These are the kinds of dumps that I used to build casework for. In
fact I did work for two of the architects mentioned in this piece. It
was fun work but there were major egos involved on the customer and
design team level.

Another fella that did this sorta work said that his motto was,
"Creating The Unnecessary For The Ungrateful".


http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/10598822.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted on Sun, Jan. 09, 2005



Modern take on epic houses
The classic Main Line mansion is back. Technology and taste have
grandeur on the rise again.
By Matthew P. Blanchard
Inquirer Staff Writer

They say the era of great Main Line mansions is gone forever, with
once-great estates chopped up for stucco and vinyl McMansions.

But rising right now in Gladwyne is a French palais with big
ambitions, a 30,000-square-foot home of cut limestone and patterned
brickwork, with carved oak interiors.

Elsewhere, ancient-looking Georgians and English country manors carry
shocking numbers on their date stones: not 1904, but 2004.

These are real mansions, sturdy and opulent, without a trace of the
"Mc" about them. Common wisdom suggests that such Gilded Age
craftsmanship is no longer possible, but architects in the field say
new technologies, new wealth, and a shift in architectural tastes have
thrown history an unexpected twist: The classic Main Line mansion is
making a comeback.

"People see the old Main Line estates and say, 'Oh, what a shame you
can't do that anymore,' " says Fred Bissinger, the architect behind
the Gladwyne chateau. "Well, not only can you do it, but there are
plenty of people willing to pay for it... . Slate roofs, cut limestone
trim - I'm doing things that, when I was in college, I thought would
never happen again."

The phenomenon is national, with a widespread interest in traditional
design spawning reproduction bungalows in California and "new old"
plantation homes in the South. Transplant that aesthetic to the Main
Line, and you get what looks like the second coming of the robber
barons:

A stout three-story brick Georgian rises near the Philadelphia Golf
Club, outwardly identical to homes of 18th-century Britain, with
enough plasterwork and Corinthian pilasters to please Prince Charles,
who is known for his disdain of modern architecture.

A French farm manor in Radnor looks like a vision of Normandy from 100
years ago, with its sandstone tower and red clay roof. In fact, it is
younger than the local Starbucks.

And when construction is complete on Bissinger's Gladwyne chateau in
2006, it will be larger than 20 average-size Philadelphia rowhouses.
Visitors to the seven-bedroom, 16-bathroom house on Merion Square Road
will first cross a moat, then a cobblestone courtyard, to enter a
domed entry hall, built to accommodate gala charity events with
seating for 250.

All the modern megahouse features are he a bowling alley; indoor
and outdoor swimming pools; an in-home barbershop, and space for an
estate manager, a nanny, three or four housekeepers and a cook.

What's truly different are the details. British craftsmen are carving
ornate oak columns for the grand escalier, as well as sculptural
lions, shields, dragons and scrollwork. Modern intrusions such as
thermostats and light switches are artfully hidden to preserve the
18th-century look.

Bissinger would not divulge the cost, but top-notch construction can
be $350 to $500 a square foot, which would put this house above the
$10 million mark.

The owner is the son of a Delaware County machinist who rose through
corporate law to own several companies. Although the house is sure to
make a splash, he asked to remain anonymous - as did other mansion
dwellers, who offered access to their homes only on the condition that
they not be identified.

Less shy was Thomas Bentley, president of Bentley Homes, a West
Chester-based developer of high-end homes. Finished in 2001, Bentley's
stone and slate manse rises like a fortress on a hillside south of
Wayne, conjuring visions of fox hunts, or perhaps the Princeton quad.

"It just felt right. I grew up in Philadelphia, and we wanted that
Chestnut Hill look," Bentley said. "This trend has been building for
15 years, but it has now reached epic proportions."

Such homes represent the highest end of an architectural movement
called Traditional Building. Adherents believe that classic
architectural modes such as Tudor, Gothic and Georgian are more than
just nostalgic styles to be applied to buildings like icing on a cake.
They seek to revive traditional detail, materials and proportioning as
a total design strategy, from roofline to guest bath.

From the 1940s to the mid-'80s, traditional architecture was stifled
from two directions: The predominantly modernist architectural
establishment scorned traditional work as backward and antidemocratic,
while rising labor costs made it prohibitively expensive.

Gradually, taste has shifted back, and the economy has followed. Where
traditionalists once lamented that the old craftsmen were dying out,
new magazines such as Period Homes now boast a database of 18,000
suppliers for such items as hand-hammered iron balusters, pre-aged
English ceramic tile, and marble work carved with the aid of
computers.

"For the first time in 100 years, we have architecture as good as the
great Beaux Arts homes of the turn of the century," said architect
Steve Mouzon, a Florida architect and leader of the traditionalist New
Urban Guild.

Making these homes look old is often a goal, and age can be fudged:
Ironwork is dipped in acid to add patina; wood floors are beaten with
chains; and if the marble fireplace looks too new, it can be weathered
with a special drill bit to mimic the scrape of an iron poker over 100
years.

Russell Versaci, author of the recent book Creating a New Old House,
adds age to stonework with a mixture of buttermilk, mold spores, beer
and cow manure. His clients are Hollywood stars, CEOs and other social
leaders.

"They're not at all interested in a high-tech house. Technology is
hidden, and the house feels like an heirloom. It gives them a
pedigree," Versaci said. "It's exactly the same phenomenon as the
early 20th-century industrialists."

The Main Line is fertile soil for such work, well-watered with income,
sophistication and ego. The area supports at least three respected
traditional architects: Bissinger, Peter Zimmerman and John Milner.
From the first twinklings of interest in the mid-'80s, they now see
one to seven truly baronial homes being built on the Main Line each
year.

Among Zimmerman's recent work is an 11,000-square-foot English manor
house off Youngsford Road in Gladwyne, custom-designed down to the
screws, where a secret door in the library opens up to a dim stairwell
to the wine cellar.

Milner is a stickler for historic accuracy, and recently built an
entirely new home to look like an 18th-century farm complex, with
wings, barns and outbuildings added over the course of century. "We're
very fortunate to have clients who want that kind of quality," he
said.

Bissinger has a dozen new Main Line mansions to his credit. He will
never catch up in numbers with the builders of McMansions (5,000- to
6,000-square-foot homes named for their imposing sizes and
assembly-line designs), but believes he is rebuilding some of the Main
Line's lost grandeur.

At times, this rebuilding is quite literal: In 2000, Bissinger was
designing a 12,000-square-foot Georgian in Wayne when he discovered
that he was working on the site of Weltvreten, the 1905 Schmidt's beer
family estate. Built in a striking German medieval style of timber and
stucco, it was demolished in the 1960s.

The new house, called Honeystone, incorporates stonework from
Weltvreten found in the soil. Its formal main house of Canadian blue
granite rambles left to a vast kitchen wing and right to the library
wing, pool and pool house. Inside, light filters though Venetian
stained glass onto the mahogany railing of the swooping main stair.

Missing here are the tapestries and tiger-skin rugs that made
Weltvreten an exotic castle; modern decor is comparatively spare.

Also missing at this estate home is the estate itself. Mansions of the
1900s might command 100 or 700 acres, often with flocks of fluffy
white sheep to create that English country air.

Honeystone and every other new Main Line mansion must live in the
modern world. Tucked into a suburban neighborhood north of Wayne, this
imposing home commands exactly 2.7 acres of land, and sheep are
entirely absent.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact staff writer Matt Blanchard at 610-313-8120 or
.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.philly.com




tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1 (webpage)

In article ,
Tom Watson wrote:

Another fella that did this sorta work said that his motto was,
"Creating The Unnecessary For The Ungrateful".

Yet another fella, a friend of mine, refers to this style a
"Monuments To Themselves."

r

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 12:02:37 -0500, Robatoy
wrote:

In article ,
Tom Watson wrote:

Another fella that did this sorta work said that his motto was,
"Creating The Unnecessary For The Ungrateful".

Yet another fella, a friend of mine, refers to this style a
"Monuments To Themselves."

r


AKA "An Edifice Complex".


tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1 (webpage)

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...









These are the kinds of dumps that I used to build casework for. In
fact I did work for two of the architects mentioned in this piece. It
was fun work but there were major egos involved on the customer and
design team level.

Another fella that did this sorta work said that his motto was,
"Creating The Unnecessary For The Ungrateful".

All of those bucks and not one mention of a workshop. Secret staircases to
a wine cellar? Nonsense. Much better to have the staircase go to the
workshop, and perhaps install beer taps.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.

Hi Tom,

These are the types of projects that one often sees
on newer TOH or some HGTV remodels. Usually a young
couple with too much $$$ or a recently wed May-Dec
thing (with big $$$). I think the "Dream House" show
on HGTV (lately) is over the top (i.e "Brandon's Dream House").

The sad part is that there is usually no connection
between the people and the house. I feel differently
if they are restoring a once great looking place in
a(n) historic area or something like that.

Still, they are paying salaries and keeping the
economy going, so there is something to be said for
that (I guess).

Lou



In article , Tom Watson
wrote:









These are the kinds of dumps that I used to build casework for. In
fact I did work for two of the architects mentioned in this piece. It
was fun work but there were major egos involved on the customer and
design team level.

Another fella that did this sorta work said that his motto was,
"Creating The Unnecessary For The Ungrateful".


http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/10598822.htm

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-

Posted on Sun, Jan. 09, 2005



Modern take on epic houses
The classic Main Line mansion is back. Technology and taste have
grandeur on the rise again.
By Matthew P. Blanchard
Inquirer Staff Writer

They say the era of great Main Line mansions is gone forever, with
once-great estates chopped up for stucco and vinyl McMansions.

But rising right now in Gladwyne is a French palais with big
ambitions, a 30,000-square-foot home of cut limestone and patterned
brickwork, with carved oak interiors.

Elsewhere, ancient-looking Georgians and English country manors carry
shocking numbers on their date stones: not 1904, but 2004.

These are real mansions, sturdy and opulent, without a trace of the
"Mc" about them. Common wisdom suggests that such Gilded Age
craftsmanship is no longer possible, but architects in the field say
new technologies, new wealth, and a shift in architectural tastes have
thrown history an unexpected twist: The classic Main Line mansion is
making a comeback.

"People see the old Main Line estates and say, 'Oh, what a shame you
can't do that anymore,' " says Fred Bissinger, the architect behind
the Gladwyne chateau. "Well, not only can you do it, but there are
plenty of people willing to pay for it... . Slate roofs, cut limestone
trim - I'm doing things that, when I was in college, I thought would
never happen again."

The phenomenon is national, with a widespread interest in traditional
design spawning reproduction bungalows in California and "new old"
plantation homes in the South. Transplant that aesthetic to the Main
Line, and you get what looks like the second coming of the robber
barons:

A stout three-story brick Georgian rises near the Philadelphia Golf
Club, outwardly identical to homes of 18th-century Britain, with
enough plasterwork and Corinthian pilasters to please Prince Charles,
who is known for his disdain of modern architecture.

A French farm manor in Radnor looks like a vision of Normandy from 100
years ago, with its sandstone tower and red clay roof. In fact, it is
younger than the local Starbucks.

And when construction is complete on Bissinger's Gladwyne chateau in
2006, it will be larger than 20 average-size Philadelphia rowhouses.
Visitors to the seven-bedroom, 16-bathroom house on Merion Square Road
will first cross a moat, then a cobblestone courtyard, to enter a
domed entry hall, built to accommodate gala charity events with
seating for 250.

All the modern megahouse features are he a bowling alley; indoor
and outdoor swimming pools; an in-home barbershop, and space for an
estate manager, a nanny, three or four housekeepers and a cook.

What's truly different are the details. British craftsmen are carving
ornate oak columns for the grand escalier, as well as sculptural
lions, shields, dragons and scrollwork. Modern intrusions such as
thermostats and light switches are artfully hidden to preserve the
18th-century look.

Bissinger would not divulge the cost, but top-notch construction can
be $350 to $500 a square foot, which would put this house above the
$10 million mark.

The owner is the son of a Delaware County machinist who rose through
corporate law to own several companies. Although the house is sure to
make a splash, he asked to remain anonymous - as did other mansion
dwellers, who offered access to their homes only on the condition that
they not be identified.

Less shy was Thomas Bentley, president of Bentley Homes, a West
Chester-based developer of high-end homes. Finished in 2001, Bentley's
stone and slate manse rises like a fortress on a hillside south of
Wayne, conjuring visions of fox hunts, or perhaps the Princeton quad.

"It just felt right. I grew up in Philadelphia, and we wanted that
Chestnut Hill look," Bentley said. "This trend has been building for
15 years, but it has now reached epic proportions."

Such homes represent the highest end of an architectural movement
called Traditional Building. Adherents believe that classic
architectural modes such as Tudor, Gothic and Georgian are more than
just nostalgic styles to be applied to buildings like icing on a cake.
They seek to revive traditional detail, materials and proportioning as
a total design strategy, from roofline to guest bath.

From the 1940s to the mid-'80s, traditional architecture was stifled
from two directions: The predominantly modernist architectural
establishment scorned traditional work as backward and antidemocratic,
while rising labor costs made it prohibitively expensive.

Gradually, taste has shifted back, and the economy has followed. Where
traditionalists once lamented that the old craftsmen were dying out,
new magazines such as Period Homes now boast a database of 18,000
suppliers for such items as hand-hammered iron balusters, pre-aged
English ceramic tile, and marble work carved with the aid of
computers.

"For the first time in 100 years, we have architecture as good as the
great Beaux Arts homes of the turn of the century," said architect
Steve Mouzon, a Florida architect and leader of the traditionalist New
Urban Guild.

Making these homes look old is often a goal, and age can be fudged:
Ironwork is dipped in acid to add patina; wood floors are beaten with
chains; and if the marble fireplace looks too new, it can be weathered
with a special drill bit to mimic the scrape of an iron poker over 100
years.

Russell Versaci, author of the recent book Creating a New Old House,
adds age to stonework with a mixture of buttermilk, mold spores, beer
and cow manure. His clients are Hollywood stars, CEOs and other social
leaders.

"They're not at all interested in a high-tech house. Technology is
hidden, and the house feels like an heirloom. It gives them a
pedigree," Versaci said. "It's exactly the same phenomenon as the
early 20th-century industrialists."

The Main Line is fertile soil for such work, well-watered with income,
sophistication and ego. The area supports at least three respected
traditional architects: Bissinger, Peter Zimmerman and John Milner.
From the first twinklings of interest in the mid-'80s, they now see
one to seven truly baronial homes being built on the Main Line each
year.

Among Zimmerman's recent work is an 11,000-square-foot English manor
house off Youngsford Road in Gladwyne, custom-designed down to the
screws, where a secret door in the library opens up to a dim stairwell
to the wine cellar.

Milner is a stickler for historic accuracy, and recently built an
entirely new home to look like an 18th-century farm complex, with
wings, barns and outbuildings added over the course of century. "We're
very fortunate to have clients who want that kind of quality," he
said.

Bissinger has a dozen new Main Line mansions to his credit. He will
never catch up in numbers with the builders of McMansions (5,000- to
6,000-square-foot homes named for their imposing sizes and
assembly-line designs), but believes he is rebuilding some of the Main
Line's lost grandeur.

At times, this rebuilding is quite literal: In 2000, Bissinger was
designing a 12,000-square-foot Georgian in Wayne when he discovered
that he was working on the site of Weltvreten, the 1905 Schmidt's beer
family estate. Built in a striking German medieval style of timber and
stucco, it was demolished in the 1960s.

The new house, called Honeystone, incorporates stonework from
Weltvreten found in the soil. Its formal main house of Canadian blue
granite rambles left to a vast kitchen wing and right to the library
wing, pool and pool house. Inside, light filters though Venetian
stained glass onto the mahogany railing of the swooping main stair.

Missing here are the tapestries and tiger-skin rugs that made
Weltvreten an exotic castle; modern decor is comparatively spare.

Also missing at this estate home is the estate itself. Mansions of the
1900s might command 100 or 700 acres, often with flocks of fluffy
white sheep to create that English country air.

Honeystone and every other new Main Line mansion must live in the
modern world. Tucked into a suburban neighborhood north of Wayne, this
imposing home commands exactly 2.7 acres of land, and sheep are
entirely absent.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact staff writer Matt Blanchard at 610-313-8120 or
.





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2005 Philadelphia Inquirer and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.philly.com




tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1 (webpage)

loutent writes:

These are the types of projects that one often sees
on newer TOH or some HGTV remodels. Usually a young
couple with too much $$$ or a recently wed May-Dec
thing (with big $$$). I think the "Dream House" show
on HGTV (lately) is over the top (i.e "Brandon's Dream House").

The sad part is that there is usually no connection
between the people and the house. I feel differently
if they are restoring a once great looking place in
a(n) historic area or something like that.

Still, they are paying salaries and keeping the
economy going, so there is something to be said for
that (I guess).

Check out a magazine, Old House Journal, for those who appreciate older homes.
Most of them cost mroe than I can afford, but it is not over-the-top
unnecessarily.

Charlie Self
"One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above
that which is expected." George W. Bush