Saturday, January 15, 2005

Gamble House Tour

Today, with Jeff and Erika, Cindi and I toured the historic Gamble House in Pasadena with all of its grandeur and arts and crafts style.

2 comments:

  1. I've heard a lot about the house. What was the most interesting and/or beautiful thing about it when you visited?

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  2. One thing that I found very interesting is the gutter and water drainage system which was integrated into the eaves. There are drains located under the eaves where the water drained into pipes that go down the side of the house. This was like an invisible gutter for drainage. Why is this interesting? Because we have a similar situation in our house and need to do some repair. The temptation is to cut off the internal gutters and hang modern metal or plastic gutters off the edge of the eaves. It seems that this would be cheaper and workmen want to do it that way. But it will change the character of the house.

    I also really found the way space was used in the house. Examples--smaller bedrooms for the children had "sleeping balconies" for--guess what--sleeping. The Gambles had boys and they needed to toughen up into strong men by sleeping outside.

    The front door is stunning with stained glass with the image of a tree. The docent explained that it was an oak tree. One of the people on out tour asked why, if it was an oak tree does it have ginko leaves? The answer is that the archetect/designer says it is. And, there was a similar tree outside the archects window's office that looked just like this tree. He just liked the look of ginko leaves.

    All of the furniture was designed for the space in which it was placed by the architect and custome built. Nothing was just bought at a furniture store because the owners liked it.

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