thumb|An example of the Eastlake Style in [[Glendale, California]]
The Eastlake movement was a nineteenth-century architectural and household design reform movement, which although started by the British architect and writer Charles Eastlake (1836–1906), was essentially a North American phenomenon. The movement is generally considered part of the late Victorian period in terms of broad antique furniture designations. In architecture the Eastlake style or Eastlake architecture is part of the Queen Anne style of Victorian architecture.
Eastlake's book Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery, and Other Details posited that furniture and decor in people's homes should be made by hand or machine workers who took personal pride in their work. Manufacturers in the United States used the drawings and ideas in the book to create mass-produced Eastlake Style or Cottage furniture.
The geometric ornaments, spindles, low relief carvings, and incised lines were designed to be affordable and easy to clean; nevertheless, many of the designs which resulted are artistically complex.
Although Charles Eastlake did not build furniture himself, he spent his years designing furniture to be built by professional cabinetmakers, among other artistic endeavors. The movement he created influenced the interior design of American homes with English designs that were easy to clean, functional, and simple. The ‘Eastlake’ style is of Victorian architecture and one of the core principles of this style was that Eastlake thought that the furniture in people's homes should be good looking and be made by manufacturers who enjoyed their work.
History
Eastlake movement was named after the English architect Charles Locke Eastlake (nephew of Sir Charles Lock Eastlake) following the release of his influential book Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details. Eastlake was originally a painter who trained in Rome and was considered to have great knowledge in art however he had a specific preference.
In Hints on Household Taste in Furniture, Upholstery and Other Details, Eastlake promoted Victorian style furniture which had opposed the curved features of the French Baroque Revival Styles. Instead, Eastlake style had "angular, notched and carved" features and although he did not produce any furniture himself, cabinet makers produced them. His book influenced custom designers as well as machine-made manufacturers who Eastlake abhorred. His quote "I find American tradesmen continually advertising what they are pleased to call Eastlake furniture, the production of which I have had nothing whatever to do, and for the taste of which I should be very sorry to be considered responsible" shows his stance on this.
Characteristics
thumb|Eastlake style table by Burr Brothers, circa 1885
Eastlake style applied to houses as well as furniture. Characteristics of these houses include the lathe-shaped wooden forms and mechanical jigsaw wooden forms. Porch posts and railings had intricate wooden designs and curved brackets and scrolls were placed at corners.
In furniture, Eastlake was particularly fond of oak and cherry wood grains; however, American manufacturers still used ebonized wood despite Eastlake's suggestions.
The entrance hall, double parlors, and dining rooms are significant in that the décor and character is preserved. The unpainted windows and stairway banister have natural wood finishes that have darkened over time. The doors, stairway panels below the railing, and dining room wainscoting have the same 19th century oak graining. The wallpapers, picture railings, period furnishings, and potted ferns are in the same style as the Victorian features of the interior. In the fireplaces in the rear parlor, family room, and dining room, there are highly polished, hardwood mantels above small fireplaces. Mirrors, polished tiles, and intricate shelves extend close to the picture railing. The entrance hall stairway has a banister and a light-topped newel post leading to the second-floor hallway which is surrounded by another open-work banister. There is a contrast between the white-painted woodwork and light embossed wallpaper with the darker woodwork and paper of the parlors and dining room. The doors upstairs are painted and panelled and each has a glass of transom above. The bathroom still has an old pull-chain tank toilet and the bath has an old clawfoot tub.
The characteristics of Winters House can be seen in the "steel pitched hip and gable roof, asymmetrical front façade, two-story angled bay under forward gable, mansard front porch and second story bay windows on both sides of the house". The roof of the house made of asphalt shingles and the walls are made from pattern siding covered heart redwood. The foundation of the building is a cement parged brick stem wall and the decorative brick chimneys are part of a coal burning fuel system. The interior of the house reflects the Eastlake style in the mantel spindles, the ornate tile work surrounding the two fireplaces, 12-foot second story coved ceilings and other details. The wall cladding in the main house is a horizontal shiplap with vertical lapboard. All of the windows are framed with grooved vertical moulding and other trim work, such as sunbursts above the second story windows. Below the cornice, the house also has a frieze board which includes scrollwork sunbursts and stars. In the front porch, above the front doors are cut window panels in jewel tones. The porch has a framing of fans, flowers, dentils, and spindlework. The spindlework and stickwork is repeated from the upper porch to the lower porch balustrade.
The entry hall of Thomas F. Ricks House contains a recessed ceiling panel that is outlined with molding ornamented with modillions. A bead course is used for decoration for the staircase newel post and squared balusters have a simple railing. The entry to the living rooms are double pocket doors and the living room ceiling is surrounded with box molding and underneath it, a picture rail. The floor is a carpeted hardwood floor with a plain 12-inch baseboard and all other rooms contain the same floor and ceiling finishes with a few variations in the walls. The Victorian rooms’ surrounds had bullseye corner blocks and lower ceiling finishes. The building is unique in that in Eureka, it is the only two-story building that is symmetrical with squared bay windows. Other Eastlake features of the house include: "the vertical stripes in the frieze, the brackets extending from the vertical strips, the narrow belt course, the cornice and brackets over the windows, and the wide band of trim under the cornice".
The second house is at 1329 Carroll Avenue. The exterior of this house has been shown, in one way or another, in all 178 episodes of Charmed, through eight seasons, from 1999 to 2006. In the show the house was dubbed "Halliwell Manor". The house depicted in the show shares the same house number, 1329, but is on the fictional Prescott Street in San Francisco.
Chateau-sur-Mer, on Bellevue Avenue in Newport, Rhode Island, was altered and expanded during the Gilded Age to incorporate an Eastlake style billiard room and bedrooms.
Glenview Mansion in Yonkers, New York, also known as the John Bond Trevor Home, was completed in 1877. Glenview is now part of the Hudson River Museum and has six interpreted period rooms in the Eastlake style.
See also
- Victorian decorative arts
- Stick-Eastlake