Porches and Landscape Design

Buffalo Garden Walk Porches

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I love porches. But, so many porches, porticos, veranda, terraces, and balconies have been disappearing on these old historic city homes. Porches bring a sense of stateliness to an impressive home, but time and poor upkeep is taking a toll on many that are left. Not only is the physical porch important, but as I alluded to yesterday, so is also the cultural aspect. Less and less people today use the porch as it was intended.

It suffers the humiliation of being turned into a poorly proportioned interior space, ripped from its home, left to sag and eventually fall to its demise. Dramatic, huh, but often true.

Ironically, the technological advancements that helped create the porch are also responsible for its decline. We learned more efficient means of construction and enabled our craftsmen with better tools to speed up work. As we improved and advanced, the new technology moved into producing more cost-effective square footage for the home itself, not the little used porch. Air conditioning, computers, TV, and other enticements lured people back inside. As the streets filled with cars, the population shifted to the suburbs. Porches started to become obsolete.

“Nobody thought much about the front porch when most Americans had them and used them. The great American front porch was just there, open, and sociable, an unassigned part of the house that belongs to everyone and no one, a place for family and friends to pass the time.” - Rochlin, The Front Porch, in Home, Sweet Home

Interestingly, no one is really thinking seriously about them today either. As early American tastes in architecture went through a transformation, one element remained, the porch. But as we approached a car in every garage mentality, the porch weakened in new design.

American porches seem to have not been wholly rooted in European tradition, but in that of colonial trade as well. When early Americans forged off to the trade routes of Europe, they detoured and stopped along the way. They became heavily influenced by island architecture and the open nature of the structures. They related to the humidity and saw the solution in the design of the porches. Whatever factors are responsible, America grew to love the concept of porch.

Luckily, we have a historic preservation movement afoot. This E.B. Green home in Buffalo is an example. It is a very unusual design worth preserving. The porch is very deeply set into the building, with a large overhang to the roof structure. I would just offer that the landscaping be revisited, so as not to take away from the home.  A serious pruning is in order.

What I appreciate here is a few things not seen much anymore. Long stairs to a landing well off grade. Raising the porch well above street level to afford some privacy, but still retain the connectedness to the neighborhood. Deep porches to catch nighttime breezes and the space to accommodate large families. Stone side walls to give a feeling of permanence.

Awnings were a common attribute back in the days when porches were used. They provided shade and cooling in summer.  Deep porches, if oriented south correctly, would allow winter sunlight to enter. The sun, which is low in the sky, could enter the home when needed. This is the case with my home, a deep porch, perfectly designed to allow for light to enter the living room through the two french doors.

Enclosed Porch

My historic home no longer has an open porch. It was enclosed by some unthinking owner back in the 60′s. I am trying to restore the structure, but many owners since have painted the brick.

I asked a mason friend, who restores old brick buildings, to come and use his skills to repair the front facade. Many weeks later and many techniques tried, the highly textured brick stubbornly retains the paint. Here is an image from about 1918 of the home with the original porch. It is peaking out behind my 92-year-old neighbor. It is a quandary to me why anyone would destroy the character of such a proud home.

The home had both round and rectilinear columns. Painted panels surrounded below and spindles were above. Awnings dropped from the sides.

I have redesigned the porch and am awaiting a method of paint removal. The design is drawn in Photoshop with no real porch as a basis. I took clues from the neighborhood and researched the era in which the home was built to create my schematic rendering. The porch is currently enclosed, so I removed that on the computer first. I use this method of design for study purpose. I can quickly change out a look for another. This method precedes a CAD drawing which is much more time intensive. It is a great tool for clients as well.

The Redesign

Sort of…

This was one of the first images I created in Photoshop back in 2001.  I have a much better command of the application now, but it serves the purpose as intended – a starting point of design. Remember, very little of this image is real.

2008 After Some Repair

The paint color of the enclosed porch was chosen to minimize the effect that this structure has on the home, but there is no denying how bad a choice converting the porch was to the home. The blue was added as an accent. Plantings are all in blue, white and pale pink. You can see how I am picking up color for the planting from the built environment. If I open the porch, I will keep the same color scheme, but will add in the tan to reference the Dryvit on the garage, which is out of view here.

Home today, Sort of…

But what is not existing as of yet is the redesign of the boxwood enclosed front beds as you can see from the 2008 image.

Note to you landscape designers out there, the concolor will become my indoor Christmas tree when it hits a cuttable 9.5  feet. Currently, it gets decorated for Christmas each year in the yard. I keep pruning the heck out of it in October of each year, but it keeps getting a little bigger and bushier each year.  Also, my contractor is a nurseryman with fields and fields of Christmas trees that he sells. So I can have a replacement anytime, live or cut.

Thought you might not believe me, so here is proof the little guy gets bejeweled for Christmas. I just love conifers.

The redesign is the next week. This is just a sneak peek at what I have planned. Bye-bye grass. Maybe a planting in the ‘hell strip’, I am not sure yet. Any ideas?