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| NW Glisan Street |
“Those Victorians must have had fun,” said my
friend who likes old houses. She was
referring to the bright, multi-colored paint jobs on old houses that have come
to be known as Painted Ladies.
Alas, if the Victorians had fun with their houses, it WASN’T
because of the vibrant pinks, purples, yellows and other hues applied to the
architectural details. No, the Painted
Ladies arose from the Flower Power generation in San Francisco in the 1960s.
The trend began in 1963 when an artist named Butch Kardum
used multiple colors to accentuate the details of his mother’s house on Steiner
Street. His creative paint job attracted criticism, but his neieighbors followed suit,
creating a street widely photographed by tourists to this day. The name Painted Ladies comes from a 1978 book
written about the phenomenon.
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| Steiner Street (Library of Congress) |
An example of Painted Ladies in Portland occurs on NW Glisan
Street, where four houses dating to 1906 – shown at the top – have four or more
colors applied individually to various details.
(The bright yellow digging machine in the street is purely coincidental.) These houses reflect the Craftsman era, where
the overall designs were simpler than the Italianate and Edwardian
designs that flourished in Nineteenth Century San Francisco. Nevertheless, the colors do grab one’s eyes.
In the original era of Victorian and Edwardian houses, color schemes
generally included just one or two colors on the main walls and a third color
for brackets, cornices and window and door surrounds. The colors available at the turn of the 20th
Century were more bland than the palette available now.
Bright colors on the Painted Ladies are eye-catching in
themselves. But if you are accustomed to
looking at architectural details, the vibrant colors help an observer
appreciate the various parts that contribute to the architectural whole. They offer a window into design techniques and craftsmanship from the long-gone era.
In addition, the Painted Ladies also testify to the skill of
the color designers and careful work y the painters. Painted Ladies don’t come from
spray guns. One drawback: The Sun's radiation makes the bright colors fade faster than the gentler, traditional hues.
If you know of other Painted Ladies worthy of our attention in the Portland area, feel free to add them in a comment.
---Fred Leeson
Join Building on History’s mailing list by writing “add me”
to fredleeson@hotmail.com
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I purchased a Victorian house in 1997 on NW Glisan up the street from the painted ladies pictured. I spent 10 years restoring it and making it a "painted lady" much like the Victorians I had known in San Francisco (pink, green, yellow, and cream). Four years ago I sold it to a Millennial. The first thing she did was paint it all gray. My friends in San Francisco tell me a similar phenomenon is happening there. The "all gray house" is becoming a generational statement of pride. Times change, people change. My parents' generation thought the painted ladies were "gaudy". Hopefully, Portland is not as trendy as San Fran and the all-gray-house will remain a silly California phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteIf I had one of the victorians I would paint it in vibrant, not pale, colors. Definitely not gray.
ReplyDelete