Home and Hearath Craftsman-style homes occupy niche in Maine architecture

A walk around a town like Belfast is like flipping back through pages of a book on Maine’s architectural past.

Scattered about the downtown are home styles most of us recognize: the classic if plain Federal; the slightly pretentious Greek Revival, with its columns and wide wood siding trying to imitate stone; the fanciful Victorian; and the sumptuous visual feast that is Queen Anne.

But often overlooked – though examples can be found in Belfast and most Maine towns – is a distinct house design that flourished ever so briefly. Beginning at the turn of the 20th century – after the eclecticism of the post-Civil War home-building period and before the mass production of the post-World War II era – Arts and Crafts and Craftsman houses were built by a population eager to embrace the security and warmth of hearth and home.

Drive around the outskirts of a Maine town (downtown housing lots were built on during earlier architectural periods) and you’ll see them: wide, open and deep porches supported by stone or wood-shingled columns; low-slung rooflines; wide overhanging eaves, with the rafter “tails” exposed; and boxed wood gutters incorporated into the design.

Inside, a large fireplace in the living room and possibly a hearth in the kitchen serve as centerpieces; a half wall might divide the front room from the kitchen; the kitchen and possibly the dining room feature built-in cabinetry; and dark, wood paneling – and an emphasis on unpainted wood throughout – creates a cozy feel.

Most of the houses had a single, main floor, with bedrooms upstairs, constrained by knee walls, featuring small dormers for windows.

Sometimes dismissed as bungalows – the term actually was coined by the early Arts and Crafts designers – as if they were cheap or seasonal houses, Craftsman homes charm the eye and, arguably, provided a template for “livability” that continues to work today.

The Arts and Crafts Movement began in England in the 1880s, influencing poetry, painting, crafts and architecture, as a reaction against what its practitioners saw as the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution. Function was emphasized over form, craftsmanship over mass production, simplicity over artifice.

The architectural expression of the Arts and Crafts Movement made its mark in the United States from 1905 to 1929. Marketed to the growing middle class, the style rejected the formality of the Victorian and instead created an open floor plan that encouraged comfortable family life.

In New England, the Arts and Crafts style was interpreted differently than elsewhere because of the severity of the weather; it influenced the shingle style, which was the choice of many of the rusticators who built on Mount Desert Island and other coastal enclaves. This was consistent with the movement, which encouraged the use of local materials.

Architect Gustav Stickley (1858-1942) refined the Arts and Crafts home in his magazine The Craftsman, publishing more than 200 plans in the first decades of the century. The homes also were sold as kits; a magazine advertisement from the period offered materials and plans for $700.

Purists refer to homes built from Stickley plans as Craftsman houses, but the term is used generally to describe homes with the elements Stickley and his disciples used.

According to material prepared by The Craftsman Farms Foundation, Stickley “offered the average American family a house that was a home, based on the bedrock virtues of beauty, simplicity, utility and organic harmony. Stickley believed that the ‘nesting instinct’ was ‘the most deep-seated impulse’ of humankind.”

In the magazine, Stickley wrote:

“The word that is best-loved in the language of every nation is home, for when a man’s home is born out of his heart and developed through his labor and perfected through his sense of beauty, it is the very cornerstone of his life.”

The Craftsman-style home on Condon Street in Belfast spoke to Lois Curran when she first saw it seven years ago. She was living in New York at the time, but planning a move back to her native New England. She toured Mount Desert Island, Blue Hill and Belfast, and remembers seeing the house then.

Two years later, she found the Condon Street house was still on the market, and bought it.

“It was such a sweet house,” Curran recalled, which elicited in her a feeling like, “Oh, let me love you.”

And the house needed some love, she said. The previous owner had enclosed the porch and created a sunken floor to accommodate a hot tub, among other modifications.

Curran and her husband, Frank Bellino, were not devotees of Craftsman homes and were not sticklers about restoring it with an eye to historical accuracy. They re-created the open porch, but removed the hearth in the kitchen and the half wall and archway in the living room to allow more light to shine into rooms away from the porch.

“It changes all day long,” Curran said of the light. “When the sun comes up in the morning, this room just glows,” she said of the south-facing living room.

Using parts of cabinets from different rooms in the house, Bellino built period-looking cabinets in the kitchen, and Curran had a gray slate counter installed. Four-panel doors and glass doorknobs remain, as do the oak and yellow pine floors.

Curran’s research at the Belfast Registry of Deeds suggests that the house was built 1913-1914 by Allen Curtis, possibly for a Goldie Carter. In 1921, it was purchased by Charles Marsano, then sold to John Marsano in 1926. It left Marsano ownership – a prominent Belfast family – in 1973.

“The home has a good feel about it,” Curran said during a tour, words that probably would have cheered Stickley.

Sadly, many of the features of Craftsman homes made them vulnerable to modern renovations. The dark wood paneling, half walls and arches were removed to create brighter, better-defined living spaces. Wood gutters rotted and were replaced.

But their influence continues. Flip through an architectural or home magazine and you’ll find elements of the style in finer homes that accent warmth and easy living. And the houses, now 80 or more years old, remain standing, a testament to their quality, while many 40-year-old Levittown-type homes are in sorry shape.

For more information about Craftsman homes, see www.arts-crafts.com, and www.ragtime.org/arch/.