Gamble House (Pasadena, California)

David B. Gamble House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
California Historical Landmark #871
The Gamble House (April 2005)
Location	4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, California
Coordinates
Built	1908
Architect	Greene & Greene
Architectural style	Bungalow in American Craftsman style of Arts and Crafts Movement
NRHP Reference #	71000155
CHISL #	871
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	September 3, 1971
Designated NHL	December 22, 1977

The Gamble House, also known as David B. Gamble House, is a National Historic Landmark, a California Historical Landmark, and museum in Pasadena, California, USA. It was designed by brothers Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene of the architectural firm Greene and Greene and constructed 1908–09 as a home for David B. Gamble of the Procter & Gamble company.

Design

View from the front porch

Originally intended as a winter residence for David and Mary Gamble, the three-story Gamble House is commonly described as America's Arts and Crafts masterpiece. Its style shows influence from traditional Japanese aesthetics and a certain California spaciousness born of available land and a permissive climate. The Arts and Crafts Movement in American Craftsman style architecture was focused on the use of natural materials, attention to detail, aesthetics, and craftsmanship.

Interiors

Rooms in the Gamble House were built using multiple kinds of wood; the teak, maple, oak, Port Orford cedar, and mahogany surfaces are placed in sequences to bring out contrasts of color, tone and grain. Inlay in the custom furniture designed by the architects matches inlay in the tile mantle surrounds, and the interlocking joinery on the main staircase was left exposed. One of the wooden panels in the entry hall is actually a concealed door leading to the kitchen, and another panel opens to a clothes closet. The Greenes used an experienced team of local contractors who had worked together for them in Pasadena on several previous homes, including the Hall brothers, Peter and John, who are responsible for the high quality of the woodworking in the house and its furniture.

The woods, the low and horizontal room shapes, and the natural light that filters through the art glass exterior windows, coexist with a relatively traditional plan, in which most rooms are regularly shaped and organized around a central hall. Although the house is not as spatially adventurous as the contemporary works of Frank Lloyd Wright or even of the earlier New England "Shingle Style," its mood is casual and its symmetries tend to be localized - i.e. symmetrically organized spaces and forms in asymmetrical relationships to one another. Ceiling heights are different on the first (8'10") and second floors (8'8") and in the den (9'10") and the forms and scales of the spaces are constantly shifting, especially as one moves from the interior of the house to its second-floor semi-enclosed porches and its free-form terraces, front and rear. The third floor was planned as a billiard room, but was used as an attic by the Gamble family. The Gamble family crest, a crane and trailing rose, was integrated in part or whole in many locations around the house.

Exterior and gardens

Outdoor lamp on the back porch.

Outdoor space was as important as the interior spaces. Exterior porches are found off three of the second-floor bedrooms and were used for sleeping or entertaining. The main terrace is privately beyond the rear facade of the residence. It has patterned brick paving with planting areas, a large curvilinear pond, and garden walls made with distinctive clinker bricks and boulders. Paths made with large water-worn stones from the nearby Arroyo Seco are reminiscent of running brooks crossing the lawns. The overall landscape design and constructed garden elements are integrated with the architectural proportion and detailing. The triple front door and transom feature a Japanese black pine motif in plated (more than one layer) leaded art glass, highlighting the Asian influence that runs throughout the house.

History

Exterior view from front lawn, showing southwest-facing front door and front gable.

David and Mary Gamble lived in the house during the winter months until their deaths in 1923 and 1929, respectively. Mary's younger sister Julia lived in the house until her death in 1943. Cecil Huggins Gamble and his wife Louise Gibbs Gamble lived in the house beginning in 1946 and briefly considered selling it until prospective buyers spoke of painting the interior teak and mahogany woodwork white. In 1966, Cecil and Louise Gamble turned the house over to the city of Pasadena in a joint agreement with the University of Southern California School of Architecture. The Gamble House was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977. Today, two 5th year USC architecture students live in the house full-time; the selected students change annually.

The house is portrayed as the home of Dr. Emmett Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy, described as the "Brown Mansion" in a newspaper headline dated August 1, 1962, seen in the first film.

The house was included in a list of all-time top 10 houses in Los Angeles in a Los Angeles Times survey of experts in December 2008.

References

Further reading

• Images of The Gamble House - Masterwork of Greene & Greene, Jeanette Thomas, Univ. of So. Calif. 1989, ISBN 0-9622296-1-X

External links

• Official Gamble House website
• Gamble House Movies List - List of Movies that featuring the Gamble House.