Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and to Arts and Crafts in America. I am from Long Island (but now live in England) and I was wondering if there are any examples of American Arts and Crafts homes, buildings, etc. on Long Island. My town Library (Smithtown) which must be from the early 20th cen. took out all their old wooden benches and chairs and put in not-as-nice modern ones. Had I known they were going to do this I might have tried to rescue one. If there's anyone out there that knows what happened to them please tell me. (long shot, I know!).

My family live not too far from Stanford White's house, but as it's privately owned still by the family (I think) I've never seen it.

Best,
Elizabeth

Hi again,

Thought I'd answer my own query. Forest Hills Gardens, Queens, is on Long Island!

A very informative website on it:
http://www.hotcakes.net/travel/Forest%20Hills/diary.html

Wow, very nice, very worth checking out if ever in the NYC area. Too bad the pictures are all a little small. Bigger pictures would really show it off.

Hi Stonecat,

This link has a slide show with bigger photos:
http://queens.about.com/library/weekly/bl-forest_hills_gardens1.htm

I grew up not far from there, and, believe it or not, I never knew of its existence. I'm off to NY this week, and will try to visit. Maybe take a few photos...

Alright got me interested...

Here's a book on Frederick Olmstead and the design of Forest Hills:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/product-description/15...396806?redirect=true



...and this is cool, an article from Gus Stickley's Craftsman (1911) about the design, as scanned and put on the web by a Prof from Cornell:

http://www.library.cornell.edu/Reps/DOCS/brush.htm

Excellent! Thanks, I was hoping there was a book out there. And the article is great with those old prints.

Btw, I know that in my neighborhood in Queens, a lot of the older homes (from the 40s and 50s - good style houses) are being razed to the ground, and rather montrous "houses" are being built, with no thought as to the character of the these older neighborhoods. I wonder if it's just going on there, or all over.

I think monster homes are happening all over. There are plenty up here in the Toronto area. Some places are passing bylaws to deal with them to some degree.

People with more money than taste, generally speaking, seem to be building them. There's nothing wrong with being able to afford these I guess but the designs are usually some gross distortion of Victorian ugliness, in my opinion.

We think of them as starter castles.

Yuk.

Bev.