Knocking Out Walls
Some longtime friends and clients of mine in North Portland, as we were in the design phase of putting a second story addition on their house, found a place a couple of blocks away, right on the bluff, and got a great deal on it in the aftermath of the boom. Literally, they would have had to fight off eight flippers had the house gone on the market six months sooner, but the flippers were gone, and they bought it and sold their other house instead of adding on. Sitting on an enormous lot on a broad boulevard with 40′ setbacks and giant street trees, the place felt like a park, and the house was a large 1940′s “colonial” with big rooms, coved ceilings, lots of light, and a view of Forest Park and the harbor, which may be a Superfund site but it’s pretty at night.
Like most houses of that era, though, the kitchen had only a narrow doorway to the dining room, and the kitchen itself was a Partridge Family era masterpiece in brown and gold, with a fluorescent dropped ceiling, Formica, and everything. I had the doorway widened to an arch to match others in the entry, extended the hardwood floors through it, and designed white-painted cabinetry that was probably a bit more traditional than the original 1940′s style, but I thought would age better, especially with granite counters and fancy stainless steel appliances thrown in. 
Unbeknownst to me, the owners went out and picked the coolest granite I’d ever seen, literally slices of a petrified stream bed, and I liked it so much I ended up using it in another house later. It’s nice to have others do one’s shopping for them.
The other problem the house had was that the stairway, though wide and filled with light from above, was enclosed at the bottom by a door and wall, in a dark hallway that was further shut off from the entry by another door; there were so many doors in one spot that when opened they all banged each other, and the place was darker than a tomb. 
Because the stairway wall was load-bearing, we had to put in a large header to open up its last few steps, but the effect was well worth it; now you can see the view from the den in the back of the house, and the hall feels big and gracious. The door into the entry is now another arch, and the stairway even sports a newel and a bit of an open railing to match upstairs.
Wow! That countertop is simply amazing. Is it really all stone? It looks like pebbles encased in acrylic. Whatever it is, it’s a pure pleasure to look at it. I’ve seen free-standing washbasins that were something like it, but never a whole countertop.
I love the square-top arches, too. Very beautiful work, as usual, Hag.
Yes, it’s really stone. That’s the cool part. I’m familiar with that art form of setting rocks in acrylic; we had a coffee table made of that and it fascinated me as a child, so I was naturally drawn to it. But the way it blends blacks, browns, and grays makes it work surprisingly well with a lot of kitchen materials I like: wood, steel, etc., and you just don’t see it too often.
Well, as I said, it’s amazing. I imagine it isn’t cheap, though. The whole kitchen is quite elegant — gem-like almost — but I’m afraid it’d be too small for me. I’m a more ambitious cook than I have any right to be, and a messy one, too. I’d feel a bit claustrophobic working there.
Odd, isn’t it, that after WWII, until Julia arrived on the scene, anyway, most American kitchens were scarcely more than afterthoughts, even in very large houses or apartments. Women freed from drudgery seemed to call for unusable kitchens, and everyone was quite proud of their unassailable modernity.
On the other hand, I’ve seen Chinese restaurants with 20 tables that had kitchens no bigger than this. It has something to do with experience and professional-level skill, I suppose.
At the other end of the scale, my favorite kitchen of all time was in the Ennis-Brown house. It had three rather large rooms — a cooking area, a pantry, and a china/silverware/linen room where the wait staff apparently assembled the dishes prior to bringing them to the dining room. It also had an intercom to all the rooms, two very large refrigerators, two enormous stoves, and a butcher block the size of my dining room table. In 1927, this was what an upper middle class husband and wife required, I guess.
The Depression and the war changed a lot of things for the Ennises, I imagine. No doubt ours will too.
The owners, well, the wife, anyway, is actually a very busy and ambitious cook, and she makes it work quite well. I’ve seen a lot of houses that have gigantic kitchens, and have designed a few, and a lot of them require a lot of extra steps in the work triangle, the cabinets cost a bazillion dollars, and the counters take two slabs to fabricate. (A typical slab of stone is about 5′ x 10′) Naturally, I prefer small if it can be made to work.
I never saw the kitchen in the photos I’ve seen of the Ennis house; must not have been considered important to the Wright chroniclers.
Yes, I would never have suspected such a thing from what I’d seen in books about the house. Although the place is quite grand, with the 12 foot ceilings on the upper floor and all, it isn’t really that large in area — after all, it was designed for just two people.
It did have servants’ quarters, though, above the multi-car garage on the far side of the courtyard. And there was a walkway running over the famous gate — pictured quite clearly in Blade Runner — which connected them directly to the kitchen.
What fascinated me, I guess, was the idea that although there were just the two of them, the provisions for logistics and support would have done a small hotel proud. They must have done a lot of entertaining, and possibly harbored semi-permanent house guests. Very Gatsby, doncha know.
Ah, but they weren’t careless, like Daisy. They paid a lot for everyone else to be comfortable.
Nice work! That looks a lot like my staircase. I wish I owned the house I live in now. What you could do with it. Whew!
I tried to make it look like a typical center hall colonial stairway, given the space allowed.
These are my favorite posts, CH. And, I find, the most difficult to read! My eyes are continually torn between the text and the narrative. It’s unfortunate that I can’t send the left to the text and the right to the photographs… my brain can’t co-process both inputs simultaneously. But, that doesn’t keep me from trying. there’s a book in this if you’re ever inclined to write one. Thanks for the guided tour. It’s amazing work. I’m so impressed!
Well, computer retard that I am, I try to insert the photos nearest their descriptions, but they land where they land, sometimes leaving awkward lines of text between, and sometimes not. It’s too bad I’ve done such a spotty job over the years of photographing my work; a lot great stuff is lost to history and/or new owners.
“Wow!” is right. That is the coolest granite. ( Granite composite? Does it have a name?)Had to enlarge it to believe it. Looks like some pond liner I used to have. ( & I thought it was a hokey product of someone’s imagination :0 )
Nice work (again!). How long before we see the Hag on HGTV, or similar . (Martha? This Old House? etc. ) ( If I may go Hollywood on you….) Sort of Graham Kerr X Norm Abrams , & if the poltics are included , X Gore Vidal[(?)- for the dry snark] . I can sometimes “hear” him reading your words. Maybe you could put your projects on Youtube, to get the ball rolling?
I can’t remember the name, but as I recall it was from Spain. We got it at Oregon Tile and Marble, (OTM, fer short…) I have thought of that…. I was thinking I could have an anti-improvement show called, “No, You Can’t,” (There’s a funny post with that title in archives) that would explain to people why they shouldn’t attempt things just because they watched a video that made it look easy. I have taught people to paint woodwork and finish drywall, which usually convinces them to hire me instead. (PS… I looked up that old post, and it pops up by searching HGTV…)
That granite is called Black Marinace. Or Marinace Black. There’s also a Green Marinace.
Ah, thank you; I’m very poor with names.
Hello there.. I am a newbie to wordpress and I been doing some research to get some ideas. Your wordpress blog definitely has given me some inspiration. Thank you for that!.. and not to mention I’vebookmarked your Cocktailhag, the blog » Blog Archive » Knocking Out Walls .