Hollywood Regency House Plan

HOLLYWOOD REGENCY HOUSE PLAN

Introduction

The Hollywood Regency is an architecture of make-believe, alike the movie script of 90 minutes on 90 pages, the movie interior and exterior needed to fit the dimensions of a screen; if the screen wanted Greece, the simplest of Greek elements described the scene, as the essential elements of script describe character and inner life, simplest design describes place.  Even so, the life described was American, though pictured Georgian, or Roman, or French, or you name it.  Alike a character in dress-up, a Regency scene caricatured the elements of a period style (Egypt to Edgemont) glamorously, elegantly, tastefully, and sexily sexy.  One day, a movie might be set in Rome, next day, in Louis XIV’s Versailles, next day, in a London apartment, and the Hollywood Regency designers, educated and trained in the Classive arts would quickly, efficiently, masterfully and beautifully reduce any detail, let us say, “a door”, to its essential period elements, and this is why the Hollywood Regency has a bold, familiar ease.

The Vogue edition of Regency was born of magazines, House and Garden, Harper’s Bazaar, and, well, Vogue; it 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”.  Here a quirky pink Picasso pastiche might be neighbor to a Jacques Louis David classicizing panoply: Regency Vogue is a style of theatre, a setting for svelte models, 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 remembered in its shades of white, high thin molding, open broad design punctuated with refined decorations both Regency and Empire … and in the white, classical pastiche furniture (especially dressers) found not long ago in most every middle-class American home.

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 Regency House Plan, #86A. 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 Regency House Plan and Elevation. M. Curtis, des.

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Hollywood Regency House Plan Features

These comfortable family homes enjoy Hollywood elegance of the Golden Age.  Each is modestly sized and affordable.  Each has three bedrooms and two-and-a-half baths.  In each there is opportunity for an in-home studio or office, with a private entrance.  The public entrance is grand and wide, allowing an unobstructed view through the house to the pool and gardens.  The great room has presence and dignity, a wide fireplace, vaulted ceiling, and three sets of French doors.  Hollywood Regency House Plan B enjoys an eat-in kitchen.  Plan A features an expansive master suite with mirrored dressing room, and a steam shower that opens to the outdoors.  Both houses include public and private outdoor rooms, and there are compatible pool house designs, one of which is shown (below).  Other pool house designs are featured in Regency Pool House Plans (to be published, April 28, 2022).

Hollywood Regency House Plan & Elevation, #86B. M. Curtis, des.

Hollywood Regency House Plan, Descriptions

Hollywood Regency House Plan, #86A

 

18’-7”                       Height
51’-0”                       Width
40’-10”                     Depth
1,762                        Main Floor
228                           Pool House Apart.
10’-0”                       First Floor Ceiling
17′-0″                       Great Room Ceiling
1                                Levels
2-3                            Bedrooms
2                                Bathrooms
1                                Laundry
Stucco

Room Size
Great Room                  16’-0” x 28’-0”
Kitchen                          7’-0” x 16’-0”
Office Bedroom           12′-0″ x 9′-0″
Entrance Hall               9′-0″ x 11′-0″
Master Bedroom         12’-0” x 12’-0”
Master Bath                 15’-0” x 9’-0”
Bedroom                       12′-0″ x 12′-0″
Bathroom                      7′-0″ x 11′-0″
Pantry                            9′-6″ x 13′-0″
Walk-in Closet             7′-8″ x 10′-6″
Front Porch                  17′-6″ x 7′-8″

Hollywood Regency House Plan, #86B

18’-7”                       Height
51’-0”                       Width
40’-10”                     Depth
1,584                        Main Floor
228                           Pool House Apart.
10’-0”                       First Floor Ceiling
17′-0″                       Great Room Ceiling
1                                Levels
2-3                            Bedrooms
2 1/2                         Bathrooms
1                                Laundry
Stucco

Room Size
Great Room                  16’-0” x 24’-0”
Kitchen                          12’-0” x 16’-0”
Office Bedroom           12′-0″ x 10′-7″
Entrance Hall                9′-0″ x 11′-0″
Master Bedroom          11’-6” x 13’-0”
Master Bath                  7’-0” x 11’-0”
Bedroom                       12′-0″ x 12′-0″
Bathroom                      7′-0″ x 11′-0″
Small Hall                     12′-0″″ x 6′-5″
Walk-in Closet              7′-8″ x 10′-6″
Bathroom                      3′-10″ x 6′-5″
Small Hall                     12′-0″ x 6′-5″

Special Features
opportunity for aging in place
home office
kitchen island
walk-in closet
apartment/guest suite

Regency Pool House, #86A Plan & Elevation. M. Curtis, des.

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Featured image: Hollywood Regency #86A. M. Curtis, des.

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