West Coast Bungalows of the 1920s

With Photographs and Floor Plans

E. W. Stillwell & Co.

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486145297
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: History of Architecture

It is better to build a small house than to overburden the budget with debt for a larger one,` advised the noted architectural firm of Stillwell & Company. In their guide to economical homes, the Los Angeles-based builders declared, `A beautiful small house is just as expressive of character, aims, and aspirations as the large house. Mere size is a waste of money and human endeavor.`
A reaction to the excesses of the Victorian era, the modest bungalow provided a practical, affordable answer to the huge demands of California's housing market in the 1920s. This handsome reprint of a Stillwell & Company catalog is an ideal resource for 21st-century bungalow buyers and renovators as well as for builders seeking details of authentic materials and techniques. Its 50 examples of the classic California bungalow style include magnificently reproduced photographs, in addition to floor plans, estimated costs, and descriptions of exteriors and interiors.

A PERSONAL TALK ABOUT THE STILLWELL SERVICE

IN CALIFORNIA we have new ways of doing things that seem to interest people everywhere. Los Angeles is literally the melting-pot of the Nation, people coming here from every State—and from every corner of the earth. Thousands come annually for the sole purpose of making homes.

We have a fortunate combination of circumstances. The money-means is at hand—every kind of building material—a high class of permanent residents—a constant influx of newcomers who appreciate the best—with artists, architects, designers and homebuilders in the greatest rivalry for the favor of the public.

California homes cover an amazing range of style and cost. Home-planning and home-building are fine arts. It is well within the truth to say that in this respect this city is fully twenty-five years ahead of any other. Southern California Homes are models for all the world.

You can put the spirit and style of California in your home, no matter where you build; you will always be glad of it. But for best results and economy in building, you must be careful to get plans from specialists in house planning. The average builder is wholly unqualified to build a 100 per cent successful home from a picture and floor plan only. There are few planning agencies competent and experienced enough to render satisfactory service by correspondence.

We have tried to make our plan books truly representative of the latest developments in California homebuilding—to show the greatest possible variety and range of styles. To do this we have combed the country for the very best designs and have increased the variety of our offerings by including some of these with our own. For those designs not originated by us we have made new and, we believe, better interior floor plans. Exteriors have been carefully kept in complete conformity with the illustrations. Our plans enable any builder anywhere faithfully and economically to reproduce any house without supervision.

The room arrangement and the character of construction of most California houses would make them quite unsuited for other climatic conditions. Also the original plans and specifications from which they are built cannot often be used with any satisfaction elsewhere. But the style—the architecture, like clothes fashions—can be adapted to varying conditions.

I believe that we know the real needs of the home-builder in almost every locality. I was a resident of South Dakota for twenty-five years, and know what extremes of heat and cold are, wind, sun, snow and rain. Nearly every person employed here has had similar experience. We know the necessities of your climate, and that the plans we offer are adaptable to your needs no matter where you live.

Our work is so arranged that I can give personal direction to most of the inquiries which come in. When you deal with us, I want you to feel that you are dealing with some one who will treat your problems as an individual responsibility. Our success is based on this foundation of real service.

The idea of publishing these California designs with improved working plans so that people everywhere may have better and more attractive homes, has always appealed to the writer and his associates so strongly that it has been made a life work. The books have been compiled right here in our own office and I do not think any statement is exaggerated. They are not the exuberant claims of paid advertising agents, written merely to get your money, but rather to help you secure the most value for your investment when you build.

This business was begun in 1906 and taken over under the present name in 1907. Thousands of houses have been built from our plans since that time, most of which were secured through our correspondence system. We have studied the building question from the standpoint of the needs of our clients not only in every part of the United States, but in foreign countries as well.

Note that all published Stillwell plans are guaranteed to be satisfactory, as represented. We are willing to send plans on approval (according to any of the several offers on page 57) so that you can inspect them, compare them with any others, or have them figured by your contractor.

Why not take advantage of this proposition?

Age of the Bungalow

ETHEL BROOKS STILL WELL (With Apologies to Kipling)

When Earth’s last House has been banished,
And the era of Homes has come in,
When the last of the building is finished,
And the hammers have ceased their din,
We shall rest—and, faith, we shall need it—
Content for a century through,
Till the Master of all good builders
Shall set us to work anew.

Then they that have homes shall be happy,
They shall sit in their bungalows
From the fiercest heat of the tropics
To the deepest of arctic snows.
They shall know real comfort in living
And freedom from Custom’s thrall,
And the work of the homes shall be lightened;
It shall hardly be work at all.

There shall be no towers to vex us,
No meaningless gauds, and vain,
But all shall be fine and simple
And the beauty of use be plain.
Then art shall be more than jig-work,
And harmony more than show,
And the worth of a thing its measure
In the Age of the Bungalow.

Get your working plans well in advance of the time of building

No. W-95

The desire to keep up appearances often causes people to postpone building a home. Some build fine large homes but put too great a strain on their financial resources. Others build large enough houses, but secure mere size at the sacrifice of the more desirable qualities of conveniences and artistic appearance and desirability.

If a five-room house satisfies present requirements, and one has to conform to the inevitable cost limitation, then this is the kind of a home to build. BUILD NOW is good advice. It means to build while the need exists. Most people wait too long to build—defer the thing which the wife and kiddies need most—until the necessity for it has largely passed.

Desirableness—comfort—conveniences—are not matters of size nor always of cost, rather of correct planning. When circumstances change, this home will be salable, usually at a profit.

The plans provide for a half size basement. Walls are siding, the roof shingled and the general construction suitable for reproduction in any climate.

No. W-96

The ex...