American Craftsman is an American domestic
architectural style, inspired by the
Arts and Crafts movement, which included
interior design
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. With a keen eye for detail and a Creativity, creative flair, an ...
,
landscape design,
applied arts, and
decorative arts, beginning in the last years of the 19th century. Its immediate ancestors in American architecture are the
Shingle style, which began the move away from Victorian ornamentation toward simpler forms, and the
Prairie style of
Frank Lloyd Wright.
"Craftsman" was appropriated from furniture-maker
Gustav Stickley, whose magazine ''The Craftsman'' was first published in 1901. The architectural style was most widely used in small-to-medium-sized Southern California single-family homes from about 1905, so the smaller-scale Craftsman style became known alternatively as "
California bungalow". The style remained popular into the 1930s and has continued with revival and restoration projects.
Influences
The American Craftsman style was a 20th century American offshoot of the British
Arts and Crafts movement,
which began as early as the 1860s.
A successor of other 19th century movements, such as the
Gothic Revival and the
Aesthetic Movement,
the British Arts and Crafts movement was a reaction against the deteriorating quality of goods during the
Industrial Revolution, and the corresponding devaluation of human labor, over-dependence on machines, and disbanding of the
guild system. Members of the Arts and Crafts movement also balked at Victorian eclecticism, which cluttered rooms with mismatched, faux-historic goods to convey a sense of worldliness. The movement emphasized handwork over mass production. In some ways, it was just as much of a social movement as it was an aesthetic one, emphasizing the plight of the industrial worker and equating moral rectitude with the ability to create beautiful but simple things. These social currents can especially be seen in the writings of
John Ruskin and
William Morris, both highly influential thinkers for the movement.
[Anderson, Anne (2004). "Arts and Crafts Movement". In Adams, James Eli (ed.) Encyclopedia of the Victorian Era, vol. 1. Danbury, CT: Grolier Academic Reference.] In addition, adherents sought to elevate the status of art forms that had previously been seen as a mere trade and not fine art.
The American movement also reacted against the eclectic
Victorian "over-decorated" aesthetic; however, the arrival of the Arts and Crafts movement in late 19th century America coincided with the decline of the
Victorian era. American Arts and Crafts were largely based on the nature surrounding their location, they have a rustic nature to them due to materials and their design. While the American Arts and Crafts movement shared many of the same goals as the British movement, such as social reform, a return to traditional simplicity over gaudy historic styles, the use of local natural materials, and the elevation of handicraft, it was also able to innovate: unlike the British movement, which had never been very good at figuring out how to make handcrafted production scalable,
American Arts and Crafts designers were more adept at the business side of design and architecture, and were able to produce wares for a staunchly middle-class market.
Gustav Stickley, in particular, hit a chord in the American populace with his goal of ennobling modest homes for a rapidly expanding American middle class, embodied in the Craftsman
Bungalow
A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...
style. American Craftsman homes still had an ornamental nature to them, the hand crafted woodwork made a statement on their own.
In architecture, reacting to both
Victorian architectural opulence and increasingly common mass-produced housing, the style incorporated a visibly sturdy structure of clean lines and natural materials. The movement's name American Craftsman came from the popular magazine, ''
The Craftsman'', founded in October 1901 by philosopher, designer, furniture maker, and editor
Gustav Stickley. The magazine featured original house and furniture designs by
Harvey Ellis, the
Greene and Greene company, and others. The designs, while influenced by the ideals of the British movement, found inspiration in specifically American antecedents such as
Shaker furniture and the
Mission Revival Style, and the
Anglo-Japanese style. Emphasis on the originality of the artist/craftsman led to the later design concepts of the 1930s
Art Deco movement. The architect and designer Frank Lloyd Wright, himself a member of the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, was inspired by the style to become an innovator in the
Prairie School of architecture and design,
which shared many common goals with the Arts and Crafts movement.
File:Gamble House.jpg, The Gamble House, an iconic American Arts and Crafts design by Greene & Greene in Pasadena, California, built between 1908 and 1909
File:Castle in the Clouds.jpg, Facade of the Castle in the Clouds and lawn overlooking Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, built 1913–1914
File:Edward Schulmerich House 2008.JPG, The Edward Schulmerich House in Hillsboro, Oregon, completed in 1915
File:Abernathy-Shaw House c.1908.jpg, The Abernathy-Shaw House in the Silk Stocking District of Talladega, Alabama, built in 1908
File:F. E. Cottrell apartment building, exterior views, 2019 - DPLA - 34af09e1b7db4691997b09e364a9ea71 (page 3).jpg, F.E. Cottrell Apartment Building in the Old West End District of Toledo, Ohio
Toledo ( ) is a city in Lucas County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the western end of Lake Erie along the Maumee River. Toledo is the List of cities in Ohio, fourth-most populous city in Ohio and List of United Sta ...
, built 1914–1915
File:Esplanade Apartments, 3015 North Pennsylvania Street, 1998 (Indianapolis, Ind.) - DPLA - caf31becf41697292ff300c7b666852a.jpg, Esplanade Apartments, 3015 North Pennsylvania Street, 1998 in Indianapolis
Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...
, Indiana, built in 1912
The Boston Society of Arts and Crafts
The Arts and Crafts Movement emerged in the United States in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
in the 1890s. The area was very receptive to the ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement due to prominent thinkers like the transcendentalist
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...
and Harvard art history professor
Charles Eliot Norton, who was a personal friend of British Art and Crafts leader
William Morris. The movement began with the first American Arts and Crafts Exhibition organized by the printer Henry Lewis Johnson in April 1897 at
Copley Hall,
featuring over 1,000 objects made by designers and craftspeople.
The exhibition's success led to the formation of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts in June 1897 with
Charles Eliot Norton as president.
The society aimed to "develop and encourage higher standards in the handicrafts." The Society focused on the relationship of artists and designers to the world of commerce and high-quality craft.
The Society of Arts and Crafts mandate was soon expanded into a credo that read:
The society held its first exhibition in 1899 at Copley Hall.
Notable Craftsman designers

In Southern California, the Pasadena-based firm
Greene and Greene was the most renowned practitioner of the original American Craftsman Style. Their projects for
Ultimate bungalows include the
Gamble House and
Robert R. Blacker House in Pasadena, and the
Thorsen House in Berkeley, California—with numerous others in California. Other examples in the Los Angeles region include the Arts and Crafts
Lummis House by
Theodore Eisen and
Sumner P. Hunt, along the
Arroyo Seco in Highland Park, California and the Journey House, located in Pasadena. The Gamble House is considered to be the largest Craftsman style house made.
The
Tifal brothers were also notable southern California American Craftsman architects, having designed more than 350 homes in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
and 100 in
Monrovia in the style.
In Northern California, architects renowned for their well-planned and detailed projects in the Craftsman style include
Bernard Maybeck, with the
Swedenborgian Church, and
Julia Morgan, with the
Asilomar Conference Grounds and
Mills College projects. Many other designers and projects represent the style in the region.
In San Diego, California, the style was also popular. Architect
David Owen Dryden designed and built many Craftsman
California bungalows in the
North Park district, now a proposed
Dryden Historic District. The 1905
Marston House of
George Marston in
Balboa Park was designed by local architects
Irving Gill and William Hebbard.
In the early 1900s, developer Herbert J. Hapgood built several Craftsman-style homes, many from
stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and ...
, that comprise the lakeside borough of
Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. Residents were called "Lakers." The homes followed signature styles, including bungalows and chalets. Hapgood eventually went bankrupt.
In
Rose Valley, Pennsylvania, architect
William Lightfoot Price made significant contributions to the Arts & Crafts Movement through his visionary designs and community planning. Inspired by the movement’s ideals of craftsmanship and harmony with nature, Price transformed the former mill town into an artistic enclave, designing homes that blended organic materials, handcrafted details, and a commitment to aesthetic simplicity. His work in Rose Valley, including its thoughtfully designed cottages and communal spaces, embodied the movement’s philosophy of integrating art into everyday life, making it a lasting example of the Arts & Crafts ideal in America.
The
Castle in the Clouds, a mountaintop estate built in the
Ossipee Mountains of New Hampshire in 1913–1914 for
Thomas Gustave Plant by architect
J. Williams Beal, is an example of the American Craftsman style in New England.
Common architectural features
* Low-pitched roof lines, usually a
gabled roof, occasionally a
hip roof
* Deeply
overhanging
eaves
* Exposed rafters or decorative
brackets
A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...
under eaves
* Wide front porch beneath an extension of the main roof or front-facing gable
* Tapered, square columns supporting the porch roof
* 4-over-1 or 6-over-1
double-hung windows
*
Shingle roofs and siding
* Handcrafted stone or woodwork
* Mixed materials throughout structure
"Erehwon Retreat"
Retrieved 24 September 2020
See also
* American Foursquare
* Bungalow
A bungalow is a small house or cottage that is typically single or one and a half storey, if a smaller upper storey exists it is frequently set in the roof and Roof window, windows that come out from the roof, and may be surrounded by wide ve ...
* California bungalow
* Mar del Plata style
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Craftsman Perspective
��Site devoted to Arts and Crafts architecture, featuring over 220 house photos, including Craftsman and Mission styles
''American Bungalow Magazine''
��dedicated to remodeling, restoring, furnishing, and living in different types of Bungalow style homes, including Craftsman.
*
Craftsman Magazine
'—Every issue of Gustav Stickley's magazine digitized on the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections website.
{{Authority control
20th-century architectural styles
American architectural styles
Arts and Crafts architecture in the United States
Arts and Crafts movement
Decorative arts
History of furniture
House styles