The Russian House, Middletown, CT

The Russian House, Middletown, CT 1860s, 1870s? Wikimedia

The Russian house, is a house I do not have information about. It sits at 163 High Street and follows the rotated side tower plan, even though it never had a tower. The distribution of the windows into doubled windows on the left and smaller windows and entrance on the right is consistent with this type of massing. The house looks to me like a product of the 1860s or 1870s, although it is restrained in its ornament, which fits in with the sober appearance of some of High Street's homes. It is called the Russian House because it is a residence facility that is involved with the Russian community. The house is well preserved with restrained window surrounds, simple brackets, and an architrave molding. A cupola tops the roof. The porch has interesting columns with thick molded capitals. All in all, it's a charming little house.

The Hart-Root House, Middletown, CT

The Hart-Root House, Middletown, CT. 1880 Wikimedia

This house follows as well the rotated side tower plan seen at 281 High Street. It was built in 1880 and was inhabited by the Hart and Root families; it's currently a faculty residence. The house has undergone some changes in its career, with its tower being lopped off at some point (I'm sure it followed the usual plan of three arched windows). Still the richness of detail can be seen in it, and it seems to have many features in common stylistically with the Coite house, notably its panel cornice with bull's eyes intersecting the panels. Features I like about this house are the closely paired brackets in the gable front, a feature that gives the cornice a lot of volume. Although the window surrounds are simple, they jibe with the subdued ornateness, and the arched window next to the door is a strange feature, which I am not sure is original. As for the odd box window that juts out into the porch, I have no idea how old it is. It does seem to be integrated into the porch's composition with the pediment, but the design is very 1890s Queen Anne. It could be a clever modern piece. Still, if it can fool the viewer, it's doing its job.

281 High Street, Middletown, CT

281 High St. Middletown, CT. 1850s?

I don't know a lot about this house. It currently serves as the anthropology department of Wesleyan, but it's a particularly nice looking one.This house follows a plan we haven't seen very much of. It is very similar in design to the side tower plan, and it is oriented in the same way as the Sloan house in Oswego with the tower and side projecting pavilion oriented toward the street. This orientation changes the entire way the house is grasped, giving it, from the street facade, the appearance of being thin and vertical. Because only one narrow bay and the tower are the only parts readily visible from the street, it also makes the house look much more grand. This type of orientation is such a specific feature, that from now on, I am going to say that houses following this plan follow the rotated side tower plan. It might not be the most elegant phrasing, but it gets the point across. Interestingly, this house manifests a variety of images. On the right facade, it has a modified side tower plan without a central receding section. On the left facade, which is also visible because it sits on a corner lot, it has a modification of the irregular plan. It is all just a side tower plan that's been futzed with a bit. This rotation of the plan allowed architects to fit a large house with interesting facades on a very narrow lot. When an expansive style like Italianate is confronted with narrow property, goofiness is bound to occur.

This is one of my favorite houses on High Street. It bears a strong resemblance to the work of Henry Austin in New Haven, particularly the Norton house, although I do not think he designed it. The facade is stuccoed and from the street you can see the projecting principal bay, which has a shallow gable, has a box window surmounted by a triple window topped by a large wooden awning. The front door sits at the base of what should be the tower (I don't believe this house was constructed with a tower) and is recessed into an arched porch, a very elegant feature. The detailing is not overly elaborate; the window on the tower has a bracketed pediment over a simple surrounding molding. The house has thickly spaced brackets with an architrave molding, a strong characteristics of early 1850s design. The left facade is rather normal, with an interesting series of window types, until you get to the back where there is an odd gable that suggests a projecting pavilion but in reality does not correspond to a change in volume. This suggestion of a pavilion is reinforced by the two story box window with a tent roof (an odd feature). The right facade is a solid mass with a projecting bay window pavilion.

What I really like about this house is partly the finish, which I think is able to do a lot without being too ostentatious. The color scheme is appropriate, and reflects those in Riddle's 1861 book. Even though it lacks a tower to make it even more vertical, I think it is able to communicate what its builders hoped.

The Gabriel Coite House, Middletown, CT

The Gabriel Coite House, Middletown, CT. 1856

Wikimedia

The Gabriel Coite house is another structure on High Street in Middletown. Built in 1856 for Coite, a state senator and treasurer, it was later acquired by Jane Hubbard. It became in 1904 the house of Wesleyan's president. The house follows the symmetrical plan with a projecting center pavilion topped by an angled pediment and a stuccoed facade. The detailing is appropriately grand for the pretensions of the house's builder. The windows have carved brackets with a cornice; this design is elaborated on the front by carved foliage that wells up in the cornice's center. The porch is unusually large with doubled columns that have un-classical Corinthian style capitals surrounding the arched door. The main cornice has an architrave molding with long brackets and panels set between each bracket, making it a paneled cornice. There is a bull's eye on the projecting pavilion's panel. The sides of the house are interesting too, with narrow windows in the central bays. There is a box window on the south facade, while the north facade has an impressive awning porch that runs the length with a tent roof supported by oversize brackets. This covers a patio. On the top of the roof is a cupola with paired segmental arched windows. The two-tone grey color of the house with its white trim seems to have been taken right out of the John Riddle's work.  Everything about this house says rich and sober to me, suitable characteristics for the New England business owner.

The Richard Alsop IV House, Middletown, CT

The Richard Alsop IV House, Middletown, CT, 1838-9 Wikimedia

The Richard Alsop IV house in Middletown is also on High Street and is perhaps unique in the US. This house is often classified as Greek Revival, as found in the book Greek Revival Architecture in America, but it is rather a transitional Greek Revival and Italianate house, as can be seen by its broad eave and brackets. It was designed by the firm of Platt and Benne of New Haven and was built by Barzillai Sage and Isaac Baldwin. The house was bought in 1948 by Wesleyan University from the Alsops; it is currently the Davison Art Center and houses period furniture and a display of prints. It bears some similarity to the nearly contemporary Starr house across the street. The house does not follow the traditional Italianate plan, but it is similar to the symmetrical plan. The central cube has three bays on the front and is flanked by three bayed lower wings with double height squared pillared Doric colonnades. This aspect is particularly Greek Revival in inspiration, as double height porches are not a feature of Italianate. A long cast iron porch runs across the front with a tent roof that is unusually topped by a balcony. The delicate porch features axes with bundles of arrows tied with ribbons on the supports, which are strong Neoclassical design elements. 

While the facade is stucco and extremely spare, befitting its very early date, the house has some unusual features. Wooden exterior lambrequins can be found on the first floor windows in the center. It's most unique feature is the painted frescoes on the exterior of the house, which seems to have no other parallels in the US. The frescoes express the entablature of the house with swags and paterae or bowls, another classical motif. On the first floor in the center, and on the centers of the side facades are painted trompe l'oeil frescoes of statue niches, a very fine classical touch that could have been as much an attempt to simulate a Greek house as an Italian Renaissance villa. The second floor on the wings contain trompe l'oeil murals of urns in niches. These are a fascinating example of the use of exterior murals to create rhythm and effect on an otherwise plain surface, and they admirably succeed in enlivening the house. The other colors of the house, pink for the background and cream for the trim are also historically appropriate. The rich mural scheme continues in the interiors, which are filled with beautiful designs that show mostly garden scenes or reproduce Pompeian style decoration. The following images highlight some of the details and show the plan of the house. The frescoes alone make this house a stunning example of transitional design; that they have been well preserved is a credit to Wesleyan.

Plans from HABS.

Some Interior views:

The Alsop house sits across the street from the Russell House, one of New England's best Greek Revival homes, which I thought I would include an image of just for fun.