REMUDDLING
A shape-shifting bungalow.
Here are two Arts & Crafts Bungalows, neighbors in a small city in southern Wisconsin. Both were built in 1918. With its original rooflines, front-facing dormer, and brick porch, one house (at right) remains essentially as built, save for a panel of privacy lattice that’s easily removed.
The other has been expanded with a rear-side addition. It’s highly visible, as the house sits on a corner lot. “I call it French Third Empire,” says our correspondent, making tongue-in-cheek reference to the mansard-ish (aka Second Empire) roof.
Some would argue it’s not as bad as the pop-tops seen on Chicago Bungalows, which look as though alien houses have landed on top of the old ones. Here, the façade is preserved. But why choose a roof that obliterates the original lines of the house, and seems more suited to a late-20th-century medical office or fast-food franchise?
A back extension, a bump-out that follows the original roofline, or a wide dormer at the rear may have been good alternatives for adding space.
History in front, misguided reno in the rear. — Paula Antonevich Myers