Gamble House
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The Gamble House (constructed 1908 - 1909) is a National Historic Landmark and tourist attraction in Pasadena, California designed by the Greene and Greene, Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene, for David B. Gamble of the Procter & Gamble company.
Built as a vacation residence and rarely used, the three-story Gamble House is a residential ark commonly described as America's Arts and Crafts masterpiece, although its style shows influence from traditional Japanese aesthetics and a certain California spaciousness born of cheap land and a permissive climate. Arts-and-Crafts architecture was all about superb materials, excruciating attention to detail, aesthetic harmony, and brilliant craftsmanship.
Every room in the Gamble House was assembled in multiple kinds of wood, wood that looks (in Charles Moore's phrase) lovingly rubbed. The teak and maple and oak and cedar and mahogany surfaces are placed in rhythmic sequences that bring out their contrasts of color, tone and grain, no peg or air vent or bracket or knob singing off key. Inlay in the custom furniture matches inlay in the mantlepieces. The joinery on the main staircase is exposed like an interlocking puzzle. Two of the big wooden panels along the solid wall are actually secret doors that lead to two separate secret passages. The Greenes used local contractors who had worked together for them on Orange Grove Avenue (Millionaire's Row) in Pasadena on a dozen previous homes, an experienced team of contractors playing together like musicians.
The sensuous woods, the generously low and horizontal room shapes, and the quality of natural light that filters through the art glass exterior windows, are all somewhat at odds with the uncomfortable rigor of the floorplan. As late as 1909, the Greenes refused any influence from Frank Lloyd Wright's innovative spatial rhythms. All rooms are regular and rectangular. There is no variation in ceiling height, no territorial nooks and crannies. The best room may be the billiard room, occupying the entire third story, an afterthought built built to make the house look better from the street. The Greenes had to talk David Gamble into it. He hated pool.
The house was seen as the residence of Doctor Emmett L. Brown in the Back To The Future films.
External link
- gamblehouse.usc.edu - A website on the house by the University of Southern California