Over a century ago, a group of architects gathered at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, to judge a design competition for something deceptively simple: a beautiful American house built entirely from white pine, priced at $12,500. The resulting monograph — Volume III, Number 4 of the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs, published August 1917 — has now reached 2,400 reads, making it our most-read issue by a wide margin.
The White Pine Bureau commissioned this series with a clear mission: prove white pine’s versatility, beauty, and availability as a structural wood for the American home. This issue centered on the Second Annual White Pine Architectural Competition, judged at the Greenbrier on May 17–18, 1917. Top architects — including Aymar Embury II, Wilson Eyre, John Russell Pope, and Alexander Trowbridge — evaluated competitive drawings for a full-scale residential design. The brief was rigorous: every inch of exterior finish, from siding to window sash to porch boards, had to be white pine. No substitutes.
First prize went to Design No. 204 for its rare combination of imagination, good taste, and practical character. Runners-up earned recognition for originality in site planning, massing, and integration of the garage with the main structure. The monograph reproduces the winning drawings alongside the jury’s detailed written evaluations — a genuine technical record of how white pine was specified, argued over, and championed.
Nearly 2.7 times more readers chose this issue over any other in the archive. Architects, preservationists, historians, and trade professionals keep returning to see how white pine was specified and celebrated at the height of American residential design. The wood made the case for itself in 1917. Readers are still listening.
The White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs was published by the White Pine Bureau, Saint Paul, Minnesota, under chairman George F. Lindsay. Vol. III, No. 4 was prepared by Russell F. Whitehead, formerly editor of The Architectural Record and The Brickbuilder.
