Greene & Greene

Greene & Greene and the American Arts & Crafts Movement, permanent exhibition, The Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art, The Huntington Library, Art Collections & Botanical Gardens, San Marino, CA, 1990-2004

When Alice and Charles Greene returned from their honeymoon, they began construction on a new residence at 368 Arroyo View Drive in Pasadena.  They were soon joined next door by Alice’s sisters, Martha, Violet and Jane White.  Their home was designed by the Greenes circa 1903, making the sisters the Greenes’ first furniture clients.  In an article written by Charles for The Western Architect on the subject of bungalows, he specifically addressed the White sisters’ home interiors and the harmony of design they sought to achieve throughout, integrating the sisters’ own blue and white Imari and Oriental carpets with complementary furnishings.  The oak and cedar table offered here was designed by Charles for use as a tea table in the sisters’ living room.  Although the table bears a striking resemblance to the sturdy quarter-sawn oak furniture produced by Gustav Stickley’s firm at this time, there are several distinctive features that clearly mark it as a Greene & Greene design.  The edges of the table top are subtly stepped and shaped and the expressed peg joinery of the undertier to the legs is made more obvious as a design element.