Everett Archives: On Craftsman Homes
Written by: Richard Porter
My first emotional experience with a craftsman home was in Everett. I didn’t know the term “craftsman” at the time, nor could I have identified the architectural components that make up a craftsman home. My response was visceral -- a bodily reaction to the durability and timelessness of quality, well-built structures. I was in love.
I moved to the city during the height of the Great Recession. Sometimes I encountered rows of craftsman homes that were for sale on the market at prices that would seem laughably small today, just a decade hence.
When my wife and I bought our own craftsman home -- well, that was an emotional experience of a different order. We inherited the bones of a good edifice, only it needed some help to shine. We peeled back the tacky laminate to expose floorboards of douglas fir, no doubt cut and milled locally. We found all the goodies: custom woodwork, built-in cabinetry with leaded window panes, cedar siding under a century’s accumulation of layered exterior paint.
A diagram showing typical PNW craftsman exterior features // Courtesy of Historic Spokane
This was my hands-on education in the ways of the craftsman home. I began to study the housing style in earnest. I was drawn in by the simplicity and inherent honesty of the structures. I loved how the American Arts and Crafts movement was a sociological revolution, a reaction to the over-industrialized Victorian ideal of frills and gilded excess. (To be sure, there are quite a few handsome Victorian-era homes in the oldest sections of Everett. The Arts and Crafts movement began to take shape on the West Coast in the late 1890s; Everett was settled in the preceding decades.)
If you’re also into this kind of thing, be warned: the rabbit hole of craftsman home renovation is deep and wide. A homeowner can lose herself in the digital realms by Google searching period-appropriate color palates. You can mail-order find periodicals dedicated to debating the merits of various molding styles, plate rails, stain-grade wood, butterfly hinges, and Queen Anne sashes with rope and pulley systems. And on and on.
The literature of craftsman home repair is deep and wide // Courtesy of thriftbooks.com
Home renovation is a bottomless pit of ever-branching avenues. Beware, and proceed with joy!
Many large craftsman-style homes in the historic neighborhoods of Everett have long ago been divided up into individual dwelling units by landlords and owners of boarding houses. These housing sections (typically containing a kitchenette and single bath) have been a budget-friendly housing option for lower-income families or demographics that live communally (i.e. punk rock houses or college students living as roommates). This cost-splitting affordable housing is a boon for our city in a region where the housing market is swollen with demand and has little supply to back it up.
Craftsman houses in the Port Gardner Historical District // Courtesy of the EPLS Northwest History Room
Perhaps craftsman homes will continue to offer affordable housing options for artists and other lower-income culture-makers who want to move to Everett and contribute to the creative community here.
I hope we will always have craftsman homes with us in Everett, that they will flourish amid the unavoidable condos. Certainly, these sturdy houses will stand the test of time and hold up to inclement PNW weather. Let’s do our best to preserve them.
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