Modern Bungalows For The Masses
In 1890 St. Louis had a population of 451,770 – more than it has nearly 120 years later. Oklahoma City, where I was born & raised, had a population of only 4,171 people that same year. Of course the Oklahoma Territory had just been opened for settlement the prior year on April 22, 1889. The population of the entire state was probably less than the number of persons living in St Louis’ Soulard neighborhood.
By 1920 the population of Oklahoma City had grown by nearly 90,000 in 30 years time. In the decade of the 1920s Oklahoma City doubled in population – going from 91,295 to 185,389. All, I think, were housed in “modern bungalows.”
The terms “Arts & Crafts” & “Craftsmen” are often used to describe bungalows of this period. Bungalows were built in every U.S. city. In St Louis they built brick versions while most cities got wood frame construction. Details such as windows, interior trim and such were similar for the period regardless of type of construction used.
In St. Louis these masonry bungalows always had full basements while the frame bungalows of Oklahoma City were built over a crawl space.
For over 20 years now I’ve had a photo copy of a plan book from the 1920s, from the Aurelius-Swanson Co. Unlike many plan books of the day, this book contains photographs of every plan offered. Each were built in Oklahoma City or neighboring towns like Norman, Oklahoma. Each was photographed.
The above plan was one of my favorites while I was in Architecture school in the late 1980s. I loved the modest proportions, the covered & open porches, the “pergola” over the side driveway, and the stone porch piers.
I’ve long appreciated what a significant document this plan book is. It shows modest 3 bedroom houses such as this one costing between $5,000-$5,470 to much larger homes costing more than twice as much.
The numerous interior photographs are an interesting record of how these homes were furnished and decorated in the 1920s.
Oklahoma City and the surrounding towns developed largely in the 1920s and mostly without alleys. Garages were separate from the house, kept at the rear of the lot, and accessed via narrow side driveways. As in many cities, building lots were 25 feet wide. If you wanted to build a wider house you bought two lots (or three in rare cases). These homes are often built on two lots for a total frontage of 50 feet.
So while the houses were certainly less dense than much of St Louis, it was certainly more urban & walkable than today’s suburban areas. Street corners might have a corner market with the shop keeper’s flat over the store. The streetcar and the associated commercial shopping district might be just a block or two away.
I’ve scanned the entire book but it is too large to post here. Instead I’ve got a sample (PDF) for you to view. If this proves popular I may invest the time in breaking up the book into smaller segments that I can post here for downloading.
These bungalows were a reaction of the excesses of earlier periods. Hopefully we’ll see new housing for the masses that rejects the 3-car garage McMansions of the past 15 years.
we’ve got a 1916 bungalow in lewis place, where there are lots more.
kansas city has a bungalow club. http://www.kcbungalow.org/
— tony
Thanks for posting these. I’m sure many of the patterns were built in Tulsa, too, as those were also our boom years. I hope you’ll post more in the future.
I had a bungalow in Denver for 15 years, much like these. Like any old home, it had its charms and its challenges. In Denver, where including alleys was common at that time, 1½ lots (at 37½’ wide) ended up becoming the “standard”, again with garages on the back of the lot, but without the side drives.
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As for a walkable neighborhood, I’m not sure if the bungalow was/is the “answer” or if it was simply the style that was currently in vogue and/or affordable in the areas where they proliferated. Around St. Louis, you find just as many walkable neighborhoods, only their typical architecture features brick and the fanciful fronts the masons were able to create here, plus many of our older neighborhoods benefit from having alleys, as well.
Like the Searses and the Alladins, these catalog bungalows show the strength of Prairie School (and the Japanese traditional architecture that inspired it) in influence as vestiges remain. Beyond the obvious framing details in the exposed rafter ends in the eaves (however, not flared in the example shown), the horizontality and even the urn sitting on the porch pedestal lend themselves well to this enduring architectural vernacular. It looks like a pop-up addition occured sometime in its history. The deference of the garage to the house on the street, with the carriage valet porte cochere is a great, if not excessive feature. It breaks up the length of the driveway effectively, but the home would not have suffered in its absence. Craftsman bungalows are rich part of American architectural history, and we’re fortunate to have so many remain.
A new housing for the masses should include the use of off-site, prefabricated construction. Models can be shown to be far more appealing to the average American consumer than the usual ‘high design’ fare that graces the glossy pages of Dwell magazine. Though I love the crisp, modernist examples now proliferating in the design conscious publications, if a more sensible and context sensitive (and urban planning friendly) set of models could demonstrate the value of mass production (with ample customization), then a new housing for the masses that rejects the 3-car garage McMansion, along with rejecting many other violators, could emerge.
And no, I’m not referring to crappy mobile homes.
To me a bungalow is simply a house with the narrow end facing the street, hence more houses can be on the block. Hence a more walkable neighborhood. If the houses were turned the long way it would stretch the block out much longer and the people in the middle would have that much farther to walk to the corner store. I live in the Southampton area in a “gingerbread” bungalow and there are 63 houses from one end of the block to the other. That includes both sides of course. That covers 2 “hundred” blocks. So half way down the block there is a walkway that cuts across the neighborhood making it even more walkable. Until the stupid powers that be with the city let some idiot close off the walkway past his house with a privacy fence that connects one house to the other. Does anyone know why the city is allowing people to do this? At a time when we are trying to make the city more walkable and pedestrian friendly this seems totally wrong wrong wrong.
Ultimately row housing is still the wave of the future. Not only does it create dense, walkable communities that can support all types of transit and commercial activities. It is also much more energy sustainable and can support far more cultural activity than a neighborhood with bungalows.
While the bungalow is cute, areas of St. Louis that are populated with them begin to reflect the intrusion of the automobile and suburban planning and with it the city chaos that now exists.
Bungalows begin to establish the same vacant and unused space that is so common in suburban examples. (The amount of dead, unused space of this wedding cake architecture is mind boggling). It is sort of a mini version of the arch grounds saying keep away.
I don’t think the problems in America can be solved by building more bungalows or any free standing structures, but rather by building an interconnected urban environment, of which bungalows could only play a minor role. In fact any emphasis on bungalows could even undermine the creation of transit, human friendly environments that is needed at this time.
Row housing is great, but of course is only of many urban housing forms that should either be preserved and endure, or should be revived and endure. The density of single family, attached or semi-detached housing in the historic neighborhoods of the south Grand area (Shaw, Fox Park, TGS, TGE, etc.) is very appropriate, as are the many historic courtyard plan apartment buildings in the neighborhoods to the north of highway 40. A good mixture of unit types on an urban block is usually better than a singular type, but no one could argue that the row house isn’t a staple of urban residential design that should set precedent for future development, and they lend themselves well to methods of prefabrication with their redundancy of form and alignment with the street.
Actually the row house form is far from redundant. In my studies of early Soulard I found seven distinct building shapes that were combined and recombined in countless ways. That along with the long history of row housing creates a rich tradition which can be redundant, but is more often varied according to the developer/builder and needs of the city.
I realize the TGS neighborhood, in which I now live (after living in Soulard in the 70’s and early eighties) is somewhat dense. It represents the density gap between row housing and bungalows and then onto the suburban plantation homes.
However, two points among many possible. TGS does not have the presence of commercial activity in interior blocks anywhere near the density of Soulard. Homes in the middle of the block in early Soulard were seamlessly shifted from commercial to residential at will successfully. That is less likely in an urban form such as in TGS and even less likely in bungalow neighborhoods.
Row housing represents an important economic form along with offering many other energy and social advantages.
We are at war with ourselves. Someone like Paul McKee will likely take the Northside and develop it bungalow/suburban style when in fact what is needed are true urban forms coupled with transit and commercial.
It is the same self serving profit mongering that has currently put America at so much risk. Northside redevelopment will likely follow that pattern.
City building for the benefit of citizens is not a priority, filling the pockets of the wealthy is the priority. Thus the hack McKee is poised to poison St. Louis with his suburban doodling.
Thus the war: bungalows, for all their charm, are marginally true urban forms that can support city living. Someone like McKee will take bungalows and turn them into Mcbungalow mansions. It is exactly what St. Louis and America no longer need.
In fact in the long run it as destructive as the current economic crisis.
I at least partially agree with your concern about bungalows and their stand alone nature as opposed to the more densely deployed and less land consuming row house, but find no reason to dismiss them as passe form inappropriate to a progressive urban revival. I do find them redundant, and in no demeaning way. It’s their redundancy that gives them their charm. Now, you may be referring to a condition in Soulard that accurately describes variations in alignment with the street and with each flanking home, but their general condition is still redundant and that is hard to deny. Try to recall that stretch of homes along Lafayette Street that one encounters when coming to the end of the I-44/55 off-ramp (previously the 18th Street exit), and you’ll know the more pure example of row house to which I refer.
The real issue isn’t bungalow versus row house, it’s higher densities and variety versus homogeneous, segregated suburban sprawl. Three-story structures (with ground-floor retail or office and housing units above) can and do coexist well with both row houses and bungalows, as well as with duplexes and 4- and 6-unit flats. Recreating New Town St. Charles in the blocks around Crown Candy seems to be an eminently viable alternative, but so would recreating Wrigleyville or many of the other cool new/old Chicago neighborhoods. And putting bungalows or row houses or shotgun houses on 25′, 37½’, 40′ or 50′ wide lots is better than doing the same thing on 75′, 100′ or 150′ wide lots – it’s the narrow frontage that creates walkability and community, not any specific architectural style.
That’s what I was saying in my first comment. The diversity of type, form and density, with a minimum expected density in sustained urban and urban revival areas is really best.
While I agree that the lot size matters. It is an issue that needs to be addressed, and maybe it is really the root of the discussion of bungalows vs. row housing and other building types. And while I appreciate diverse neighborhoods I think the point is that row housing is the true city form that should be the basis for urban design. Other forms should flow from the form of row housing as a building type, especially in urban environments.
I will point to one example, that is the Soulard coffee garden between 9th and 10th on Geyer. That building in the 70’s to 90’s was residential. It had a small shuttered store front opening left over from a previous era. Now it is reconstituted as a viable commercial enterprise in its row house format.
In contrast the Thurman coffee house on Thurman and (I think Shenandoah, in the TGS neighborhood) is barely hanging on in as a neighborhood corner location. Nor does the architecture of TGS invite or condone opening a business in the middle of the block as the Soulard Coffee Garden (if that is its name)
The difference of course is the row house environment. It is dynamic, economically viable, diverse, innovative in ways stand alone housing can not duplicate.
While thousands upon thousands of stand alone structures have been built, there has been no effort to recreate the Old St. Louis environments similar to what Old Soulard represents.
Everyone imagines and claims that everyone wants driveways, two car garages and isolation from their neighbors, but there is no comprehensive attempt to make a real urban city. Comprehensive being the key word.
The danger here is that we fall all over ourselves and fail once again to address the real needs of society. It is easy to say what language do you prefer Russian or English? Everyone will chose English of course. In the same way if a successful urban environment is never created, everyone will continue to chose the automobile, because that is all they know.
Finally the word redundancy brings along an image of boring and sameness. I was looking at photographs of Atget in a book called Old Paris one can see the creative variety of row housing. In fact for the architect, row housing is more challenging because it directly includes the tension and art of the adjoining buildings and environment in its art. I don’t want anyone to think the shapeless, mindless apartment complexes in St. Charles County is what row housing represents.
I might add that for the most part row housing in Paris had the first floor reserved for commercial uses. It symbolizes and actualizes a economic system that no longer is defined by major corporations owning centralized malls and strip malls, but rather individual ownership of buildings and businesses. (Zoning is another important consideration that Steve is addressing in still another blog, in other words row housing requires free zoning)
It is a much different approach than the failed economic models and policies that Wall Street and Corporate America has shoved down the throats of Americans to this day, which in effect hand all the power and wealth to a few insiders. The quest for power and greed is the real reason row housing has fallen out of favor.
To pick a few nits, Thurman Coffeehouse is in Shaw and Hartforld Coffee House is in TGS. While maybe not to the degree of Soulard Coffee Garden, Hartford Coffee House does seem to be succeeding. And there certainly have been restaurants that have failed in Soulard. In general, Tower Grove South has more operating commercial concerns than Shaw, and both have similar architecture and densities.
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I think the difference between Shaw and TGS is a matter of demographics and access. Shaw appears to me at least to have a higher concentration of poverty than TGS, and it is definitely more isolated. I think all streets between Shaw and Magnolia a cut off from both Grand and Tower Grove (Actually, Russell and Castleman both hit Grand but all traffic is forced to Shaw at Spring.) Shaw is not an easy neighborhood to wander through.
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I think we are still at the point that any business must rely on more than just neighborhood support to succeed. Soulard does benefit from increased density, but I’d argue that Soulard Coffee Garden in particular has benifited from being located right in the middle of the primary restaurant stretch in the neighborhood, an area well established before SCG was opened.
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All that being said, directly across from SCG is a great strech of row houses with storefronts converted to apartments, courtyards, and alley houses. The courtyards are really some of my favorite spaces in the city. I’d sure like to see that quality of space repeated some.
I’m not sure that there is any aversion to row houses being expressed here, it’s just that singularity of form is not necessarily the best way to achieve the urban composition that is balanced and attractive to the breadth of dwellers. Not every home seeker will prefer common walls to each side, with typically only front and rear exposure to the sun and ventilation, but row houses can certainly be considered the base density from which single-family occupancies depart. Soulard does provide a great example of row houses forming the base density, but sharing the neighborhood with multi-family buildings (Smile Lofts, e.g.) and 19th century mansions that survive as lone addresses or have been subdivided into flats. The density of Soulard (10-15 DU/acre, approximately, because of the size of the rear yards/lots… otherwise more dense) is not likely a pattern that can be sustained beyond a core the size of Soulard, but this pattern could certainly be repeated at smaller scales in locations in north St. Louis as well.
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The axial entry boulevard into New Town (marked with silly obelisk torn from the DPZ pattern book, and split by the contrived water canal as far as the center green with the amphitheater) displays some row houses that are well located within the larger neighborhood scheme. As the pattern of high density along the promenade boulevard dissipates as the streets depart from the main axis, the diversity of unit types begins to provide for the small, private nooks and pockets of green that allow the density to breathe, and provides a legible division between public and non-public. I have trouble envisioning a pattern where row houses are the sole unit type in a rich neighborhood composition, because it’s really the diversity of type that provides much needed relief from redundancy that achieves that base, high density established first by the row house.
Greg, the redundancy I’m referring to is of type, not architectural quality or language, degree of adornment, or size. In Ballwin or Chesterfield, one might describe the uniformity of single family detached colonials, ranches, georgians, etc. as REDUNDANT, and I would not argue with that characterization one bit, because of the zoning that created that redundancy of type. I love row houses, would own and live in one, and have nearly no argument against its physical nature and place in an urban setting. I just don’t see the row house as necessarily the sole “wave of the future” that you may see, and expect that this type along with others both revival and progressively new is the wave of the future. I’m hopeful that a part of the wave of the future is prefabricated construction, and believe that this method of project delivery can be a very effective tool in quickly filling in holes in our historic fabric that need filling. The rapidity of infill will provide confidence to the home buyer suspicious of impacted and struggling neighborhoods, and this is paramount to revival of urban living.
When I say wave of the future I am saying that row houses are underutilized as a building type, especially in the City. The reason they are the wave of the future is that it embodies the direction the country needs to go: energy efficient, transit friendly, pedestrian friendly and creation of small scale economic communities.
While certainly variety in housing is important, the basis for rebuilding the city has to be recreation of the density. Communities of stand alone buildings will not(or marginally) support transit, commercial activity and pedestrian activity.
The point is that, in planning the city political leadership has dropped the ball and given away their responsibility. The basis of rebuilding old St. Louis, especially Old North should be the reintroduction of row housing for many, many reasons. I am not saying every house has to be a row house, only that larger urban goals must be in place to direct decision making.
And in fact the pattern of Soulard can be repeated on a large scale. The evidence is in Old St. Louis and in many cities throughout the world.
It however takes coordination of all planning elements to make it work. You can’t have developers coming in, unregulated like the stock market, calling the shots and hoping you get good results. It isn’t going to happen.
The city officials must make it a priority to lay down a framework for developers to plug into. Government officials must be willing to support local commercial, viable mass transit and neighborhoods where you can actually walk to destinations, that support requires an active plan. Not waiting for the developer to show up with his plan, as they are doing with Paul McKee on the Northside.
I have a good deal of experience with prefab homes. While I think there is some potential for savings and efficiency, from what I have seen it is no where near a slam dunk that it is a better process. Especially if you are not building the same home over and over. I’m not sure speed is the issue as much as money and creating exciting plans that attract new homeowners to an area.
I agree that infill is crucial, but just as crucial is the rebuilding of existing buildings, maintaining the fabric that is there.
Prefab becomes a slam dunk when it is allowed to not only survive, but thrive with a healthy slice of market share. There really is no need for building the same home over and over, because the methods of prefab construction, especially with wood, should be flexible. The savings enjoyed by prefabrication is of course the truncated construction period, in addition to the ability to deliver multiple units simultaneously to a site. I think you and I are on the same page regarding framework provision for a more vital and liveable developed urban St. Louis, and certainly with the overall neighborhood form of Soulard. Do you mind if I ask what experience you’ve had with prefab construction?
To step back a bit, probably the first step would be outline an ideal mass transit system for the city, not the county, the city only.
Then preferred areas of density could be identified and the transit designed to serve those areas.
Transit plans would help determine row house construction vs. bungalow construction, the result would be the combined determination of commercial sites, energy savings along zoning and other issues.
Of course these sort of discussions do not go on with MoDot, East West Gateway nor the BOA and the Mayor and in public.
Punt! That seems to be the solution most preferred.
My direct involvement with prefab construction has been both with panels and paneled rooms, different residential projects (primarily), including issues such as providing diversity over a small number of buildings (20 built in a year) to larger numbers as time progresses (yearly additions of 10 to 20 in a community possible). (Around 100 to 150 actually built over ten years or so)
I kind of agree, but there’s also that old chicken-or-egg conundrum of great vision versus market demand/reality. Most zoning defines maximums. If the market isn’t there, less, sometimes substantially less, than the maximums will be built (given the law of supply and demand). Most parts of the city have zoning that allows for appropriate (more-dense) construction. Unfortunately, what’s lacking in too many parts is the market demand for it. The same goes for transit. We can envision “an ideal mass transit system for the city” and we might even be able to cobble together some sort of financing to build part of it, but without more density, demand won’t increase and higher service levels (critical to attracting new riders) won’t be sustainable. Heck, with Metro’s currently-proposed cut backs, the potential for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) around their station sites drops significantly. Simply put, if you have a 9 pm “curfew”, living next to a station becomes less of an attraction.
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That said, you’re on the right track (pardon the pun) when you say we need to look at transporation and land use together. Blueprint Denver (http://www.denvergov.org/Default.aspx?alias=www.denvergov.org/Blueprint_Denver) attempts to do that. In contrast to St. Louis, they’ve had to deal with significant reinvestment in their neighborhoods, including conflicting visions between long-time residents who don’t want to see their neighborhoods change and the desire among others to see more density and reinvestment (that results in new structures many times being significantly larger than the existing ones they replace). The short answer was to define areas of stability (typical residential streets) and areas of change (along arterials and in some industrial areas), where higher densities are deemed to be appropriate. By focusing development in areas with either existing robust transportation options or along corridors where they were planned, TOD has become a sustainable (and profitable) model for both the city and the development community.
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As for “Of course these sort of discussions do not go on with MoDot, East West Gateway nor the BOA and the Mayor and in public. Punt! That seems to be the solution most preferred.”, I agree. I’ve also discovered that the BOA have effectively emasculated the traffic engineers in the city, by mandating street closures and 4-way stops (way too much micromanagement in response to citizen “concerns”) at the expense of any sort of larger vision. I’m not too worried about MoDOT at this time, either – their city focus, backed up by limited funding, seems to be primarily maintenance/remove and replace, and not on any new corridors. I am worried, a lot, about figuring out how to make transit work better in the city. And, I’m worried about attracting new businesses and keeping and growing existing ones in the city – without a thriving economy, great plans end up being all talk and little action . . .
Divorcing urban plans for progressive development from transit service and expansion is unimaginable. Without a thiving economy, not much else but recovery (damage control and salvation) is foreseeable for some time, so any comment regarding desired urban design and physical form must be weighed against the strength of a base economy, and if there is disconnect then that comment will remain academic. There is no fault or error in discussing what many believe should be adopted urban form, but where the state of the economy a few years ago yielded only as much promise as a developer or historic home renovator was willing to risk in decaying urban neighborhoods, the state of the economy now leaves the ability to transform our city much, much more in question. I’m no economist, nor am I even mildly familiar enough with the mechanisms of an economy to know how a recovery could happen. I wish I were more astute regarding the economy, but if I was alone, of course we wouldn’t be where we are now. Those that fancy themselves experts on the economy, and then indulge themselves the thrill of deconstructing another’s perhaps idiotic or naive vision of city form can continue as they wish. I call no individual out, and none should feel that I am. I’ll just continue doing what I believe I can do to eventually contribute to a revived city of St. Louis, and know that most others that post comments in this and the related urbanism blogs will do the same.
John W I never feel discussions are academic. The pen is mightier the the sword. Action will necessarily evolve out of discussions. Language is powerful, and Steve has created a real time forum with this blog. It is what I can do now and I enjoy the interchange.
JZ, I agree there is no movement by government entities to coordinate and discuss how to overlay an optimal transit system upon an optimal city plan. What is the role of the bungalow, the row house or other building types? What is the role of commercial, squares and parks, and what is their relationship to transit stops and centers? There are many questions not being asked. Probably a series of open studios(ongoing) where professionals and students derive solutions in the publics interest would be a way to evolve and chart a new direction.
John R. you’re right, I meant the Shaw neighborhood. The only point I was trying to make that neighborhoods of row buildings are more conducive to commercial in the middle of the block rather than neighborhoods with stand alone buildings, such as bungalows. Nor do I think that it is any accident this neighborhood of row buildings is also a commercial center in St. Louis, I think the two go together.
I used to own the row from 915 to 921 Geyer front and rear across from the SCG. Yes the courtyard was delightful, very peaceful compared to the hustle and bustle of the street. It gave me insight on how dense cities create many hidden spaces to improve the quality of life. I owned them from the seventies to the early eighties. (about 10 years) I rebuilt the front of the storefront at 921 Geyer with a white concrete beam, although someone later carved a groove in the center to pretend it was two pieces of limestone. (The beam across the storefront was a series of 1 x 12’s nailed together. They were spreading and failing, causing the whole wall to fail, the look was similar to the monolithic concrete beam without the added groove. The height and length of the original beam is identical to the new white concrete beam).
The large rear building would probably not be in place either if I did not intervene. The roof was gone.
There was actually a longer row of front and rear buildings at the time on Allen and 8th across from the church. The second lot from the corner had 3 distinct, full size buildings on the lot. I have seen a few other instances of 3 buildings on a lot, but normally a couple have been connected somehow or the other. It was amazing to see.
The loss of this row on Allen was tragic and happened just as historic preservation efforts were beginning.
So I think the row of front and rear buildings on Geyer is the largest extent of front and rear courtyard buildings left in the city. I have been all over and looked for a similar sets of buildings and there are none left to my knowledge. (usually only individual front and rear buildings or perhaps two in a row) I also owned 911 and got a friend to buy 913 to secure the row.
John, as you well know appropriate urban design/development would be one of the best ways to deal whit the current financial collapse, or at least help us transition to something more sustainable.
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And we’ll eventually figure it out. After we’ve tried everything else first.
We have to start a war in India after the Mumbai crisis before we can attend to our own issues. It’s the American way.
We have to blow up some crap, kill a bunch of people, and commit American taxpayer money to more endless conflict and to an unpayable national debt. I hope China and others will be magnamimous enough to forvige a few petty billions so that we can stand up again.
I like your idea of posting the plans from this book of Aurelius -Swanson Bungalows. the lady who owns the antiquehome.org site has house plan books by Standard Building, Lewis Homes, Lewis-Liberty Homes,(Liberty Homes were cheaper homes offered by Lewis Homes.), Sears ,Sterling and Aladdin Homes, as well as a couple of others,like Fenner Homes from the west coast out I believe in Washington State.
Have you ever thought of contacting Dover Publications about reprinting the book?
I love older neighborhoods and homes. people used to walk alot of places to shop and such, and there were streetcars to take you downton if you wanted to go there.
Masstransit was everywhere in the past pretty much. In San Antonio you could take an interurban out to Castroville to the west,where they had like an amusement park or picnic grounds.
I recall my dad talking about taking the train down to Chicago from Milwaukee, and about riding the interurban which would take you all the way to Gary,Indiana.
The Boston Store in Milwaukee had electric delivery trucks, and there were such things in other cities too. People did recycling as well of metal, rags, bones, bottles,etc.My dad talked about the junk man coming around to collect such items.
There is no excuse why we cannot have mass transit again, execpt that the oil companies like ExxonMobil won’t loosen their stranglehold on the American Public and the same goes for the
automobile industry.
I have an original Aurelius-Swanson catalogue. The company did not make kit houses, they were a lumber-millwork company that sold plans and dabbled in real estate speculation in the boom years 1918-1926. After that, they disappeared from the scene.
I am unsure whether Aurelius-Swanson had an in-house designer or if they got the plans from an outside source. There are a number of identifiable examples of their work in OKC; a series of houses on NE 13th are typical of their speculative buildings.
I know of one example of a stucco airplane bungalow whose plans came from Aurelius-Swanson that is located in Shelby, NC. It is mistakenly attributed to the architect “Aurelia Swanson” of California.
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Other factors to consider will be site preparation, foundations,
excavation, provision of services such as waste, water and power and
roofing.prefab garages
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