In the Kitchen

One of my favorite times in the kitchen is Saturday afternoon, all by myself, making a big mess preparing Creole and Cajun dishes. Whether I’m trying to cook my roux(flour and oil) to the perfect nutty brown for Gumbo, or making a simple pot of Red Beans and Rice, it is my place to unwind and anticipate the good food to come. At our home like most of the homes we design, the kitchen is the heart of the structure. Our ‘eat in kitchen’ is where we have family breakfasts and dinners, we help with homework, we gather with friends and family to discuss the important things in life. The kitchen is a magnet for gatherings and conversation. Many homeowners decide to renovate and expand when they realize they just can’t keep people out of the kitchen.

When designing a kitchen, it is important to remember the chicken/broccoli rules. That is, those two items generally come out of the refrigerator, are washed in a sink, will be cut up, and seasoned on a countertop cutting board, and will then probably end up either on the stove or in the oven(this pattern is also known as the work triangle). The kitchen should be designed to make this pattern work as efficiently as possible.

Some things to keep in mind while designing your kitchen:
· Provide the main sink with a view, hopefully a window.
· Design the kitchen to feel comfortable with the house.
· Provide ample storage and a pantry if possible.
· Allow for plenty of natural light as well as electric lighting on dimmers. You don’t have to turn them on, but they are there if you need them.
· Leave room on countertops for stuff, it always accumulates.
· Choose materials carefully:
o Some look great but are hard to keep stain free(if that is what you are looking for), i.e. marble and limestone
o Some can look cold, i.e. some granites
o Some may need to be replaced over time, i.e. butcher block around sinks
· Make your kitchen a fun place to be. You, your family and friends are going to spend a lot of time there.

The kitchen is one of the most expensive rooms in a home because of the cabinets, plumbing, appliances, finishes, etc. In most cases it also gets some of the most use and can increase the property value as well as the sense of enjoyment so important to making a home.

Crisp Kitchen Before

Crisp Kitchen After

Commander’s Red Beans

1 cup of chopped onions

½ cup of chopped bell peppers
½ cup of chopped celery
2 cloves of garlic, minced
½ pound of ham, diced
1 tablespoon of butter
½ pound of beans
water to cover the beans

salt and black pepper to taste

cayenne pepper to taste

¼ tablespoon of thyme

2 bay leaves

¼ tablespoon of oregano

½ pound of hot pork smoked sausage or Kielbasa (sliced)

Saute onions, bell peppers, celery and garlic with the ham in the butter in a large sauce pan until the vegetables are soft. Add the beans with enough water to cover. Add the salt, pepper, cayenne, thyme, bay leaves, and oregano and cook until the beans start to break up (about 2 hours). Add sausage and cook slowly for approximately one hour, until beans start to change color and are getting thick and creamy. Stir occasionally to prevent beans from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Remove from the heat until they are ready to serve. Serve hot.
Serves 8 to 10.

COMMANDER'S PALACE

1403 Washington Street, New Orleans, Louisiana

The Reluctant Authors (of On the Porch)

For almost as long as I have written this column about architecture, there has been a line at the end mentioning the upcoming publication of On the Porch written by Sandra L. Mahoney and myself. As the days draw near to this momentous event in our lives, my editor at Dutchess, Kate Goldsmith, asked me to write something about the book.

Our becoming authors did not follow the standard arc of most aspiring writers. I will admit that around the office we had mused occasionally about writing a book. If you are modestly successful at your profession and past a certain age, I think that just goes with the territory. That being said, I don’t think we ever seriously considered the next step in writing a book or had even come up with a realistic topic.

A couple of years ago, one of our projects which included a glassed-in porch was featured in Renovation Style magazine. As fate and luck had it, Inspired Home, a beautiful, well researched and now defunct magazine, asked us to write an article on porches. Sandee and I wrote the article which, combined with the fact that most projects at Crisp Architects include at least one porch, led Taunton Press to our doorstep. For good reason, there has been a long resurgence of interest in the American porch, and Taunton Press, being one of the most respected ‘shelter’ magazine and book publishers, saw a need for a new porch book. They decided to take a chance on two people who had never come close to writing a book. We, on the other hand, were flattered and anxious, and could not imagine how we would possibly be able to manage the increased work load, but in the end, we could not say no.

So, after discussing the pros and cons with our respective families(who would have to take up a lot of our slack at home) we jumped in, head first into the world of editors, publishers, photographers, and best of all…porches. When we told our friends that we were writing a book on porches the stories and childhood experiences came pouring out in wonderful detail. That confirmed what we believed about the importance of porches to our homes and our lives.

The first task in actually writing the book was to come up with an outline. With a lot of help from our editor, we settled on a format which included: before and after porches with their stories, details of how to build porches and make them work on a home, portfolios of porches around the country, historic examples with context, and finishing touches such as furniture, lighting, and accessories. And that was just the beginning.

As a member of the American Institute of Architects I put out a call for architects across the country to submit their favorite porch additions. Our summer intern, Evan Hauptman, spent the better part of that summer logging and filing submissions from architects and architecture schools nation wide. Once we and our editors had chosen which porches to include, Taunton Press hired photographers to take the best photos possible. Sometimes waiting days for just the right light. Luckily we only photographed the porches of very understanding and gracious homeowners.

Over the course of more than a year we wrote, and our editors rewrote, and we selected and reselected photos and stories to include in the book. We researched things we thought we knew already about porch history and materials and details. Admittedly, there were some days we felt like sausage makers.
(Originally published in Dutchess Magazine) Photos by James M Crisp, Brian Vanden Brink, and Rob Karosis


In the end, with the help of knowledgeable editors, talented photographers, gracious homeowners, and many writers and architects who came before us, we put together a book we are proud of. Our hope is that this book will encourage some fence sitters to become porch
sitters and others to learn the pleasures of sitting on the porch. (Available April 10th, at your favorite bookstore)

A Hays Town

The master architect, A Hays Town was a friend of mine. He passed away a few years ago at the age of 101. Although in recent years he was not as well known nationally as he deserved, he was the master of Southern(especially Louisiana) vernacular architecture.

At a time when traditional architecture was frowned upon by the architectural elite, he was its greatest proponent. In the 1930’s Mr. Town was on the cutting edge of modern architecture. One of his ultra modern ‘poured in place’ concrete school buildings made the cover of Life magazine. In his 60’s he ‘retired’ from modern commercial architecture to pursue his passion-traditional, residential architecture. He said, “residential architecture is personal” and that is why some architects love designing homes and additions and others can’t be bothered.

Mr. Town was the first architect I knew of who used recycled building materials on a daily basis. He did so not out of thrift or to save the planet, but because those materials had a history and a patina that was irreplaceable.


As an architectural student in Louisiana, I knew the work of A Hays Town very well. During those long hot summers, I would often work on construction sites, and as luck had it, I ended up on one of Mr. Town’s.

I recall looking across the room at a man in his 70’s on a step ladder. He was rubbing steel wool on some wood panels to show a finisher the level of color and hue he expected. I introduced myself and asked him about the profession of Architecture. He then, in his inimitable gentlemanly manner, spent an hour or so discussing the joy of building and invited me to tour his home. From that point forward I would periodically stop by to visit and later call, from New York to keep in touch.

He was a rare individual who is said to have designed over 1000 houses. Each homeowner felt honored to live in one of his thoughtfully designed homes.

In 1999 Philip Gould and Cyril E. Vetter produced the wonderful homage to A Hays Town in the book “The Louisiana Houses of A. Hays Town”-available through the Merritt book store as well as Amazon.com.

Mr. Town influenced many young architects, myself included. His work will continue to influence Architecture perhaps for centuries.

(Originally published in Dutchess Magazine)

Photos by Philip Gould

God is in the Details

My college architectural history professor would repeat this phrase as if it were the key to Architecture itself. This quote is attributed to renowned modernist architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. I believe he meant that the true beauty of a structure can be found in the details of that structure. His steel and glass structures are elegant and graceful at a distance and maintain that beauty in their details when you walk up and touch them. When I think of buildings that I like, the things I remember the most are the details. It might be the curve of a staircase, the drip cap of a window, or the brickwork in a chimney.

It is the details of a structure that can take it from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Here in Dutchess County we do not have any great Van der Rohe buildings, but I imagine you like myself, feel the difference when you walk into a home that was built in 1810 and one that was built in 1975. I am often asked by clients to take a home that they consider boring or “cookie-cutter”, maybe a 1970’s colonial and give it character… some personality and style. This can be accomplished by simply changing the details. We can take out the windows and trim and replace them with the exact same amount of material, but by placing them thoughtfully and detailing them correctly, we create an entirely different effect. The details at the eaves and gable ends can be reworked in ways that last longer and give the home presence. Unlike the 1810 home that has been kept in original condition, a 1970’s home after 35 years can feel dated or worse, begin to fall apart if detailed very poorly.

There is no question that complex details can be expensive, but with care, the same amount of material and a little thought can transform the mundane into the special. Ironically the simpler the building the more important the details and proportions become. You might hardly notice an odd detail on a Queen Ann Victorian facade, but I tend to notice every detail on an austere Shaker farm building.
When you consider that homes we build today may be in use by our great-great grandchildren or beyond, it makes sense to spend a little more time thinking about the details

(Originally published in Dutchess Magazine) Photos by Rob Karosis and H.A.B.S.

Projects' end

One of my least favorite parts of a project is it's end. During the process of designing and constructing the home, we have built special relationships with home owners, contractors and craftspeople which inevitably must change. Often those business relationships become friendships, but there is nothing like being part of that creation(ask any mother).

We work together as a team for as much as several years speaking at least once a week and exchanging ideas even more and then the project ends, the contractors move on to another project, the architects study their work and the home owners start their new life in a new home. Yes, we are all somewhat changed by the experiance.

The good news is that we are often brought back for another addition, guest house or potting shed and the fun begins again. At that point we are all friends and the process goes even smoother.


Photos by James Crisp

Dutchess Porches

Dutchess county has had a love affair with porches that goes back centuries. Although few of the earliest Dutch and English colonial homes had porches, it wasn’t long until they were added to the beautiful stone and wood houses.

Like most of the country, there were few homes built from the mid nineteenth century until after World War II in Dutchess County that didn’t have a porch. From Greek Revival farm houses scattered through Pine Plains to Gothic revival cottages in Rhinebeck they all had one or more porches.

The Victorians made porch building into an art form. With the advent of balloon framing, Victorian builders could easily create more complex shapes. With manufactured building parts becoming widely available, they could adorn their homes and well as their porches with layers of detail and complexity.

Porches influenced and were influenced by the neighborhoods around them. Summer evenings were spent on the porch, neighbors visited on each other and people kept track of their children and everyone else’s from those porches.

After World War II porches experienced a dramatic decline. New suburban homes had air conditioning which allowed their owners to spend more time indoors on hot summer nights, and the neighborhoods where they were built were better suited to automobile traffic than pedestrians. A generation of Americans grew up watching television and playing ping pong in basement family rooms.

(originally published in Dutchess Magazine) Photos by James Crisp, Rob Karosis and Graziela Pazzanese

Writing about Architecture

It has been said that Writing about Art is like Dancing about Architecture. Rest assured there will be absolutely no dancing in this Blog.

Instead I will share my thoughts about architecture in general and home design in particular. I am an architect, and have been one for over 20 years. Writing, for public consumption, is relatively new to me. But somehow after writing an article about porches, Sandee Mahoney (senior designer at Crisp Architects) and I were asked by Taunton Press to write a book on the subject (“On the Porch” to be published April 10th, 2007). And here we are.

Included in this blog will be reprints of a bi-monthly article I write for the regional publication, Dutchess Magazine on the subject of design, construction and architectural practice. I hope that this blog will be as much fun to read as my articles have been to write. And I will do my best to answer any questions regarding home design, time permitting.

Lets dance!

- Jimmy