Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age

By Brent Hull

The author of Traditional American Rooms examines the evolution of home construction, making a case against mass-produced homes.

HISTORY®’s Lone Star Restoration star, Brent Hull is a master craftsman, and hands-on preservationist. Hull—a Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Finalist for architectural non-fiction—challenges us to consider the impact our decisions will have when building a house. What do our homes say about us? What stories are they telling? Are they declarations of integrity, beauty, and heritage? Or do they suggest we have lost our sense of value, craft, and harmony?

Nationally recognized as an authority on historic design, architecturally correct moldings, and millwork, Hull is uniquely qualified to speak to the craft of building and art of design. In an age of “instant”‘ homes, how do we build something timeless that weaves a tale of character, values, history, and heart? The decisions we make for our homes are not inconsequential. What we build defines us. In fact, the contrast between the way we build today and how structures used to be built has become only more vivid. What happened to craft? What happened to the art of building? Our values and what we believe about life have changed as well. We have come to see houses as a tradable commodity. We live in a time that is obsessed with “what’s next?” We need to be careful of fooling ourselves into thinking that a bottom-line mentality is the best way to approach building a home. Now is the time to examine ourselves, our motives, and our hearts.

Praise for Building a Timeless House in an Instant Age

“Part call to action, part exploration of technique, the result is a persuasive and enjoyable reminder that our homes are reflections of ourselves . . . . A pleasing, educational look at traditional home construction.” —Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Aug 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781612542034

Brent Hull

Brent Hull earned a degree in Preservation Carpentry from the North Bennett Street School. He is the founder of Hull Historic Millwork and the author of "Historic Millwork." A nationally recognized expert, Hull has appeared on Bob Villa's "Home Again" and "Old House Journal Television."

Book preview

Prologue

About ninety miles east of Paris lies the ancient city of Troyes. Its history extends back to the Roman era when it was part of a major trade route and was established on the banks of the Seine River. Standing on the cobble and brick streets of this historic city, you feel transported to another place and time. Most of the buildings in this section of town date from the 1500s and early 1600s. The architecture on the streets are full of personality, and everywhere you look the buildings pull you back to the sixteenth century.

They are mostly timber framed, jostling for attention as they rise up off the narrow streets. Varying in height, the buildings stand three, four, and five stories high. The ground floor still serves as retail space, much as it would have five hundred years ago. Walls are made of brick, stucco, and exposed timber, and on closer inspection, many of the timber faces are decorated. These buildings seem to be built with joy, happiness, and smiles.

One house’s timbered bracket ends are decorated with flowers, which alternate from end to end and beam to beam—on one a stylized sunflower, on the next a violet. The closer we look, the more artistry and craft we see expressed on the wood—even the edges are beveled and decorated. Along with beauty, function is clearly apparent. The timbers taper as they meet the windows, which allows in more light. Most beams and joints are hand pegged, revealing their historic construction.

Down the street, the variety of ornament and decoration is mind-boggling, as the neighboring buildings have different features and highlights. Instead of a chamfer, a bead runs all the way up a central post and then down the other side. Some brackets have little figures of saints decorating the ends, or faces, or geometric shapes. Some storefronts show more decoration than others; some clearly had greater wealth or a finer craftsman at work. One storefront exhibits a plant motif of vines and leaves that swirl and dip, enhancing the entrance.

The street is a dance of decoration, a song of celebration. All the buildings, though clearly from the same era, have their own personalities. They are similar yet distinct. They are caricatures and puzzles. They are playful and serious, happy and sad, rich and poor. Some, like old men, show their age with frames that are bent and hunched. Some are religious, with saints and crosses standing guard over doors. Listening from the street, a visitor somehow knows that these simple, ancient structures are speaking to us. Somehow the wood framing, the exposed timbers, and the creative decoration have something to say. The effect doesn’t feel monotonous; it is an animated conversation. It is not boring. It is alive.

I discovered the architecture of Troyes accidently. I was actually there to visit a historic tool museum. Housed in a three-hundred-year-old timber building, the museum featured a vast collection of ancient and handmade tools. Seemingly every trade that built this great town was represented there. I saw the tools for slate roofs, timber frames, plastered walls, stonework, ironwork, and even the tools for windows and doors.

The interior of the museum was stunning, with massive exposed timbers on walls and ceilings. Access to the tools was on the second floor at the top of a handcrafted oak stairway. The tools were kept in large glass cases, and I was immediately drawn to one case holding timber tools such as axes and adzes. The large case was about twenty feet long and held over seventy axes that would have been used to shape wood from trees into timbers. The shapes and variety were overwhelming—no two were exactly alike. Most of the axes appeared to be great battle axes made for warring Vikings. Some were large, with handles close to four feet long; some were short, with handles that barely matched the size of the iron heads. The iron heads and wood handles showed great variety. If a carpenter is only as good as his tools, I marveled at the skill of the men who used these. Surely they knew secrets I didn’t.

These axes looked archaic, even foreign. They reminded me that we have been separated from the work of building. We are no longer as close to the wood; we can’t read the grain. Instead of harvesting trees, truing up massive trunks, and working them by hand into timbers for our homes, trees have been standardized and simplified into sticks we nail together.

Only because of my training in historic preservation could I recognize these customized craftsmen’s tools. The wide steel faces were designed to shear as much wood as possible with each stroke. The stubby handles were made for close, tight work, and the curved handles were customized for left-or right-handed workers. They were efficient and ingeniously practical. What a different time and era to be building. No wonder their work was so ornamented, decorated with such joy. Work was a personal display of skill, not valued by speed, but by expression.

A lot has changed since then.

I earned a degree in museum-quality historic preservation at North Bennett Street School in Boston, and over the following twenty years, I have restored countless homes, historic buildings, and even train depots. I’ve remodeled homes, and I’ve built homes from the ground up. I have also become a millwork contractor and built windows and doors in homes all around the country. I have restored nineteenth-century early stone settler homes in Texas, and I’ve worked on prohibition-era houses with secret rooms and hidden drinking cabinets. I’ve restored Fort Worth Gilded Age mansions built with cattle baron money, the most famous being Thistle Hill, an American Castle profiled on A&E that featured one of the earliest carriage houses built to accommodate both horses and cars. I have rebuilt over twenty-five historic courthouses using antique lumber, and I was able to match the moldings and profiles exactly to how they were once built. Our firm has been blessed with great clients and a wide variety of projects all over the United States, from a multimillion-dollar Gothic home in Naples, Florida, to a new home for Barbara Streisand in Malibu, California. Through all of this, we have demonstrated that this type of careful building and restoration is quite possible, but it is the exception, not the rule.

In fact, the contrast between the way we build today and how structures used to be built has become only more vivid. What happened to craft? What happened to the art of building? I discovered that craft is no longer widely admired. Sadly, building skills are not a requirement for being a builder.

Over the last one hundred plus years, every process of building has deteriorated, from the way we design, to how we build, to the materials we use. Our values and what we believe about life have changed as well. In the last eighty years, we have come to see houses as a tradable commodity, an upgradable car lease that we use and then move on. Our houses are now disposable.

We live in a time that is obsessed with what’s next, the newest and trendiest. We stand in line for cutting-edge technology; we are quick to upgrade and search anxiously for the latest fashion. We are not reflective. We do not consider our past or those who have come before. Most moral decisions are made after a careful cost-benefit analysis.

We need to wonder if building cheap houses doesn’t cause us to become a cheap culture. In building, we are more focused on maintaining a certain price per square foot than considering how long the structure will last. We want to pay the lowest price for the most product; no wonder we have McMansions. We need to be careful of fooling ourselves into thinking that a bottom-line cost-basis mentality is the best way to approach building a home. Now is the time to examine ourselves, our motives, and our hearts.

What do our homes say about us? What stories are they telling? A scandal? Perhaps a gossip column crossed with reality TV? Or a declaration of integrity, beauty, and heritage? This discussion is important because these are the same values we are communicating to our children and the next generation. These are the values we communicate to other countries, reflecting the true character of our hearts.

Technological advances in homebuilding actually lead to homes that are not only poorly constructed but are also ugly. A great misstep of many million-dollar home owners is finding that their houses have a lot of bells and whistles but may not be sustainable, long-lasting, or well made. While technology is disposable and easily replaced, our homes are not.

We’ve lost sight of our homes as architecture that has intrinsic value and meaning. The decisions we make for our homes are not inconsequential. They weave a tale of our characters, values, histories, and hearts. As we cheapen the products of our lives through improved efficiency, we become a culture that has no ability to gauge beauty or value—costing us our very souls. Though we have improved the construction of a door, moldings, or walls, we are not improved.

There is a solution. A timeless approach to building is important to the character of our family, neighborhood, and community. We need to make sure we communicate values that we want to pass on to our children. Instead of chasing price, we can chase quality. If we make everything disposable, products we value aren’t worth anything. So instead, we must choose products based on enduring quality and beauty. We are building and defining our character, so let’s not be cheapskates. There is a difference between being cheap and being frugal.

Historically the idea of character in construction was common. Numerous authors and architects from the Renaissance through the early 1900s wrote about character and values in buildings. The character of buildings and the character of community were thought to be closely tied—if you wanted honest citizens, then build honest homes and buildings. Harmony, balance, and order in buildings naturally reflect individuals with those same ideals.

The commoditization of the homebuilding process has allowed us to substitute cheap imitations for honest values without realizing it. Because the changes have occurred slowly, over numerous generations, few recognize the consequences of these substitutes. We have substituted values that, though they appear equal, are poor replacements. Metaphorically, we have substituted physical beauty for inward beauty. They might both appear desirable on the surface; however, they are not equally valuable. To build a timeless house today, we need to desire and treasure timeless, inward beauty.

What we build defines us.

A Timeless House

My goal in writing this book is to help you understand that the house you build defines you and in turn defines our society. Because of my unique training, over the last twenty years in business, I have discovered a number of ideas and concepts that I believe define what I’m calling a timeless house—one that isn’t trendy, is well built, and is well designed. All the parts—windows to roof, door knobs to cabinets—work to tell the same story.

I think of houses in terms of narrative. Each house we build is a storybook. It is not hidden; it is not a secret diary. It is a proclamation of faith, beliefs, and values. Drive up to most custom homes, and you will see a clear story displayed about its owner, its builder, and its designer—or its lack thereof.

Many of the ideas and concepts in this book are presented to help you tell your house story more clearly. A good home should reflect your values, desires, dreams, and beliefs. This task of building a timeless house is made difficult because we live in a technology-obsessed, materialistic culture. The cards are stacked against you, but this book has been written to help you.

The first chapter provides a starting point by delving deeper into the idea of houses as storytellers, as open books wrapped up in their histories and ours. The other chapters provide additional lessons from the past, which in turn provide answers for going forward. Our building history holds many keys for success, so I spend time working through forgotten lessons that we need to understand. For example, chapter four explores how homes were designed before 1940, which will help you see why choosing the right architect or designer for your house is so important. Along similar lines, chapter five examines the history of production building, which sheds light