularly prominent feature
of the Greenes' houses of the period. The roofing contractor
worked hard to perfect the installation, however, reinstalling
portions of the roof more than once until the project team
was satisfied.
New lead
flashing that matched the original replaced the deteriorated
96-year-old material. Our flashing subcontractor even managed
to re-create the original nailing pattern! The new roof has
now been through several heavy rains and is performing beautifully,
with none of the leaks the house had habitually suffered.
The finishing
touch of the exterior project involved the restoration of
the window screens. Badly weathered and with varnishes blackened
from years of neglect, each of the 150 screens required 20
hours of rehabilitation. Some frames had to be completely
rebuilt and new bronze wire mesh was installed to match the
original. Earlier in the project we discovered 13 screens
in the basement that had never been installed on the house.
The Gambles had apparently decided that certain windows should
be left unscreened even though the screens had been made.
As a result, these specimens were in near mint condition with
their original finish intact and pristine original bronze
wire mesh. The restored screens draw admiring remarks today,
mainly due to the rich, golden glow of the new bronze mesh.
After seven years of planning and work, I might have been
justified in seeming annoyed when my eight-year-old daughter,
Julia, commented, "But Papa, it doesn't look like you
did anything to it." After a moment's reflection, though, I
recognized the compliment. If we had wanted to maintain a
light touch on the project, above all doing no harm, and if
we had wanted to allow the rich history of the exterior to
continue to be revealed in all of its nicks and scratches,
then indeed this was praise to be savored. The real proof
of course, will be to see how well it has stood up to the
elements 96 years from now.
Edward R. Bosley is director of The Gamble House and the
author of numerous books, including Greene
& Greene.
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