The Mystery Architect Of Metropolitan Home’s Grand Prize House
[Click on graphic to view larger image]
The 2002 Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House of the Year
The above photo illustrates “The Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House of the Year” article from the January 2002 issue of that magazine.
Viewers who have read the recent Heck of a Guy posts, Heck of a House: A Manor In The Jacobsenian Manner and More About Jacobsen, will not be surprised to learn that I originally purchased this issue of the magazine from the newsstand because the pictured Grand Prize House of the Year was so distinctly characteristic of the style of Hugh Jacobsen1 that I was intuitively certain that it was designed by or, like my own home, directly influenced by that architect.
The Pristine White Barn That Inspired The Grand Prize House
As it turned out, the article contained no reference to Jacobsen. Instead, the inspiration for the design was described as an epiphany:
After a year’s focused research into different architectural styles, the couple [the owners] stumbled upon a solution serendipitously, during a country drive. “We spotted a pristine white barn alone in a field,” recalls Tony. “It had no shrubs, no adornments, no distractions. That was it.”
Hmmmm. Ol’ Tony sees a barn and creates an original home design.
Remarkable.
Even more remarkable, the owners were able to spend a year preforming “focused research on different architectural styles,” yet somehow keep their final concept pure, uncontaminated by the work of at least one architect who designed a batch of houses that look a lot like theirs.
To build our home, Heck of a House, in the same style, Julie, Builder-Buddy,2 and I had to steal adapt Jacobsen’s concepts. I feel so dirty.
The Plot Thickens
To recapitulate, the six page article in this well-known magazine proclaiming this place the “Grand Prize House of the Year” presented it as an original design (inspired by a pristine barn) by the owners, Anne and Tony Vanderwarker, and a Virginia architect, Jeff Dreyfus, although, even to a amateur like me, the resemblance to Jacobsen’s work was unmistakable and immediately recognizable with a single glance at the photo of the house.
Still, my autodidactic architectural studies have admittedly been sparse, spotty, and sporadic. To assure that my suspicions weren’t the result of exposure to too many conspiracy theories, I emailed the article to the normally calm, cool, and controlled Builder-Buddy, who became apoplectic, sending the publishers a message studded with terms such as “absolute travesty,” “thinly veiled copy,” and “stealing his [Jacobsen's] design.”
The essence of the magazine’s reply consisted of the statement, “We erred in not crediting Mr. Jacobsen, which happened when a paragraph of text was mistakenly omitted from the story and no one noticed,” and a promise to print an apology. They also noted that Builder-Buddy’s “absolute travesty” note was “not the first” they received.
While it was. as I noted at the time, difficult to see how “after a year’s focused research into different architectural styles, the couple [the owners] stumbled upon a solution serendipitously” fits with “a paragraph of text [crediting Jacobsen] was mistakenly omitted from the story and no one noticed,” the magazine had ‘fessed up, and my interest diminished below the threshold that would have prompted me to expend a few bucks for the purchase of the next month’s issue of Metropolitan Home just to check the promised apology.
But Wait, There’s More
This episode came to mind as the topic of a Jacobsen-related post after I wrote the earlier blog entries referencing the architect. Because I could find little on the Internet directly from Metropolitan Home dealing with this matter,3 I extended my search and consequently discovered this pertinent article by Patricia Rogers, originally published in The Washington Post (February 10, 2002) and reprinted in The Milwaukee Journal:
Magazine Errs In Citing Source Of Home’s DesignA Virginia home infused with the purist vision of Washington architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen is prominently featured in Metropolitan Home this month. And prominently missing is any mention of Jacobsen. The house, the 2002 grand prize winner of Met Home’s annual house design contest for homeowners, grew from plans by Jacobsen originally published in 1998 as part of Life magazine’s Dream House series. Virginia architect Jeff Dreyfus, who gets the credit in the magazine for the design, along with homeowners Anne and Tony Vanderwarker, says his clients ordered the plans from Life but asked his firm to modify them. “It’s obviously that (Life) house, but we customized it. We moved rooms around, added a garage with an artist’s studio above and researched a lot of new materials.” Despite significant modifications, the house, with its signature Jacobsen-style pavilions, dormers and towering chimney, still bears an unmistakable resemblance to the Life house. A philosophical Jacobsen says all 85 houses built so far from the plans have been altered significantly. Nevertheless, “having them say ‘influenced by’ or ’school of Hugh Newell Jacobsen’ would have been nice.” Met Home Editor Donna Warner says she recognized a Jacobsen influence, but the Life connection “never dawned on any of us. Though the architect of record made many changes, we should have said it looked derivative. It was a terrible oversight on our part — a sad mistake.” The magazine will publish a correction noting Jacobsen’s contribution.
Yep, a paragraph of text was mistakenly omitted from the story and no one noticed in the email message to the complainers in northern Illinois became [The editor] recognized a Jacobsen influence, but the Life connection “never dawned on any of us. … It was a terrible oversight on our part — a sad mistake” when the Washington Post interviewed the Metropolitan Home Editor. I suppose that hypothetically one can use the rhetorical equivalent of non-Euclidean geometry to reconcile those statements, but it looks suspiciously as though the proofreader’s error has been revealed to be an editorial mistake.
And yep, the folks taking the credit for the 2002 Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House of the Year were not only inspired by a pristine barn but also had the benefit of the considerably more detailed plans4 for the 1998 Life Dream House designed by Hugh Jacobsen, a residence which was apparently so obscure that the editorial staff of Metropolitan Home didn’t notice the resemblance.
[Top: 1998 Life Dream House; Middle: 2002 Metropolitan Home Grand Prize House;
Bottom: Suggested variations on 1998 Life Dream House]
The Moral Of The Story
Well, there must be at least one. Check your sources? Acknowledge the contribution of others - or at least don’t borrow uncredited ideas from a well known architect with an incredibly distinctive style? Don’t shift a few lines around on store-bought house plans and call it your own creation? Don’t whine when you’re caught? …
How about
Footnotes
- Hugh Jacobsen is an outstanding architect whose residential work I much admire. I heartily recommend that those unfamiliar with him check out his web site, Hugh Newell Jacobsen , Architect and my own post about his influence on the design of my own home. ~back~
- ”Builder-Buddy,” I have belatedly discovered, is a fairly frequently used appellation; consequently, I should make clear that unless otherwise noted, the use of “Builder-Buddy” in this blog exclusively refers to my home builder and buddy, who is not, to my knowledge, associated with other “Builder-Buddy” named entities, including but not limited to corporate divisions, accounting software, construction tools, and icons ~back~
- The illustration and quotes from Metropolitan Home used in this post are from my own files. ~back~
- The plans for the Life Dream House were, as architect Jeff Dreyfus points out in his own defense, adapted: “It’s obviously that (Life) house, but we customized it. We moved rooms around, added a garage with an artist’s studio above and researched a lot of new materials.” Does this sound to anyone else like an college freshman defending a plagiarized essay by claiming he re-arranged the order of the paragraphs? ~back~
How many months before that editor was no longer on the masthead?
Comment by Mrs. Linklater — July 21, 2007 @ 8:42 am