Tag: Bronx NY

A row of two-story attached houses, built of brick around 1930, lined the western side of the 2500 block of Westervelt Avenue. The row began at the corner of Mace Avenue but stopped six to eight house lots short of the corner of Allerton Avenue.

Although these row houses were not Craftsman homes in the strict sense of the word, certain features suggest that the builders had been influenced by Gustav Stickley and his American Craftsman style. Stickley, a furniture designer and homebuilder, observed the style of the Arts and Crafts movement popular in England during the late 1800s. His design aesthetic was an outgrowth of that movement.

The American Craftsman style enjoyed peak popularity from about the 1890s through the 1920s, setting trends in homebuilding and decorating. With an emphasis on simplicity, Craftsman homes offered a welcome change from the ornate Victorian era of the recent past. Placing great value on quality craftsmanship in both the exterior and interior details of a house, Craftsman builders chose natural building materials, including brick, tile, wood, iron, copper, and bronze. Characteristic details included stained woodwork, plaster walls, built-ins, and handcrafted metalwork.

Craftsman Details in the Westervelt Homes

The front doors were built from hardwood and varied in design. Ours was varnished to a burnt sienna shade, and featured a small, two-over-two, off-centered window. A knocker of forged iron, with strap hinges, mortise lockset, and mail slot crafted from brass, complemented the warmth of the wood they rested against. The interior side of the door was finished in a dark brown varnish that matched the woodwork in the rest of the house. The doorknob on this side was of faceted glass, larger and heavier than the more delicate glass doorknobs on the interior doors.

The foyer with its coat closet could be closed off by the French door that opened to the living room. With a brick surround and wooden mantel, the fireplace on the south wall served as the focal point of the living room. The staircase to the second floor dominated the opposite wall with its square-capped newel post with recessed panels set on a plinth base. Squared-off balusters complemented the newel post. On the living room’s west wall, a double-wide doorway opened to the dining room.

The walls were made of plaster, but in the living room, dining room, stairwell, and upstairs hallway the plaster was heavily textured, reminiscent of an impasto painting, and finished in a golden-amber varnish.

All the windows were the double-hung type, with six divided panes of glass in the upper sash over a single pane below. In the dining room, two side-by-side windows allowed afternoon sunlight to pour in while the living room’s three side-by-side windows flooded the rooms with morning light.

A common woodwork style unified the rooms: The wide trim on doorways and windows, the crown and baseboard moldings, the mantel, and the staircase components were stained with a dark finish in the foyer, living room, dining room, and upstairs hallway. In the kitchen and bedrooms, the woodwork was painted white. The recessed-panel, solid wood doors to the bedrooms and closets—also finished in a dark stain—all had faceted glass doorknobs.

The hardwood floors throughout the house were honey-colored, their pale expanse offset by a thin band of dark wood that ran along the perimeters of the rooms. Quarter-round molding along the baseboards anchored the flooring and made the rooms look complete.

The small kitchen off the dining room featured the latest in linoleum flooring. A wainscot of white subway tiles edged with black bullnose trim ran along the walls. The breakfast nook included two benches built to fit on either side of a table, and built-in shelving and drawers on one wall.

Three bedrooms and a bath comprised the second floor, with the bathroom and master bedroom at the back, or west side, of the house and the other two bedrooms at the front. In the bathroom, the wall treatment matched the kitchen’s with its wainscot of white subway tiles with black bullnose trim. White, one-inch hexagonal tiles, grouted in black, covered the floor. The small window featured a starburst-textured design on its lower sash for privacy. The wide pedestal sink, crafted from porcelain, had chrome faucets with porcelain handles. Above it, a porcelain soap dish and toothbrush holder were tiled into the wall. The cast-iron bathtub spanned the far wall under the window. Its chrome and porcelain fixtures matched those of the sink, but sized for a tub. A porcelain soap dish with washcloth bar was recessed into the tile under the window. A separate shower stall stood just to the right of the doorway.

The smallest bedroom with its unique feature—a cedar-paneled clothes closet—was situated directly opposite the bathroom at the end of the hallway. The master bedroom and another large bedroom flanked the hallway linen closet. In those bedrooms the clothes closets had been built side to side, creating a noise buffer between the two rooms. The closet in the large front bedroom had a unique feature too—a steel ladder to a trapdoor, providing access to the roof.

The steam heating systems in these homes were originally powered by coal, but eventually individual homeowners converted their furnaces to gas or oil. Radiators, a necessary fixture in every room, were typically covered with store-bought or custom-built cabinets.

© Barbara Cole 2020. All Rights Reserved.

References:

Crochet, Treena. 2005. Bungalow Style: Creating Classic Interiors in Your Arts and Crafts Home. Newtown, CT: The Taunton Press, Inc.

McNamara, John. 1991. History in Asphalt: The Origin of Bronx Street and Place Names, 3rd edition. Bronx, NY: The Bronx County Historical Society.