I owe my life-long love of house designing and building to my grandfather, C. Edgar Cope. Born in 1888, he studied architecture and fine art at the Beaux-Art de Paris before beginning a long career in residential and commercial architecture in Chester County, Pennsylvania.
I came across an old rolled up blueprint of his and, upon carefully flattening the brittle pages, discovered an iteration of an addition he had proposed for a renovation of my parents’ home executed in 1948, one year after I was born. Although it was not the final choice, based on my recollection of the back stairway leading to extra bedrooms for our rapidly expanding family that would soon total four boys, it was a window into a familiar exploration of space, alternative solutions, and problem solving which C. Edgar Cope went through as an architect, and which continues to shape my aesthetic today.
In his day, my grandfather used a drafting table with a straight edge parallel bar and T squares and pyramid shaped scale rulers, meticulously drafting plans with H8 lead pencils, carefully making changes with delicate erasures and metal eraser shields. I remember well the drafting table in his office, and the smell of ammonia “fixing” the design to light sensitive paper for the final blueprint.
The following floor plans and elevations are an homage to his design, recreated from the drafting software program I use today, providing digital floor plans and elevations of his proposal as well as interior and exterior computer-generated renderings. I would contend his training as both an architect and an artist would be equal to if not surpass this graphic presentation. I only hope, in some small way, my effort pays justice and respect to my grandfather and his talent.