NOVEMBER 2007 »  book review

In Addition

New Rooms for Old Houses: Beautiful Additions for the Traditional Home
by Frank Shirley
The Taunton Press, Inc., Newtown, CT: 2007
272 pages; hardcover; 300 full-color photographs and 35 drawings; $40
ISBN 978-1-56158-885-5

Reviewed by Nicole V. Gagné

The creation of additions has inevitably been a source of controversy for old-house lovers. Some take the high road when it comes to guarding the integrity of historic architectural fabric. The National Park Service, for instance, established a strict guideline regarding the old buildings within its jurisdiction: "New design [of additions] should always be clearly differentiated so that the addition does not appear to be part of the historic resource." Alas, this principle gets applied to too many old buildings, commercial or residential, and the results have usually been fairly calamitous, a mishmash of styles that compete with each other and generate a disjointed and unsettling experience. Such an atmosphere is the ruin of many a residence – a place where people generally want to feel that they're not just sheltered, but that they also dwell in a certain serenity that bespeaks something about themselves, along with the house's individual architectural history. And as families grow, as more people work from home, and as kitchens and bathrooms get continually updated and expanded, the need for quality additions to old houses becomes ever greater.

A welcome response to that need is a recent Taunton Press publication, New Rooms for Old Houses: Beautiful Additions for the Traditional Home, written by Frank Shirley. A Massachusetts-based architect who is also the Boston Society of Architects' appointed member to the Cambridge Historical Commission, Shirley has traversed the country examining intelligent and appropriate additions to a range of vintage house styles. The result is a first-rate work of architectural history that is an intelligent philosophical tract as well as a useful collection of hands-on information. A further bonus is the generous amount of case histories in New Rooms for Old Houses, making the book a superb reference tool for those interested in the interior design of vintage homes, be they professionals or homeowners. It is also a handsome addition to the coffee table, thanks to some 300 color photographs of old houses and their interiors, taken by photographer Randy O'Rourke.

Shirley lays his cards on the table in the introduction, where he insists that the guiding principle is the achievement of harmony: "For an addition to an old house to work, it must be in harmony with the original structure." He cites four cornerstones in arriving at harmony: balance between old and new ("achieved through the proper placement and sizing of your addition"); maintaining the distinction between public and private areas (people usually expand the informal areas, and so additions "most often belong at the side near the rear or off the rear of the original structure"); transitions where the house and addition meet ("they should avoid introducing new design features, and be sized modestly"); and materials ("simply copying from the original structure has its pitfalls," as the quality and nature of materials usually varies between formal to informal spaces).

These cornerstones are the basis of Shirley's text, and in four substantial chapters he takes each idea and runs with it. The opening section on balance examines principles of proportion as well as symmetry and asymmetry, and looks at four success stories, in French Colonial, Shingle, Spanish Colonial Revival and British Arts and Crafts styles. His chapter on public and private spaces within the house surveys the changing intentions behind room design over the years, with special attention paid to such increasingly important issues as adding more light to the house and selecting appropriate materials for private and public areas. Case histories here are American Foursquare, Federal, Cape Cod Revival and Prairie Style homes.

Shirley's account of transitioning from old to new spaces falls into two parts: "The Exterior" emphasizes telescoping wings, connectors and roof lines; "The Interior" looks at the selection of transition points and the design of doors and portals. The examples in this section are in the Greek Revival, Georgian and Queen Anne styles. The final chapter, which focuses on materials, is also divided into surveys of exteriors and interiors: The former covers materials for walls (shingles, clapboard, shiplap and board and batten, brick, stone, mortar, stucco and adobe) and roofs (wood, slate and metal). The latter survey covers walls (plaster) and floors (wood and tile), plus hardware, lighting and cabinetry. The final case histories are Tudor Revival, Colonial, Carpenter Gothic and Federal houses.

Other welcome and informative features of New Rooms for Old Houses are an architectural glossary and an array of running sidebars on various themes: The "Old House Style" sidebars describe details of the different architectural styles in the case histories; "About the House" covers a range of topics, from zoning restrictions, old vs. new windows, paint and air conditioning to such conceptual fundamentals as the golden mean and the orders of Greek architecture; "The Art of Craft" includes cupolas and monitors, replicating a gutter and downspout, stone walls and making a straight wall curve. Even more fun is to be had with Shirley's merciless "Train Wrecks" sidebars, a miniature rogues gallery of mismatched brickwork and mangled rooflines, illustrating what not to do when making an addition.

Shirley begins his book by assuring his readers, "You will learn how to approach expanding your home so that the beauty that originally drew you to it is not only preserved but also enhanced." That's a fairly tall order for a book to fill, but New Rooms for Old Houses does the job with lucidity, expertise and practicality. 

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