Personal Narrative: Driving Along Lake Place

Driving along Lake Place seems like any other classic neighborhood street unless you are searching for the Purcell-Cutts house. I almost drove right past it at it is set back quite aways from the street. The house makes a statement but a subtle one, as it hides itself a bit behind the neighbors and almost has its own constructed ceiling plane with the long horizontal roofs. The first thing anyone would notice about the house is the tall slender, vertical windows that seems to span what looks like the whole front of the house. The windows are stained glass and contain the most intricate of designs. This atmosphere the house creates from the front is continued in every space in the house, whether it be as minute as a chair or as grand as the

This is yet another dark, but open and welcoming space. I think this is also mirrored with the mural of Purcell’s grand father. In the painting, he is a kind welcoming man, but he is a outdoorsman and he is shaded and hugged by the vegetation around him. In the living room the tall windows let just the right amount of light in to create the same effect. This is also seen in the painted glass light fixtures that diffuse the light. There is a relationship between public and private space that the entirety of this house teaters between. A space of almost half prospect and half refuge (Appleton). There are places for great social exchange in the dining room and living room. But there are also spaces for great introspection in front on the fireplace, in Edna’s Nook, along the bench in the front windows and in the porches. Even the back garage is sunken into the Earth. The tall repeating vertical line elements re enforce this subliminally. The pattern of them seem almost constructed to be neither fully prospect nor fully refuge. The way these small wooden columns are seen in the chair backs, small separating walls, the lead panes in windows and the large windows themselves. These patterns let light in but almost with this restrictive membrane that says not too much light or too much shadow. The photos I have attached will hopefully explain this feeling I