Stone Houses: Traditional Homes of R. Brognard Okie by Rizzoli International Publications

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Stone Houses Traditional Homes of R. Brognard Okie

James B. Garrison Photography by Geoffrey Gross Foreword by John D. Milner

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Stone Houses Traditional Homes of R. Brognard Okie

James B. Garrison Photography by Geoffrey Gross Foreword by John D. Milner

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homas Jerman and his indentured servant built their first mill sometime between 1701 and 1710 on Valley Creek, just west of Valley Forge. Valley Creek runs through the eastern end of the Great Valley, an area of exceptional fertility; in the eighteenth century, it was the breadbasket of the middle colonies. George Washington wrote about several visits to the mill, and it was able to supply some milled grain to the encampment in Valley Forge in 1777–78. Jerman enlarged the original log mill at least once, probably using Oliver Evans 1795 book, The Young Millwright and Miller’s Guide, printed in Philadelphia. The existing infrastructure for the mill, a series of dams, ponds, and raceways, justified the substantial enlargement of the structure in 1859 by Joseph Jeanes. His five-story building remained in operation until the 1950s, grinding grain for Pepperidge Farm and others. Almost by definition, mills are placed in picturesque spots, taking advantage of changes in elevation near reliable sources of water. Rural, water-powered grist mills were a cleaner industry than charcoal-fired iron smelters or facilities for processing animals, so their settings retained a more pastoral atmosphere. In 1913, Richard Haughton (DATES?), an insurance executive, bought the picturesque mill property—keeping the miller on to grind specialty flours for his sideline business, “Valley Forge Vitamin Flours and Cereals.” With his new bride Marie, he probably started thinking about modernizing the adjacent mill owner’s residence. The small, mid-eighteenth-century stone residence stood on the hillside above the mill, enjoying views up and down the creek. In the early 1920s, Haughton contacted Brognard Okie about rehabilitating the house. Okie’s plan, which substantially enlarged the existing dwelling, took advantage of the beautiful site. The house was extended along the slope, with a terminating wing at a right angle up the hill to form a semi-enclosed entrance court. The uphill edge of the court is bounded by a walled garden below a stand-alone garage building. The south side, overlooking the mill, has terraces that wrap around into a series of rock gardens stepping down to the tail race and creek. Okie’s additions were designed to take best advantage of the views of the mill and creek. The stone walls on this side gave way to frame construction with generous areas of windows looking over the gardens and specimen trees planted along the creek and mill races. Both the mill and the house had grown substantially since their humble beginnings, but they maintained a complimentary relationship. The working mill did not appear out of place in the new park-like setting with the manor house above. Okie was especially fond of grist mills; as he stated in his introduction to Eleanor Raymond’s Early Domestic Architecture of Pennsylvania: 46

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strong horizontal lines of wood clapboards and the random pattern of exposed stone and stucco now somewhat obscured by the uniformity of white paint. The small kick in the gable end steps down along the hillside and provides space for a staggered array of windows, reinforcing the geometrical treatment. This end of the building is held in check by a shedroofed porch that visually and physically buttresses the stone gable end walls. The power of the forms in this relatively small addition was captured in a series of photographs by Philip Wallace that were exhibited at the 1922 exhibit of the T-Square Club in Philadelphia and then picked up by the

national media represented by House & Garden and Arts & Decoration magazines. The images and text spoke of an architecture without “affectation,” but Okie’s additions were actually very carefully studied and were specific responses to the existing buildings. A.T. Baker seems to have been an adventurous individual, as he only stayed in the house ten years before moving to Princeton and becoming an investment banker. Ten years later, in 1939, he gained fame for an around-the-world sailing voyage with his two sons, as he retired from business just before turning fifty. 64

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Longvue Percy Wilson Jr. Residence, 1900–1900

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Longvue Percy Wilson Jr. Residence, 1900–1900

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reworked in Okie’s typical manner. The extension created the space the Haughtons needed for living and entertaining. The new large living room contained antique paneling brought in from a Connecticut River Valley house, rearranged to work in the new space. This room is connected to a sunroom overlooking the gardens, which also adjoins the dining room. The bedrooms above are grouped into suites with bathrooms and other modern conveniences.

The mills combine the nice fitting to the ground and feeling for proportion of the houses with the durability and sturdiness of farm barns. The timber framing of the mills and the use made in their construction of white oak, yellow poplar and white pine is a study in itself.

The interior arrangement treated the spaces from the old house as artifacts, although many of the details were 48

At the Great Valley Mill, Okie venerated the surviving artifacts as well as the existing buildings in his overall handling of the site. Since the mill was still a working facility, it remained essentially unaltered, and there was minimal site development around it. The expansion of the house worked with the existing land contours, but also was planned to optimize the views of the mill and surrounding land. Although the existing house was transformed to fit in with Okie’s larger

scheme, the new wings defer to the original in scale. While Okie might have called this respectful rehabilitation a “restoration,” it is a romantic vision of the relationship between industry and its fruits. The gracious manor house and gardens can only exist through the wealth created by the mill.

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The interior arrangement treated the spaces from the old house as artifacts, although many of the details were 48

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has miniaturized the order to the size of a typical window mullion and broken the frieze to fit a full-height, doublehung sash in the central panel. The upper part of the cornice has also been somewhat abstracted from ancient prototypes, as was the case at Cliveden. At Overfields Okie is beginning to show the most important qualities of his architectural design talent. He is combining basic geometrical solids in a way that suggests an additive construction process over time, and developing a fluency in period detail that allows him to bend certain rules to create emphasis or make special references in his architectural narrative.

inversion of the typical wall panel treatment; here, the lower sections have more ornate moldings and patterns below simple rectangular frames, as if the wainscot and paneling had exchanged places. This is one of the first houses where his elaborate Federal-style mantels appear. The living and dining rooms have unique mantels, with Flemish-bond brick hearthfaces above herringbone and basket-weave hearths. The interior treatment of the triple window at the stair landing is notable for its imaginative use of Classical detail. He employs a full Doric order and entablature similar to the well known hall screen at Cliveden in Germantown. Okie

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Overfields Joseph W. Sharp Jr. Residence, [DATES?]

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Overfields Joseph W. Sharp Jr. Residence, [DATES?]

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t is almost more difficult to establish the genealogies of the Okie and Browning families than it is to sort fact from fiction in the Browning houses located in Easttown Township outside of Philadelphia. There appear to be multiple marriages between the families and repeated names that further blend the relatives. An eighteen-acre parcel of property in a hollow bisected by Devon State Road is listed as the Ryers Infirmary for Dumb Animals on real estate atlases from 1909 until about 1920, after which the western half is assigned to Edward Browning and the eastern half to Amy F. (Okie) Browning. The infirmary, also known as Horses Rest, had been established for horses retired from Philadelphia streetcars. The sloping farm site on this side of the road contained an array of structures, probably mostly utilitarian. Correspondence and an image in Architectural Record magazine first link Brognard Okie to the site in 1927. He was involved in various projects on both sides of the road for the rest of his life. The group of buildings for Edward Browning appears to be mostly additions and remodelings of existing structures with the log building project being the most interesting. Local legend had presumed the log building was a pioneer structure augmented by Okie in several phases. It is more likely that the materials were salvaged from a nearby building and reassembled as part of a new residence on the property for the Brownings. The log portion of the house functioned as a great room for the modest residence nestled into the hillside adjacent to a small remodeled barn. Like so many of his small houses, the residence is a tightly planned three-dimensional puzzle, with no wasted spaces. Every conceivable cubbyhole is utilized for some special casework for storage, and angled partitions and round-headed doors help everything fit under the low roofs. The interior details are complemented by the log, frame, and stone exterior elevations, which incorporate sleeping porches, wall dormers, and a number of oversized chimneys to delineate the different volumes of the overall building. A “hinge” at the northern corner allows the bedroom wing to stay clear of the adjacent bank barn and provides a rear entrance to the kitchen and basement spaces. Okie modified all of the buildings on the site, creating living space in the adjacent barn and supervising the installation of a waterwheel and pumping station to bring water from the creek by the road up the hill to a holding cistern. This more modern installation supplemented the restored spring house at the bottom of the hill. Photos from the 1930s show magnificent trees and quaint gardens around the house—the land that was once a horse farm now thoroughly domesticated. The adjacent twenty-acre parcel directly to the north of the Browning property became the Jenkins Arboretum in 1965 as a result of the bequest of H. Lawrence Jenkins, who

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library is an eclectic mix of Classical and Arts and Crafts motifs. The dining room similarly mixes themes from the English Arts and Crafts movement with a columned Doric mantelpiece that uses some of the same details as the exterior woodwork, adjusted to the different scale of the interior space. This extremely inventive woodwork complements the artistic clay tile of the hearth and hearth surround. This can truly be called a prodigy house, as in two short years Okie had developed real confidence using historical precedents in unconventional ways. His mastery of two- and three-dimensional geometry allowed a greater manipulation of spaces and volumes without sacrificing coherence. The interiors and exteriors show a real knowledge of the use of traditional and non-traditional ornament, kept in harmony by referencing key themes such as the Doric order. The houses of this period built a firm foundation for Okie’s further explorations in the Colonial Revival style and led ultimately to his development of an even more personal style.

hall with a dramatic stair and with an inglenook under the intermediate landing. The living hall provides access to all of the principal rooms on the first floor, something a typical center hall could not do. The hall runs parallel to a double parlor that opens to the long front porch and ends at the dining room with discrete access to the service wing. The interior woodwork is highly detailed, with paneled wainscots and arched openings of varying widths to the principal rooms. Punch-and-gouge work alternating with carved rosettes delineates the horizontal and raking moldings between fluted pilasters. The interior woodwork of the hall and parlors is reminiscent of the high style, eighteenth-century interiors in public and private buildings in Philadelphia, but it has been adapted to a new context without losing meaning. The interior decoration of the library and dining room reflect a keen awareness of design trends outside of the Colonial Revival. With its beamed ceiling, built-in casework and seating, and stone fireplace with a stylized Doric mantel, the

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