A HOUSE IN FLORIDA - IRVING T. BUSH RESIDENCE

 ***Located near the highest point in Central Florida, Mountain Lake Estates was first developed in the 1920s as an exclusive residential area created "to attract the nation's business elite." The developers hired Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. to design the community. Wealthy "snowbirds"such as Edward W. Bok, August Heckscher, and Irving T. Bush subsequently established winter homes in the area. Noted architect Wallace Neff, known for his celebrity clients' mansions in southern California designed the Bush home, one of his few commissions outside California***

  THE SHUTTLE OF  TRAVEL  WEAVES A SUBTLE WEB  THAT  UNITES  CALIFORNIA'S SOUTHLAND WITH THE EASTERN STATES AND MAKES IT A PART OF THE GREAT MIDDLE WEST.

  IT IS NOT SURPRISING THEREFORE TO FIND OUR ARCHITECTS DESIGNING HOUSES TO BE BUILT IN FLORIDA AND INTRODUCING TO THE NATION THE USE OF CALIFORNIAN MATERIALS.

A house in Florida
Wallace Neff, Architect
Pasadena, California

   Built for Mr. Bush by a California architect, this handsome residence carries also a message to Florida from the craftsmen of California; for much of the material used in building it was transplanted across the continent, and the craftsmanship is all our own.

   ***The whole job was very much a California product, as the architect even imported a California interior decorator and a California painting contractor and his crew to Florida at considerable expense, to obtain finishes which craftsmen in that state were incapable of duplicating.***

   This is the fifth house which Mr. Neff has built on the Atlantic side of the country. As a result of the first efforts he realized that we on the Pacific Coast take our Spanish architecture more seriously, and train our craftsmen and contractors to do more permanent work. Our kilns have turned out beautiful tile which have become world renowned. Angula hand-made roofing- tile and Mission floor tile have become household words; and Batchelder tiles have already made good on the Atlantic shores. Where it was not practical to export California materials, Mr. Neff used Florida woods, and plaster from nearer sources; but to do the work he asked the Cheesewright Studio to send their designer of wrought iron and their draperies; and the Bliss Paint and Paper Company of Pasadena, to send interior decorators and painters. As it was in the time of the building of the Gothic Cathedrals, the craftsmen of California are vitally necessary to the architect with whom they collaborate. 

***E .J. Cheesewright (1880-1957) was the foremost designer of residential interiors in Southern California during the 1920's.***

IRVING T. BUSH RESIDENCE

    ***The house is much cleaner and simpler than the work of the 20's Florida architects, who tended to stick undigested bits of European ornament onto their designs. The beautifully proportioned white-walled, tile-roofed house has imagination; the flat, featureless site was made interesting by building very high walls which ran out from the house and linked the structure to the grounds. The gardens became a series of interesting differentiated spaces. The building itself was one of the first in which Neff began to display the almost classic restraint which was characteristic of some of his most interesting work of the late twenties.***

IRVING T. BUSH RESIDENCE

    ***Bush's married daughter lived in Pasadena, and when he visited her in the early 20's, he was impressed with the work of the California Spanish school of architects and especially with the houses of Wallace Neff.  Neff, delighted at the chance to build out of state, produced one of his best designs.***

Interior,   Irving   T. Bush House , Florida
The Cheesewright Studios, Inc. Decorators and Furnishers
 PASADENA, CALIFORNIA 

  

LOOKING ACROSS THE HALLWAY OF THE IRVING T. BUSH HOUSE, OF WHICH THE PICTURE ON PAGE 2 GIVES THE MAIN AXIS. THE TRIPLE SIDELIGHTS OF HAND WROUGHT IRON AND BRASS USED THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE WILKINSON-SCOTT COMPANY OF PASADENA, CRAFTSMEN IN WROUGHT IRON AND CO-WORKERS WITH THE ARCHITECT, E. WALLACE NEFF, PASADENA

THE DRAWING ROOM OF THE IRVING T. BUSH HOUSE AT LAKE WALES. FLORIDA. WALLACE NEFF, PASADENA, ARCHITECT. LIGHTING FIXTURES BY WILKINSON-SCOTT  COMPANY   PASADENA;   PAINTING   BY BLISS  PAINT COMPANY AND HANGINGS BY CHEESENRIGHT STUDIOS PASADENA. PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALEXANDER, LAKE WALES, FLORIDA

A GLIMPSE OF A FLORIDA LAKE SEEN THROUGH THE WINDOW OF THE DINING ROOM.   THE FLORIDA HOME OF MR. IRVING T. BUSH, LAKE WALES. WALLACE NEFF, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, ARCHITECT

A WOODLAND SCENE IN FLORIDA, BACKGROUND FOR THE BUSH HOUSE.    WALLACE NEFF, ARCHITECT, PASADENA, CALIFORNIA.    PHOTOGRAPH BY COURTESY OF CHARLES B. HERVEY, OF PASADENA, CALIFORNIA AND OF FLORIDA AND MEMBER OF MANY ORGANIZATIONS IN BOTH STATES

    IRVING T. BUSH was a business tycoon with imagination and taste. He parlayed the family fortune into something considerably bigger by conceiving and building the Bush Terminal in South Brooklyn, New York, a very early industrial park which covered 30 city blocks and had no less than eight piers and 125 warehouses as well as manufacturing facilities.  

   
wikimapia location.

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MORE on Irving T. Bush and his wife. 

Bush Tower in New York City.

MOUNTAIN LAKE ESTATES website.