Mid-Century Modest Design of Westgrove: Architecture for Lifestyle

Have you ever wondered about the style of our houses in Westgrove? To the passing eye, it looks like a nicely kept yet fairly typical (and perhaps unremarkable) suburb. But look into the history – local and national – of our neighborhood and you will realize that it is a fully intact collection of carefully conceived models with features that were aimed to provide an ideal environment for the average American family. And some of them are even nationally trend-setting designs!

Mid-Century Atmosphere

Economically the mid-1950s were an era of optimism. Having been relieved of supporting the war effort, U.S. factories were now producing consumer goods for the middle class at full throttle. Cars grew in size, became embellished in chrome, and sported tail fins to reflect the new Jet Age aesthetic. Color television (since 1953) was barely in its infancy, Elvis Presley’s career (1954) started the same year as Westgrove was begun, and Disneyland would open soon (1955).

As in every era, home was a refuge from larger challenges abroad and at home. The Korean War had just ended, and in 1954 McCarthyism was condemned, but the Cold War was heating up by increasing nuclear tests. Echoing the arms race, the Space Race toward the Moon Landing was still in the future – NASA had not yet been founded (1958, same as the Interstate System).

Mid-Century Design

Mid-century design is instantly recognizable in vehicles, household objects, and architecture. Common to its manifestations are bold lines and curves, a form reduced to essentials that show its function (Saarinen’s arch in St. Louis and sweeping roof at Dulles airport), clear materials (natural and artificial), and vibrant colors and combinations (think orange and turquoise).

Style

So what style is Westgrove? The prior decade had mass produced Levittown suburbs (since 1947), subsidized for returning WWII soldiers, with some neo-colonial elements (compact gable roofs, white clapboard, window shutters, and the obligatory picket fence) in cookie-cutter rows of tract houses on flat bare areas. On the other extreme, neighboring Hollin Hills (since 1947, now a historic district) employed a minimalist geometry of wooden frames and glass walls to open the insides to sweeping views of sloping plots with carefully preserved mature trees. In an amusing twist, its architecture was so modern as to be suspicious to some contemporaries.

Stylistically, Westgrove is mid-century modest, a term popularized by Retrorenovation website to describe that [after WWII] while we built maybe 1 million mid-century moderns – we built some 29 million Mid-Century Modest homes. Unlike recent oversized mansions, these homes are modest (but this is relative to today’s sizes) – averages grew from 1,000 and 1,200 square feet during the 1950s. Very few have two-car garages, as women were still mostly home makers. Yet their designs offer multiple bathrooms and integrate modern conveniences already.

Layout

With already over 30 years of experience as a homebuilder, four nearby subdivisions under his belt, and an office on 134 North Kings Highway, Clarence Gosnell was well established as a national leader in the home builders community by the time he began developing and building Westgrove. His architect, Richard Gomersall, crafted attractive designs – neither simplistic as Levittowns nor purist as Hollin Hills – that reflected the expectations of the burgeoning middle class. Westgrove designs may well have been intended to be trendsetting – individual designs as well as the entire community would receive numerous awards that were eagerly included in the many newspaper advertisements. Several Westgrove models would be replicated in the future much larger Gosnell developments Waynewood (such as Dover, Haddon, Suffolk – a lot more than in Westgrove, and Swarthmore) and the award-winning Riverside Gardens. All of them share highly desirable locations along the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway (the older south segment of the George Washington Memorial Parkway) with sweeping river views and easy commuter access to the then decade-old Pentagon / Pentagon City and beyond to DC offices.

March 31, 1957, Washington Post and Times Herald

Swarthmore Model, Westgrove Sales Brochure

A Better Home and Gardens (BHG) magazine article from September 1954 featured the ‘Home for All America’, which was the Gosnell Firm was selected to build in Marlan Park, located at the corner of Quander Road and Fort Hunt Road, directly across the street from the future Westgrove. Its principles are still fresh on the designer’s mind to reach the “perfect in-between” of style and site use, as BHG phrased it: Split levels are common, as are ranch-style two-floor homes with the entrances on the upper level of a sloped lot. House facades are usually asymmetric (different from colonial style), but harmonious in their visual mass, e.g. balancing a two-floor section with a chimney on the other end. A single roof slope (even if multiple surfaces exist or their gables are at right angles to each other) gives a consistent and pleasing appearance.

Floorplans – Public Side

A floorplan template can be varied, such as with a fully or partially mirrored arrangement of rooms, or a carport versus garage option. Garages never dominate the façade or protrude, may be relegated to a one-floor section, or tucked around a corner (on the lower floor if terrain allows). From the driveway at one side of the front lawn a walkway leads to the off-center front door with coat closet. From there traffic flows easily to the living room with a feature fireplace. Beyond is a sitting room or screened porch for entertaining. This composes the public side of the house that guests may see. Nearby the central kitchen often has booth or island seating for informal meals.

Triangle Kitchen in Suffolk Model

September 1954 Better Homes and Gardens

Floorplans – Private Side

The kitchen usually has L-shaped generous countertops, to enable the ‘work triangle’ of food storing, cleaning, and cooking (built-in refrigerator, sink, and stove) that was well established by then. Less common is a longer galley layout. It connects via a door to the adjacent dining room, completing the public side of the house. Hallways are few and short, and the stair is central. A utility room is tucked into an inconspicuous but easily accessible location for water heater and furnace, as well as washer, dryer, and possibly a sink and freezer. The private side of the house consists of bedrooms, each of which has its own built-in closet; the main bedroom typically has two and access to its own bathroom, while the other bedrooms share another bath. In the larger house models, a separate activity / recreation room is added, usually on the ground floor. Toward the rear is a spacious patio for cookouts. A garden shed may sit at the corner of the backyard.

Idea Home

Yet it is the September 1956 issue of BHG that truly puts Westgrove onto the national map of homebuilders. Entitled ‘Idea Home of the Year’, this ranch-style ‘Five Star Home’ (the BHG medium-priced 2-4 bedroom floorplans) is espoused on 17 profusely illustrated pages. Architect Ralph Fournier incorporated desirables from a national market survey for a new way of living:

• A flat carport roof links the main house with the garage, and also allows protected outdoor play on rainy days. It has several skylights to provide more daylight for the kitchen windows.

• A living room with fireplace in a separate front wing. It opens onto a privacy-fenced terrace.

• A family room has evolved from a dining room. It connects to a screened porch and kitchen. Unusually, a wall closet off the family room holds washer and dryer and an ironing board.

• The kitchen has L-shaped countertops. It is open to the family room to e.g. supervise children there while cooking, foreshadowing but not yet serving today’s role as a family hub. Instead of solid walls to contain noise and smells, it can be curtained off with a curved-track drapery.

• The main (parent) bedroom is located far away from the living room for maximum privacy.

• Two bedrooms for three children, assumed as two girls and one boy in this average family.

• A unique dual bathroom with separate compartments for two toilets / sinks and a joint tub room for maximum use in a compact space. It is located between two of the three bedrooms.

• Stairs from the family room access the lower level and have a door to the rear yard as well. The lower level is a partial basement and does not extend below the living room and kitchen.

• A recreation room on the lower level (enthusiastically called daylight basement) for children to play inside or access the rear terrace. Vinyl flooring offers a colorful hopscotch pattern.

• The lower floor has a bathroom with tub for possible overnight guests in the recreation room.

• Below the family room is a generously sized workshop for hobbies such as woodworking.

• A separate storage room, and the utility room for the air conditioning unit and water heater.

The Gosnell Firm was chosen for the DC region from among about 100 builders nationwide to erect this unique model design, which was fully furnished by the Hecht Company for a well-advertized grand opening. You can view it on 1402 Middlebury Drive; twins rose in most states.

Westgrove Models

Comparing the innovative features of these BHG homes shows that many of these ideas have been incorporated in the floorplans of the named models in Westgrove. Thus Westgrove is not just a carefully planned residential development, but – as on their prior subdivisions – a testbed for the Gosnell Firm, who would go on to build Waynewood, then Riverside Gardens, and later River Falls in Potomac, MD, and is a true showcase of the best ideas for quality living of its era.

While Westgrove has an impressive 15 named house models (plus 8 custom-built homes), a closer look at their floorplans reveals these distinct styles, sizes, and variants within them.

Ramblers

While appearing as a one-floor from the street, all models indeed have a lower floor toward the rear yard. True ramblers – one-floor buildings – had been popular since well before WWII and evolved into a separate peak in residential designs by Prairie School architects, including famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Westgrove advertisements praised ramblers for their ‘skillful balance of brick [or natural stone in random ashlar bond] and wood, of vertical and horizontal lines’.

Ranch-Style (Rambler, Small L-Extension to Rear (Kitchen in rear, living room in front)

Split-Levels

Why were split-levels so popular? Besides the obvious convenience of often only being half a stair away from where one wishes to go in the house, it may also have been popularized by a quirk in the Fairfax County real estate tax assessment, which is based on the ‘above ground living area’, which are the finished spaces (not counting bathrooms and hallways) that are at and above the front door threshold. The lower (below grade) floor is counted as a finished basement.

Split-Level (1+2, no garage, Side Gables)

Haddon (kitchen in rear, living room in front)

Colonial

Interestingly, several models – namely the Stephens and Swarthmore, which were advertized as colonial-inspired, possibly also the similar Baylor, and the two-floor Tulsa – trace parts of their design lineage to some traditional features as they may be found in Colonial Williamsburg and other historic locations. These include solid brick construction, symmetry among windows within one-floor and two-floor portions of the overall structure, large brick fireplaces with tall chimneys, and window shutters (even if decorative rather than functional or with a size matching the opening). Yet their composition may have evolved into split-level between their portions.

Split-Level (1+2+2-floor garage, Side Gables)

Westgrove Amenities

Air Conditioning

Westgrove homes are heated with forced air systems whose ducts are embedded in concrete slabs, stud walls, and between ceiling joists, which exit through stamped metal wall registers above baseboards. Homes also have large and effective whole-house fans above slats in the upper floor ceiling to expel hot summer air into the attic before going to sleep. To add moisture, AprilAire introduced its whole-house humidifier in 1954. Rotating felt disks immersed in a water bath moistened the airflow. In fact, air conditioning had existed (initially limited to pricey retrofit window units) since two decades, yet in the early 1950s their popularity took off when designed whole-house systems had become available. Gosnell capitalized on this trend by inviting Miss Washington contestants to visit a Westgrove home with ‘beauty conditioning’ – a marketing campaign by the manufacturer Lennox that emphasized how precise temperature and humidity control protected skin and hair – and publicized this publicity stunt via a June 10, 1956 article in the Washington Post and Times Herald. Another article on September 23, 1956 reviewed ‘dream homes’ from a woman homemakers’ perspective, with an individual paragraph and photo each espousing the dream kitchen and living rooms from the aforementioned Westgrove Idea Home.

Kitchens

Kitchens in Westgrove were by General Electric with either pastel-colored enameled steel cabinets or natural birch finish. Their virtues as modern and efficient Western developments for homemakers were exemplified on a Tulsa model from Westgrove and extolled in an unusual article that was written in Russian by the United States Information Agency for Soviet readers.

Stoves and ovens were usually separate units. General Electric ranges offered built-in broiler drawers as an option. Ovens advertized their thermostat control for accurate baking and roasting and provided methods and tips in their sales brochure. Refrigerator brochures included recipes for ice cream, frozen pies and mousses, and the then-popular aspics, fruit salads, and vegetable salads. Thanks to a rounded back wall they boasted a revolving stack of lazy Susan shelves plus vegetable drawers and door shelves for small items in the upper main compartment, and a bottom freezer with ice cube trays, wire drawers, and door shelves for ice cream and frozen juices.

Storage

A unique feature –not advertised separately – in most models (Andover, Baylor, Colgate, Dover, Greenbriar, Haddon, Jefferson, Stephens, Suffolk, Swarthmore, and Tulsa) of the 15 Westgrove floorplans are double-closet walls, which separate adjacent bedrooms to enhance quietness. In the split-level sister models Dover and Suffolk, double closets are even stacked vertically so that the coat closet on the main floor turns into a half-high bathroom closet above.

Materials and Colors

Original Interior materials throughout Westgrove homes are high quality and have lasted in great condition for almost 70 years. Some hallway lights are solid brass with frosted or faceted glass. Ceiling lights in bedrooms are flush-mounted one-foot diameter round or square shallow frosted white glass domes, which vaguely resemble a UFO (though probably not deliberately).

Fireplaces – some with raised hearth in the large house models – are brick masonry on their own thicker foundation pad, surrounded by wooden trim and topped by molding that supports a mantel shelf. Trim around doors and windows has a clamshell cross-section and is painted white.

Red oak is used in 9” tongue-and-groove parquet tiles in the living room, solid plank flooring in hallways and bedrooms, stair treads, and built-in bathroom shelves. Less trafficked areas are vinyl (have a sample tested, some may contain asbestos). The stair railing has a top rail with stile pattern welded from channel and tubular steel, held by a wood newel post with a simple finial.

Double-hung sash windows are made with solid wood frames and typically have 6 over 6 panes divided by muntins. Casement (swing-to-open) windows are rarer, e.g. in kitchens. Sliding closet doors hang from aluminum tracks and are heavy plywood. Interior doors are hollow-core painted plywood without any paneling. Front doors are traditional rail-and-stile with filler panels, to accommodate seasonal movement of the solid wood frame, and sometimes glazing in the top.

Bathrooms

Pink bathrooms! And other pastel colors! Bathrooms are a key feature for an attractive home and no era was more exuberant in using color than the 1950s. Pink in particular was popularized by no other than First Lady and middle class icon Mamie Eisenhower. Westgrove still is home to several original as well as restored stylish bathrooms and they continue to give more cheer than plain white ever can. Preserve and cherish yours – they will not ever be built that well again.

Bathroom Colors and Materials

Buyers could choose their own color scheme. Walls have wainscoting tiles in ceramic 4-½” squares with bullnose trim in a darker tone, plus matching heavy ceramic towel, toothbrush, and toilet paper holders that are set among the tiles. Floor tiles form a two-tone mosaic in a repeating pattern of small squares, which is set into a very sturdy mortar base. Porcelain sinks in pastel colors may be chrome-legged or built into a convenient vanity, but are single (not separate his or hers). Toilets match the sink in color. Mirrored and sometimes lit medicine cabinets are chrome and may feature a razor blade disposal slot (into the wall cavity). Cast-iron enameled bathtubs could match or even contrast the overall color scheme– you could have both blue and pink!

Paint Colors

Color is fun! And an important way to personalize a home. An advertisement for Marlan Park – built just before Westgrove – stated that buyers could choose from 115 interior colors. Paint is for enjoying your own home now, not to please buyers in a distant future when realtors preach a blank slate, and rental apartments will only be beige as the least common denominator. Exterior siding is advertized as redwood. Some original shingles were found in moss green.

Kitchens

Kitchens feature a choice of natural birch cabinets or enameled steel cabinets with ample lower and upper doors and some drawers. Long countertops are made of Formica, as the original blueprint specifies; which come in white with colored sprinkles or an accent color (e.g. green).

Paneling

And who can forget knotty pine paneling particularly in the recreation room (or other spaces such as a half bathroom). Heart pine is an extremely popular natural material of the era, which unlike drywall adds instant rustic character and despite today’s strong opinions ages gracefully.

Furniture

No article about mid-century modest homes would be complete without at least mentioning furniture, although this topic truly deserves its own thesis. Besides the likely modern furniture by Hecht in the 1956 Westgrove Idea Home, some photos in articles even show interior furnishings, such as a staging by Wellington House of Alexandria. They range from upholstered armchairs with tapered low legs and drum-shade lamps to long skirted sofas and tufted button armchairs.

A Planned Residential Community – Utilities and Nature

One would be remiss to not also mention Westgrove ‘amenities’ as a whole – starting with the invisible but important utilities. Early sales ads that listed Westgrove lots for sale emphasized that “sewer, storm sewers, curb, gutter, surfaced street, gas and water” had already been provided ready to connect to the future houses. All houses have concrete driveways. Full sidewalks with grass medians on both sides of all streets are unique amenity (missing in nearby subdivisions by other developers), which greatly contributes to the neighborly atmosphere of Westgrove. Bylaws preclude fences in front yards (simple slat fences delineate back yards) to deliberately create the park-like ambiance. Spacious lot sizes average 1/3 acre and have deep setbacks to give generous front yards as well as secluded back yards. Of course, virtually every mention of Westgrove praise its immediate access and views of the beautiful parkway and river. But perhaps its most uncommon feature – then and now – is that the Gosnell Firm retained much of the already mature canopy. Yes, your trees may predate your house. This was explicitly included in various newspaper advertisements (“large shaded back yard”, “wooded lots – averaging a third acre”, “all possible trees left standing”) and would be wise for today’s property developers to emulate.

Awards

Two designs have garnered separate awards – the Tulsa won Best Individual Home (1956) and the Swarthmore won 1st place for Individual House (1957) by the Northern Virginia Builders Association, and the entire Westgrove community won as Best New Subdivision in 1956.

Conclusion

Overall the “architectural artistry” of each Westgrove house model and the “careful and long-range planning” of the community has stood the test of time for generations. Some residents who grew up in Westgrove have raised their own families here – what better endorsement can exist? Clarence Gosnell and Richard Gomersall would be proud that after almost 70 years Westgrove continues to be a cherished place to call home. Mr. Gosnell actually put his own name into some houses in inconspicuous places – perhaps you also find it hidden somewhere in your home?

September 1956 BHG Idea Home of the Year

Andover (1-car garage front, porch rear)

Split-Level (1+2+garage, Front Gable) – smallest model

Dover (single low gable for cathedral ceiling living room, kitchen in front, garage under roof)

Baylor (kitchen in rear, upper floor main bathroom over garage, lower floor single room)

Swarthmore (kitchen in rear, upper floor main bathroom over garage, lower floor recreation / utility room, expansion space under gable – echoing Levittown homes)

Kitchens Can Be Dynamite, March 29, 1958, Evening Star

Hallway light

Pink Bathroom in Swarthmore Model

Kitchen Blueprint for Tulane Model

Baylor (kitchen in rear, upper floor main bathroom over garage, lower floor single room)