The Arts and Crafts movement originated in England in the 1880s when the designer William Morris (1834-1896) began writing and lecturing about the need for a "new birth" of the arts. He rejected classically inspired art and looked instead to the Middle Ages, local traditions, and nature for inspiration and subject matter. According to Morris, art was for everyone, not just the wealthy, and everyone was a potential artist or craftsperson. He feared that the prevailing doctrine of "art for art’s sake" was causing artists to lose touch with real people and life, and that his attitude would eventually kill art’s vitality. Ardent and articulate in his views, he persuaded others to look at common objects such as furniture, metalwork, wallpaper, textiles, and houses as subjects worthy of artistic expression. His philosophy became so influential that the Arts and Crafts Society was formed; it espoused the virtues of natural materials and fine craftsmanship, encompassed all aspects of design, and elevated the crafts to the status of art.

Although Morris was not an architect, he influenced many creative English architects, including Philip Webb (1831-1951), who designed Morris’s house, known as the Red House, in 1859. The design, modeled after local Gothic vernacular houses, was considered radical because vernacular houses were generally regarded as inferior and unworthy of emulation. The ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement – love of nature, and respect for the common man and craftsmanship – led many architects of the time to base their designs on traditional, rather than classical, houses built by country people out of available materials.

Two other English architects, C.F.A. Voysey (1857-1941) and Sir Edwin L. Lutyens (1869-1944), also influence the architecture of the Arts and Crafts movement. Voysey, who also designed furniture, wallpapers, and fabric, simplified and adopted English country house designs, creating a "new" usually smaller home for middle-income families. His work was published in Europe and the United States throughout his life. The Wade Pipes House (120), in Portland, with the medieval roof pitch of 45°, and the low opposing slopes of the two gables, clearly shows Voysey’s influence.

*The style descriptions are borrowed from the book "Architecture, Oregon Style."

The English Tudor style was one of the most popular styles in the years following the First World War. Wealthy Americans were attached to the English country manor house and used it as the model for their suburban homes. The characteristic half-timbering, usually only a superficial design placed upon a stucco wall, was based on the medieval tradition, which called for heavy timber framing with wattle and daub (a mud-and-straw or twig mixture) or brick infilling between the timbers. The sources for this fashion are to be found in English buildings of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Good examples can be found in most towns and cities throughout the state.

The Oregon Rustic style is comparable to the National Park style used for the lodges and buildings in national parks around the country. These buildings, designed to harmonize with their forested settings, used natural materials such as logs and local stone, and sometimes emulated to the look of pioneer or folk architecture. They resemble early log buildings but differ from them in their self-conscious use of rustic elements. The Rustic style was also influenced by the Great Camp architecture of the Adirondacks, a style used in resorts built for very wealthy American families between the 1880s and the 1920s. The buildings of these resorts were mansion-like wooden structures that used logs for siding, branches for posts and other rustic materials for furniture and decorative details.

Perhaps the first Rustic style building in Oregon was Cloud Cap Inn, built on Mount Hood in 1889. Its design by William H. Whidden featured log construction, a stone chimney, and a wood shake roof, trademarks of the style.

Crater Lake Lodge, built in 1914 with additions in 1924, and Oregon Caves Chateau, built in 1934, were both constructed in the National Park tradition. Timberline Lodge, built on Mount Hood between 1936 and 1938 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, is the finest example of the Oregon Rustic style. The Timberline project employed some of Oregon’s most noted craftsmen and artists, and remains today as a monument to their skills.

The United States Forest Service used this style in ranger stations, shelters, and lookouts in the early 1900s. During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) adopted the style in the many structures it built in recreation areas across the country.

New buildings borrow from the adjacent English Tudor building.

Note complementary massing, roof forms, masonry chimney and building base. One site defines the street with a hedge, the other with a masonry and metal fence.

Parking structures can be integrated with residential or commercial building by using similar materials and similar proportions of openings and by extending horizontal elements (i.e., cornice).

The garage entry takes advantage of topography to be visually subordinate to the pedestrian entry.

(Reserved)

All fences or walls over five ft. in height shall incorporate an open design where areas, either at the top of the fence or wall, or throughout the fence or wall surface in a regular pattern, are permeable to light. The solid surface area of any fence or wall over five ft. in height shall not exceed 83% of its total area measured in any five-ft. wide section. Lattice is exempt from the above calculation (LOC § 50.05.006.7).

The plants below are native to the Willamette Valley. They are adapted to local climate and soils. Planted in the right location, they should thrive with little or no maintenance.

These plants tend to dominate plant communities, crowding out other native plants. They generally have low value to wildlife, and some are considered harmful to humans. These plants are not good choices for landscaping. They may not be planted in resource areas. This prohibition also applies to sub-species and cultivars.

The following trees are prohibited as street trees, except those cultivars that do not have the characteristics identified by its species below:

Applicable to Old Town design standards, LOC § 50.05.006. See LOC § 50.05.006.6.b.

See "Solar Friendly Trees Report," dated April 1987.

(Reserved)