Hollywood Pool House Plan
Introduction
Hollywood Regency Vogue was born of magazines, House and Garden, Harper’s Bazaar, and, well, Vogue. Regency is a style of wit and fantasy, commercial and fancy, as the man who named the style, Osbert Lancaster, observed, the style “starts at the point where Soane left off”. Regency Vogue is a style of theatre, a stage upon which to act the elegant life. You will find the style in sets for Noel Coward plays, in London and Hollywood films (The Scarlet Pimpernel and Cukor’s Caesar and Cleopatra, for instances) in the bedroom of surrealist Cecil Beaton and in the lugubrious boudoir spreads of Vogue. The style is especially suited to the whimsy of the pool house, the playground of starlets, of playboys, of those who have learned life’s lessons and yet enjoy the show, its little tragedies and triumphs, its closing curtain. These Hollywood pool house plans are set for easy living, for hard playing, for physical training, each to its purpose.
Hollywood Regency Precedents
George Augustus Frederick, Prince Regent of England, was a prolific builder of fabulous palaces, a generous patron of high art, a refined aesthete undaunted by kitsch and budgets. His Regency began in 1811 upon the illness of his father, ended with his father’s death (George III, d.1820) when the Prince Regent became King George IV; George IV died in 1830; the Regency Period is most often dated mid-1790s through mid-1830s.
The Regent’s artists and architects burrowed motifs from all of history of all the world, and glamorously applied their borrowings to decorations, pictures, statues, and buildings in strict observance of Classive order (humane symmetry and proportion). Witness the reworking, redesign, and new design of Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, and the Brighton Pavilion.
Hollywood Pool House, Plan & Elevation, #86A1. M. Curtis, des.
Hollywood Regency Characteristics
Proportions
Symmetrical, elongated rectangles, ovals, and the occasional circle.Roof Features
Flat and mansard are most common, though hipped roofs of the English Regency and the Georgian gable are also common. Chimneys tend to disappear. Brackets and extending eves are nonexistent.Fenestration
Again, tall and long. Panes are often horizontal. The occasional Palladian can be found, if simplified and streamlined.Structure and Materials
Stucco and brick (wood is most uncommon) layered flat and thin. Iron rails are rendered with a light touch.Space and Floor Plan
As in the English Regency, Palladian, logical and symmetrical with some necessary elegance, a French Curve, a swelling room or oddity wanted to punctuate perfect beauty.Entrance
Dramatic, not unlike a stage set with drawing curtain, or alike the English Regency, stately and classical, though simplified as in a silver screen movie. Sometimes, an entrance almost caricature.Ornamentation
Simple and sleek and classical lightly drawn, even when exaggerated.Color
White, most often. The roof might be green. The door might be red. The canopy might be streaked with black. The green of lawn, the blue of pool to provide the color.Surroundings
Thin columns will define a veranda; a balcony will be trimmed in light rail of some classical motif; a pool house or courthouse is terminal element beyond or pool or yard; the drive is circular; the plants are taught to behave.Décor
Minimal. Tasteful. Moderne, in the classical. Or, maximal with lacquered furniture, high mirrors, crystal, floral abundance and a zoo of animal-print wallpapers. In early Hollywood Regency, low furniture of some classic derivation, widely placed so that guests might mix with ease, and be seen. Later, large furniture imposes, sometimes in winding forms reminiscent of low crawling creatures. The best style: classic Hollywood Regency of the Rogers-Astaire era.Variation
Hollywood Regency might mix Deco, Moderne, Classical, and Baroque, though some variation of English Regency manor is most common.
Hollywood Pool House Plan & Elevation, #86A2. M. Curtis, des.
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Hollywood Pool House Plan Features
These three pool houses complement the Hollywood Regency house plan, #86. Each pool house includes a kitchen, water-closet, and fireplace. Each is designed in variation of the Aeolian Order, that decorative, verdant, lightly elegant Order which follows the heavily florid “Corinthian Order”. These playful Hollywood pool house plans could be adapted to other design styles, as might suit other homes and other owners. For details of each, please see the descriptions, below.
Hollywood Pool House Plan & Elevation, #86A3. M. Curtis, des.
Hollywood Pool House Plan, Descriptions, #86A1, #86A2, #86A3
Hollywood Pool House Plan, #86A1
13’-4” Height
33’-0” Width
15’-0” Depth
500 Foot Print GSF
84 Enclosed GSF
9’-0” First Floor Ceiling
This, a pool house for play, for bar-b-que, for watching the game, for beer & pretzels, for relaxing after a swim, for retreat from the sun, for warming before the fireplace. There is a full kitchen and bar, dining and living areas, place for shading and sunning and showering. There are large shelves for linens, hooks for clothes and towels, storage for dishes and glasses, and there is space a plenty for pool toys and amusements.
Hollywood Pool House Plan, #86A2
18’-7” Height
22’-6” Width
31’-0” Depth
500 Enclosed GSF
9’-0” First Floor Ceiling
13′-0″ Vaulted Ceiling
18′-0″ Clearstory Ceiling
This, a pool house for training, exercise, or the relaxed life. There is a sauna for one to eight, a roomy shower, space enough for numerous machines of training torture, for dumbbells, for mats, and a wall-mirror to study technique, inspire effort, or appreciate accomplishment. There is a kitchenette of two parts, a gathering area before the generous fireplace; there are built-in bookshelves, there is a large linen closet that might hold a tidy washer-dryer. Look up … the ceiling of the light generous clearstory is 18 feet high. Look out … the doors can be thrown open to extend the exercise area to the broad pergola and beyond to what might be an Olympic length lap pool, or play pool suitable to large gatherings.
Hollywood Pool House Plan, #86A3
13’-6” Height
21’-8” Width
14’-0” Depth
225 Enclosed GSF
9’-0” First Floor Ceiling
13′-0″ Vaulted Ceiling
This, a pool house for weekend guests, home get-away, or home-office. There is a sufficient kitchen, a water-closet with shower, a multi-use closet, a seating area suitable to a fold-out couch and a rising desk. Efficient without being cramped, this pool house is elegant in facade, eloquent in floorplan. You will notice that the doors can be open to the breeze, or tight closed to retain heat or cool.
Hollywood Pool House Plan, #86-A1, Color Elevation. M. Curtis, des.
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