A 7M$ "no compromises" Greene & Greene house....Fine Homebuilding Video

[ncguy77]

This thing is pretty maxed out.
But it should be at approx $1300/sqft.
Maybe the only thing missing is a Blacker house porte cochere

• Stained glass
• Huge timbers
• Massive Gamble quality stairway & entrance
• River stone and clinker brick
• Pegged, splined, fumed, and waxed millwork

http://www.finehomebuilding.com/item/12178/tour-a-greene-greene-style-masterpiece

I saved it with free Camtasia screen capture program because it may not stay up for long.

 

[Mt. Gomer]

Wow, that's amazing! Thanks!!

 

[eyekode]

Very cool

 

[mlzettl]

About half the work that I do is G&G, so I really enjoyed this video. Thanks for sharing it with us. It's especially nice to see that there are still some folks out there who can execute this type of quality work. Not cheap by any means, but if you have the sausage, go for it!

Matt

 

[MikeL]

I agree with Matt. It is great to see that craftsmen of this caliber are still out there working hard. I also love to see that there are people who execute projects of this magnitude, not because they have the monetary means to do so, but because they appreciate the craftsmanship and are willing to pay for quality work!

Thank you for sharing this link!
Mike

 

[Bill Clemmons]

Incredible piece of work. Wax all the woodwork every year: WHEW! ! ! ! ! :notworthy:

Bill

 

[Tarhead]

Beautiful! Somehow I think the 'help' will be doing the wax on, wax off. Wonder what kind of "reducing" agent they used? Potassium Permanganate?

 

[mlzettl]

Mark,

The classic G&G finish used potassium dichromate to darken mahogany. This stuff is really toxic, but it does have the effect of "aging" the wood by darkening it very quickly, like within minutes. Needless to say, one has to be very careful in handling, using, and disposing it. I remember taking quantitative analysis in college many years ago (????!!!), and using it to do the final cleansing of glassware before rinsing with distilled water. Our professor read us the riot act on it's use, and we were carefully watched to be sure we weren't using to much, or squirting it at each other.

In Darrell Peart's excellent book on executing various G&G details, he recommends using water soluble aniline dyes to get the same effect. Certainly, this technique is much safer, and the dyes are easy to get and pretty easy to use.

Matt

 

[ncguy77]

I stumbled on this by my eye catching the cover shot of it on a special Fine Homebuilding issue as I was walking out of the orange borg. Grabbed the thin issue and took it back to the self-checkout and was floored when it rang up as $9. Bought it anyway since I'd love to build a V shape like this someday (obviously much smaller) and I was wondering about the room layout and I wanted it in hardcopy just in case.

 

[ncguy77]

For grins I chased down the pricing from some place that still makes clinker bricks in old beehive ovens. About $1 a piece plus shipping. Not to hideous if you use it in moderation.

I've found no supplier for real arroyo rock but i guess the river rock in this new house is a fair approximation but I think they kind of skimped on the size (and maybe too uniform). IIRC, the real G&G's have some quite large stones where they meet the earth.

The large timber butresses by the swimming pool gazebo of this new house looks pretty nice though. They did good there.

The other misses that i see....

• Little to no metal strapping
• Seems like the radius on some of the large interior timbers edges seem too small so some stackups look a little flat. Especially evident on the very first shot of stacked timbers right after the picture of him making sausage.

 

[Tarhead]

Mark,

The classic G&G finish used potassium dichromate to darken mahogany.
Matt

Thanks Matt! I meant Dichromate but somehow my neurons from Organic Chemistry class fired and I was lighting up glowing splinters of wood again.:embaresse
"A mind's a terrible thing."

If anyone's interested, I visited the Gamble House in Pasadena and took the "Details and Joinery" tour a few years ago and have some exterior pics (+ 2 spy photos of a G&G Workbench in the Giftshop) here:http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showgallery.php?cat=1168
It was an over the top experience for me and I can not recommend it highly enough if you can swing a trip out there.

David Mathias' new book will be released in the fall and will be the best photo refererence yet on the Greene homes and furniture. There are some previews and a nice video on his website.
http://www.wood-and-light.com/

 

[ncguy77]

Tarhead,

Great pic of outside of window. Don't believe I've ever seen a shot like this in my half dozen+ books of G&G. Triple cloud lift!

http://www.ncwoodworker.net/pp/showphoto.php?photo=20168

I think I would use IPE for all the outside trim if I ever tried to do this. Stable and would essentially never rot.

But I'd hate the hassle of a real wood shingle (especially in wet/humid NC). I'd love if someone sold a thick vinyl shingle that had the signature muti-color (olive-green/brown/yellow) striated look.

Dream, dream,dream.....

 

[Joe Lyddon]

COOL...

His sausage must have been pretty darn GOOD! :eusa_danc