New Exhibit Showcases Small Homes with Big Style

The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach will unveil its winter exhibition, “The Third Era of Design: Architectural Trends in Post-Depression Palm Beach,” on view starting January 21. The exhibit explores a period in American architectural and cultural history when affordability, style, and patriotism converged in the design of the American home.

The exhibition examines the national movement toward modest, well-designed housing and how those ideals were thoughtfully interpreted in Palm Beach in the 1920s to 1940s. The exhibition showcases the work of the Architects’ Small House Bureau to promote economical, high-quality residential design through standardized plans, as well as the popular Monterey Style, a hybrid architectural form that blended Spanish influences with modern American living.

Through architectural drawings, historic photographs, and contextual materials, the exhibition traces how prominent local architects (think: Marion Sims Wyeth, John Volk, and Belford Shoumate) adapted small house principles for Palm Beach on limited budgets, asserting that creativity and craftsmanship could flourish even during periods of economic constraint.

By showcasing Depression-era resilience and postwar optimism, the exhibition underscores the enduring appeal of carefully scaled, stylistically rich domestic architecture and its relevance today.

“The Third Era of Design: Architectural Trends in Post-Depression Palm Beach” is free and open to the public and will run through May 1. For more information, visit palmbeachpreservation.org.

Featured image: Rendering of 1930s Housing Finance Corporation “Efficiency Bungalow” by Palm Beach architectural firm Treanor & Fatio. From the Maurice Fatio Papers, Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach Archives.