If the old saying “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” is true, then Jud Yoho should have been mighty flattered! Anyone who has spent any time poking around search engines looking for information on Craftsman bungalows has likely run across his name. Sadly, however, it’s a name which remains surprisingly unknown. Yoho was a successful (and agressive) self-promoting designer and builder of Craftsman style bungalows in Seattle, Washington, in the early twentieth century. Because of his mail-order plans, examples of his designs can be found across the United States and in Canada.
The Texas native’s designs were very popular; so popular that they were often imitated and published without credit by competing plan-book publishers. His work even caught the eye of Sears, Roebuck and Company which, to the company’s credit, compensated Yoho when they licensed the plans for his Design No. 325 and marketed them as a kit house named the Argyle. The Argyle, as it turned out, may have been the most successful of all of the many kit house offered by Sears! An earlier design offered by Yoho in 1912, Design No. 424, is somewhat more sophisticated and may have been the prototype for No. 325.
Yoho’s designs seemed to capture the essence of the Craftsman style in a way that few competitors could. While not as polished as Greene and Greene, his work was a lot more refined — and original — than what most builders were offering at the time. His houses were joyfully expressive, particularly when it came to masonry and roof details. His most adventurous designs played up the more exotic origins of the Craftsman aesthetic and at times paid homage to Japanese traditions. Much of his work had a naturalistic, even organic, aspect to it. His designs were all interesting, even the most mundane of them.
Sometime around 1911 Yoho teamed up with Edward L. Merritt and Merritt’s brother-in-law, Virgil Hall, to found Seattle’s Craftsman Bungalow Company. And the rest, as they say, is history…
So why isn’t the name of Jud Yoho more familiar? Good question! While he’s better-known now than twenty years ago, his work still remains surprisingly unknown outside of the Pacific Northwest. I’ll leave that mystery to the historians out there. For now, let’s take a look at some of the remarkable work produced by Yoho and, in later years, Yoho and Merritt. Unless otherwise noted, all images are courtesy of archive.org.
This is a great post, A.O. I’ve long admired the Craftsman theory of extolling handcraft, but somehow when it gets applied to a bungalow I’m not a fan. I think it’s because the porches and overhangs lead to dark interiors (at least in the ones I’ve been in), which is a virtue in hot sunny climates but less so where I live (Pennsylvania) and presumably also the always-gray Pacific northwest. I think bungalows originated in India, where protection from the sun may be more the goal. They also would make a lot of sense in southern California, where they were indeed very popular. Then there is also the heaviness and squat profiles typical of many examples. They can be, however, great examples of a stylish smaller home which led directly (as you point out) to the post-war “ranch” style. (I think that in the UK a “bungalow” is actually a term for any one-level home.) I’m trying to come up with examples of Craftsman style in other types of building envelopes, but all I’m coming up with now is some of the earlier FL Wright prairie designs. Curious if you can think of any?
Hmmmm… while I can think of numerous recent examples of the Craftsman aesthetic being superficially imposed on suburban office parks and restaurants, I can’t think of any early twentieth buildings built in the style which are not residential in nature. I’d be willing to bet that examples exist, however… hopefully someone will share a link to such a place!
Man, you come up with the best architectural stuff. This guy is like an Oriental Bruce Goff. So many unique and innovative touches. I love the one with all those stone triangular pillars but upkeep would be a nightmare. The big chimneys meaning gorgeous fireplaces are great also.
Thanks so much for all your great work.
Where do I look for interior pics of his work. Many of the windows are very G&G.
Fantastic, a breath of fresh air.
Upkeep would indeed be a nightmare on some of his more complex exteriors, but at least you would have something beyond stunning to look at every day! The Craftsman Bungalow company put out many plan books, some of which show a few interiors. Here’s a link to get you started; you can find more by searching for Yoho’s work on archive.org.
Hey, AO: I can see how I wasn’t clear. I didn’t mean “non-residential”, by “other types of building envelopes” I was referring to residential design which incorporates the Craftsman aesthetic of handcraft into something without the typical large eave — lots of porches — shingle/stone mix exterior. I see a different take on Craftsman in the Robie House in Chicago, for example.
Craftsman-style houses and Prairie-style houses (such as FLW’s Robie House) were popular at roughly the same time, so both display a similar aesthetic sensibility. Hand-made tile work, for example, is often found in both styles. The thing that really sets the Craftsman style apart is its emphasis on structural elements (posts, brackets, etc.) as ornament (in place of the tacked-on decorations so common to Victorian-era houses). FLW often hid structure — making some of his designs appear to be gravity-defying!
Possibly the best thing I can think of would be some of Wright’s Usonian houses which celebrated a similar type of handcraft and use of natural materials inside and out.
Some of this hand-made aesthetic can be found in the better Tudor Revival houses of the 20’s and 30’s where great emphasis was placed on structure (such as the ubiquitous half-timbered walls which characterize Tudor Revivals). They also tend to feature hand-wrought ironwork, carved stone, and leaded glass windows. To a lesser degree, this quality can be found in many of the “romantic” revival styles.
After these styles faded, however, modernism arrived and few architects have looked back with any serious grasp of these concepts. The Craftsman style truly stands alone in many ways; its passing marked the end of an era.
The last advertisements for Yoho’s house plans ran in 1919. After that he went to work in the lumber industry. I know he advertised nationally, but I have been through hundreds of permits (more?) in the Chicago area and never seen Yoho’s name on any of them. I just wonder how many plans he actually sold and whether those were concentrated in the Pacific Northwest.