| NARRATIVE STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE
The Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith House is eligible for listing in the National Register under Criterion C as a superb example of the inventive interpretations of the Arts and Crafts style pioneered by the accomplished Portland architects Joseph Jacobberger and his partner Alfred H. Smith. As the home of architect Alfred H. Smith himself, the dwelling reflected the design mastery of the pair and their skill at adapting architectural embellishment and hierarchy to a specific domestic context. Situated within a neighborhood of detached houses occupied by some of Portland’s wealthy elite, the dwelling was self-consciously designed so that the interior could accommodate the privacy of several boarders and the Smiths while the exterior could connote a single-family residence. This flexible, context-sensitive design accommodation allowed Smith to occupy the house until his death in 1958. Although featuring at least three different living spaces, the building is referred to as a house due to Smith’s continuous occupation of the house, Smith’s influence on the house’s design, the exterior appearance of the house, and because boarders ranged in number and duration of stay. The house reflects the direct and considerable influence that early English precedents had on Jacobberger and Smith, who were early and prolific proponents of the Arts and Crafts style in Portland.
Grover’s Addition and Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith
Platted May 25, 1883 by the West Portland Homestead Association, Grover’s Addition was a speculative subdivision of land that sought to capitalize upon the growing housing market of Portland during the late-nineteenth century. As the city extended north and west, the city’s rectilinear street pattern began to encounter the geographic irregularities of the West Hills. While a majority of Grover’s Addition followed a grid pattern, several irregular lots were drawn as a result of steep slopes. As a result of the relative isolation of this area, intensive development did not occur in the area until the early twentieth century.
By the early 1910s, the area became attractive to Portland’s business class including the architect Alfred H. Smith and his wife Mary. Born in 1865 in Bristol, England, Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith came to Portland around 1908. Alfred formed a partnership with Joseph Jacobberger in 1912, the same year that the house was presumably constructed. Purchasing several lots from F. W. Leadbetter in 1912, Smith would construct a house that was completed by 1913 and was valued at $3,000. As the new business partner to Joseph Jacobberger, Alfred H. Smith would have collaborated with Jacobberger upon the creation of his house for it was designed to fulfill his particular tastes and needs. One of these needs was the apparent necessity for the house to accommodate boarders. At first, this may seem anathema to the wealthy neighborhood in which the house stood. Bordered by dwellings with similar Arts and Crafts inspiration as well as larger dwellings of Portland’s wealthy elite that were situated along the sylvan hills near Council Crest, the house’s context seemed distant from the single room occupancy hotels near Portland’s city center. By September 1906, however, this area was linked to the city and the nearby amusements of Council Crest by the Council Crest Line, a trolley line that operated near the western end of High Street near the intersection of SW Terrace Drive and SW Ravensview Drive.
With the proximity of the trolley, Smith’s house became a very practical, if not picturesque location for group housing. While it remains difficult to ascertain what types of boarders occupied the house before 1930, from 1930 until Smith’s death in 1958 up to five boarders holding a wide range of occupations lived in his house at any one time, but usually only for one to three years. Students, widows, married couples, office managers, saleswomen, an artist, a teacher, gas station attendant, cashier, caseworker, and even the Field Director for the Portland Council Camp Fire Girls all found the house a desirable rental option. Others in the neighborhood took advantage of developing tasteful multi-family housing near the Council Crest line. In 1923, for instance, the house at 1858/1860 SW High Street was constructed in the Arts and Crafts style and was similarly discrete in its appearance with little indication that two families occupied the residence.
From 1929-1930, it appears as if the life of Albert H. Smith took some rather dramatic turns for by 1929, it appears that his wife Mary had died. Smith was accompanied by his son Albert H. Smith, Jr. and his wife Paulina in the house between 1928-1930. The son and his wife are no longer found in the city directory after 1930. In addition to these events, the partnership between Jacobberger and Smith was dissolved early in 1930, just prior to Jacobberger’s death in March 1930. Smith would occupy the house until his death on May 9, 1958.
The Arts and Crafts Aesthetic
Living at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement, both Smith and Jaccoberger were influenced in the late nineteenth century by the philosophy and designs of the English artist William Morris. Morris believed that hand-wrought, man-made objects represented the best use of labor in both an aesthetic and in a political sense. His company The Firm created everything from wallpaper to furniture to textiles and stained glass with the aim of restoring the so-called decorative arts to the level of fine arts. Because Morris thought a handmade aesthetic should permeate every aspect of living and livelihood, his design work is closely associated with domestic interiors and architecture. Hallmarks of the Arts and Crafts style include design motif taken from natural forms, the union of ornate and fabulous pictorials with simplicity of form and the belief that no object was too humble to be carefully and lovingly crafted.
The Arts and Crafts Movement in America
The Arts and Crafts movement was enthusiastically embraced in America where it blossomed in the early part of the twentieth century. By the time of Morris’s death in 1896, hundreds of Arts and Crafts Societies had been established in American cities, large and small. Less anti-industrial than the English version, the American interest in Arts and Crafts drew on a national inclination toward self-sufficiency, a fondness for the motifs of nature and the use of regional materials. The ideals and designs of British Arts and Crafts impacted such quintessentially American companies as Gustav Stickley’s United Crafts in Eastwood, New York. Objects such as ceramics, textiles and decorative interpretations of forms such as stained glass church windows reflected a strong Arts and Crafts influence. The impact of Morris’s ideas could also be seen in domestic architecture where ‘Arts and Crafts Style’ came to represent an egalitarian elegance that appealed to the relaxed American sensibility, especially in the West.
Northwest Arts and Crafts
In 1905 Portland Oregon hosted the Lewis and Clark Exposition, ushering in a new era of expansion for the city. The astounding growth in population also meant unprecedented building. With so many new city dwellers, including those who came for the Exhibition and stayed, there was considerable development of residential neighborhoods, including desirable view homes that overlooked the Willamette River. The Portland Heights and Council Crest neighborhoods were platted as early as the 1880s, but it wasn’t until after the Exhibition and an extension of the trolley system that widespread development occurred. The Arts and Crafts house plan was an extremely popular style for homes in these areas. The style remained unrivalled in popularity until the advent of the Northwest Style in the 1930s. Despite geographical distance from New York and Chicago, Portland residents proved sophisticated consumers of houses that showed a modern sensibility. To serve these needs, architectural firms flourished. One of the most prominent was the architectural firm of Whidden and Lewis. Most of Portland’s most notable architects passed through their offices including the noted Oregonian architect A.E. Doyle who started there as a fourteen-year-old office boy.
The Influential Firm of Jacobberger and Smith
Another architect who came from the offices of Whidden and Lewis was one of Portland’s most gifted and inventive interpreters of the Arts and Crafts style. This was Joseph Jacobberger, who was born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1867 and came to the United States at the age of two. After a childhood spent in Nebraska he moved to Portland from an architectural practice in Minneapolis. In 1912 he formed a partnership with an English architect, Alfred. H. Smith. Their flourishing eighteen year practice left an impressive stylistic imprint on the city and included many notable buildings including the Knights of Columbus Building, St. Mary’s Cathedral, sections of Marylhurst College campus and St. Vincent’s Hospital. Jacobberger was equally prolific and inventive when it came to domestic architecture and until his death in 1930 was the architect for some of Portland’s most impressive Arts and Crafts-style residences. Hawkins and Willingham, authors of Classic Homes of Portland single out Jacobberger as “one of Portland’s most impressive talents.” Along with the talented Wade Pipes, Jacobberger and Smith truly pioneered the Arts and Crafts style in Portland.
The Smith House as an Expression of the Arts and Crafts Style
Although initially platted in the 1880s, the Portland Heights and Council Crest neighborhoods were not substantially improved until the first decade of the 1900s. Although scenic, this area remained isolated until the extension of the Council Crest Line. Once public transportation reached this area, many of Portland’s business elite began to construct residences. Constructed in 1912, the Smith House immediately stood out from many of its neighbors, as it was valued at $3,000; a sum that was at least two times as much as his immediate neighbors. Indeed, the house has been praised for its impressive architectural composition as Hawkins and Willingham’s “Classic Houses of Portland” noted that it was “a delight of sculptural form.” The house is firmly within the Arts and Crafts tradition but also demonstrates the masterful inventiveness of Jacobberger and Smith. While Smith undoubtedly played a role in the design of his own house, it appears that the house featured many of the design elements employed by Jacobberger prior to their partnership. It appears that it was Jacobberger’s confident grasp of apt, elegant but never ostentatious stylistic details that signal his design influence.
Some of these details include the use of an asymmetrical massing and fenestration, different construction details, and the intricate detailing of the principal use areas of the house including the living rooms, kitchen, front door and entrance hall, and dining room. Indeed, these spaces became the canvas for a palette of architectural design that was highly expressive of the period. The fretwork-adorned grille of the front door, further emphasized by a console-supported, barrel vaulted door canopy is just one example of how comfortably Jacobberger worked within the Arts and Crafts milieu. In order to provide comfortable living spaces on all floors of the house and in anticipation of multiple tenants, Jacobberger integrated a hierarchy of finish so that living spaces architecturally expressed their relative importance and function. No where is this more evident, than in the “Living Room” on the second floor where a ceramic tile fireplace surround, punctuated by raised relief ceramic tiles is surmounted by a bold mantel and a crosseted overmantel. This hierarchy remains evident even though the house has been a single family residence since 1980.
Context: The Arts and Crafts Houses of Joseph Jacobberger
When compared to the larger body of work by Joseph Jacobberger, the Smith House, typifies his design capabilities. In reviewing the National Register-listed houses in Oregon, six of the sixteen houses designed by Jacobberger are classified as Arts and Crafts style and all were situated in Portlland. Characteristics of the style include asymmetrical plans with sharply pitched roofs and exterior finishes that are often stucco or brick. A brick chimney often dominates the roofline and windows may be casement and double-hung and feature stained glass with metal trim in support of the leaded glass. Entrance doors are recessed with decorative
beams and there are verandas and porches on first or second levels or both. Jacobberger’s trademark detailing includes jerkinhead gables, arched canopies, decorative oval windows, polygonal bays, and stained glass, all of which are displayed on the Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith House. Interior finishes include plastered walls with wood trim, a central staircase with wood risers and rails, and fireplaces with marble or brick surrounds. Several other examples of Jacobberger’s work has been documented in the Portland Historic Resources Inventory. Despite the fact that no examples of residential buildings singularly designed by Alfred H. Smith have been documented, it appears as if the Smith House may have been a collaborative effort. The design that resulted from this collaboration, however, held striking similarities to other Jacobberger commissions.
Many of Jaccoberger’s earlier commissions feature similar architectural conventions as those found on the Smith House. Interestingly at least three (Giesy-Failing House, Malarkey House, Walter V. Smith House) were situated within one mile of the Smith House. The earliest Jacobberger house listed in the Inventory was built in 1898. Situated at 1943 SW Montgomery Drive, the Walter V. Smith House (National Register) is clad with wood shingles and exhibits two prominent cross gables and a gable-roofed dormer. A 1909 house at 2141 SW Hillcrest Place (Daniel J. Malarkey House, National Register) designed by Jacobberger has a multi-gabled roof with large stained glass windows, a balcony and distinctive railing. The Costello House (National Register) at 2043 NE Tillamook in the Irvington neighborhood has a stone and stucco exterior with cross gables. The house at 2331 SW Madison Street, constructed in 1911, features a bellcast roof with hipped-roof dormers and large, central entry porch. Another 1911 Jacobberger home can be found at 2210 NE Thompson (Portland Historic Resources Inventory(PHRI)) and also features cross-gables as well as a dormer with decorative half-timbering and a one-story wing with a balustrade balcony. A 1913 home at 1965 SW Montgomery Place (Giesy-Failing House, National Register) has a multi-gabled roof with brick cladding on the first floor and an elliptical hooded entry porch. A 1915 house located at 2306 NE Siskiyou (PHRI) has a double-gable roof with intersecting gable-roofed side wings and a prominent chimney with a front elevation with arched surrounds. The final Jacobberger-designed house to appear in the PHRI under the rubric of Arts and Crafts style is at 2609 NE Hamblet Street. This 1925 house has a semi-circular-roofed dormer with a polygonal bay window on the second floor and a pavilion with decorative half-timbering. Of all the documented houses designed by Jaccoberger, the Smith House appears to be lone example of a multi-unit dwelling.
Conclusion
The Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith House features a collection of inventive architectural detailing that is indicative of Joseph Jacobberger’s mastery of the Arts and Crafts style. There are many houses in Portland designed by Jacobberger, however, the Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith House is notable because it exhibits a remarkable range of features that most characterize Jacobberger’s imaginative, recognizable style. Many of the features both inside and outside the Smith House, such as the double gables, jerkinhead gables, ceramic relief tiles, and leaded glass are a direct reflection of the English precedents Jacobberger used as sources, particularly in the early years of his career, as he crafted his trademark style. The Alfred H. and Mary E. Smith House is locally significant and eligible for listing in the National Register under Criterion C in the area of architecture as an excellent example of the inspired interpretation of the Arts and Crafts style by master architects Joseph Jacobberger and Alfred H. Smith. |
