Although in recent years color has held the center of the stage, the white kitchen is coming back into style but with a difference. If you would like a white kitchen but recall with a shudder the grimly clinical "laboratory kitchens" of the modernistic Twenties and Thirties, take heart. White is a wonderful background if you know how to use it. Because it contains all the shades in the spectrum and is the closest approximation to light, it has an affinity for all colors. Food and accessories become more inviting against white, which sets them off as a mat sets off a painting, and they in turn help to relieve it by reflection. (For instance, an orange ceiling makes a white kitchen seem warm and sunny.) White lends itself to many different effects and enables you to change color schemes at will by a switch of accessories. Designer Valerian S. Rybar combined white in cabinets and equipment with cool blues and hot red-orange tones to make his kitchen, opposite, a decorative setting for informal entertaining. It also is thoroughly practical, for everything is easily cleaned.

White kitchen is enlivened by an ingenious mingling of the cool and warm tones of the spectrum. Blue glass mosaic mural with colorful Italian larder motifs is echoed in striped curtains, orange bulletin board and blue tile floor, with subtle color in the all-over blue and green design on white plastic countertops. In the adjoining pantry, left, a bright blue wall with brass clock carries through the dominant color. Here, fold-away cooking units and a dishwasher provide a supplementary work area. The kitchen cooking center is separated from the dining area (used for after-theatre suppers) by a heat-resistant curved glass screen which blocks noise and cooking odors. The wood-and-marble-topped work cabinet, raised on legs to give lightness to the design, also acts as a buffet for informal parties. Cabinets and sinks by St. Charles. Refrigerator, dishwasher, cooking tops and built-in ovens by Frigidaire. Panelyte countertops by St. Regis. Amtico vinyl tile floor.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | February 1958

Any couple with three pre-school children is confronted with a vexing domestic problem: How, under one roof, does one supervise the children when necessary, let them alone when desirable and still enjoy the luxury of adult activities? The house shown here represents one artful solution. Essentially a simple, one-story rectangle, it is divided into three zones a children's area including three bedrooms and a combined play- room and kitchen center; a living-dining zone; and a master bedroom-study zone. Largely because it is so adeptly planned for family living this house recently won an important American Institute of Architecture award.

 

Designing a successful house for a growing family calls for a perfect meeting of minds. The architect must understand the family, and the family must understand itself. This house, built for a family with three children ranging from 5 to 12, is the product of such understanding. Placed on a sloping, wooded site, it is a pleasantly informal house whose rustic appearance derives from the use of local boulders for the fireplace and redwood boarding as exterior siding. But it is the T-shaped plan that tells the story of the family. At one side of the main entrance is a children's doorway which leads to a "mud room" and lavatory. From this point the children, now clean and presentable, may go directly to their wing consisting of four bedrooms, bath and a large (15'x21') playroom. Laundry equipment and a countertop separate the playroom and kitchen, thus making it possible to keep an eye on the children while cooking. Well removed from the children's domain are the living room, down six steps from the entrance level, and the master bedroom, study and guest room, up six steps from the entrance level.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | November 1957

 

Peering over the landscaped knoll shown above, the passerby has no doubt about the inspiration of the house just beyond. The slope of its shingle roof is classic Japanese. The site itself, only 100' wide by 130' deep, is plotted in the Japanese manner, with cleverly conceived gardens and terraces adjacent to all principal rooms. In the same mood, too, are the sliding screens, the varied textures, the waxed wood finishes and the finely wrought architectural details. Yet, for all its Oriental spirit, this California house is really contemporary U.S.A. The plan skillfully separates living and sleeping areas, and decorative screens and walls shut out the surrounding neighborhood. With only five main rooms the house seems spacious. Every foot of the small site is put to good use. Today's living demands such intensive planning,

 

Although the Florida development house shown here measures only 1,580 square feet, it bears many architectural refinements found in the designer's expensive custom-built houses. It looks far larger than its actual size because the plan integrates a 36' x 36' screened patio and a carport.

In the shape of a modified T, the house consists of one wing 76 feet long-study, living-dining room, kitchen, carport and storage wall-and another with two bedrooms and baths. The main entrance is centrally located between the two wings, and a minimum of space is lost on hallways. The closets form sound mufflers around kitchen and baths where mechanical equipment is installed. Kitchen, near the entrance, is only a few steps from both the dining area and the screened patio, which is accessible from both wings by generous window walls. Post and beam construction enabled the designer to expand interior spaces with partial walls. The plan is based on a system of 12' x 18' modular units which can be rearranged to produce varied designs for houses of smaller or larger size.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | May 1957

 

What the creative eye can see in unlikely material is illustrated in these views of designer-importer Lowell Groves' remodeled top floor apartment in a narrow old two-story house on San Francisco's Telegraph Hill. Until architect Roy Starbird and Mr. Groves went to work on it, the upper floor was a cramped railroad-type flat walled off from the Hill's matchless view. Now front walls of glass and a deck open it to San Francisco's hills and bay. The restrained decorating treatment of stark white walls and dark bare floors composes the most effective setting for the owner's fine collection of antique Dutch East Indian furniture and Far East art objects.

Of interest in the decorating scheme are the vertically striped blinds in navy and white to draw over the window walls at night, an accent of color in the simple living-dining room. Though the apartment is small, adroit use of niches and corridor and kitchen walls for storage contributes to the illusion of space. An uninterrupted view through the living area from the deck emphasizes both the dramatic qualities of the possessions Mr. Groves has collected and the serenity of the setting.

The interior walls are painted white, against which the dark woods and brass trim of the furniture stand out in sharp relief. The cool effect is reminiscent of colonial houses in India. Textured beige silk covers the sofa and natural linen is used on the chairs. The 18th century highboy was made in Ceylon by the Dutch and based on English designs of the period of William and Mary, modified with native Indian brass work. The dining table, a family heirloom, was once a sewing table. It is in perfect scale with the Regency chairs upholstered in navy blue tweed. Rickshaw lamps flank the 19th century Chinese oil painting of Park Street, Calcutta.

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source: House and Garden Magazine | November 1956