The David Ward House, Detroit, MI

The David Ward House, Detroit, MI. 1864 Photo: Scott Weir

Continuing with Detroit's love affair with arches, the David Ward house, built in 1864 for a wealthy lumber mill owner, is almost the inverse of the Newcomb house. It also follows the symmetrical plan with a gabled central bay and bay windows on the two flanking bays on the first floor, but where the Newcomb house had triple windows on the sides and doubles in the center, here the arithmetic is reversed, with the triple arched palladian in the center, an arrangement even reflected in the front door and the porch, which extends to cover the one angle of the bay windows. Whereas the Newcomb house pulled out all the stops, the Ward house is a bit tamer, with simpler, more spindly porch supports, windows that only have thick brick surrounds with carved terminals for the molding (almost Romanesque in style), higher pilasters on the bay windows, and much less classical balconies, with crosses for balusters. The third floor has a very interesting feature. Instead of having the windows break the architrave molding, the architrave curves downward to run under the windows, a rather unprecedented breaking of traditional conventions. Additionally, the central gable window is provided with its own balcony (rather obviously for show). Here the double s scroll brackets are grouped in triads on the corners, pairs and singles on the gable, an interesting way of mixing it up and emphasizing the corners strongly. Sloan would have been proud of this arrangement. The cupola is a triple arched palladian with some stocky brackets. Like a lot of symmetrical plan houses, it has side porches which makes it somewhat pyramidal in shape. It's interesting that the Newcomb house and the Ward house represent two kinds of very masculine design. Newcomb does it with elaboration and Renaissance complexity, thick stone and strong elements. Ward does it with thickness and bulk of elements, particularly the window surrounds.

The Joseph S. Winter House, Montgomery, AL

"Winter Place" Montgomery, AL. 1851/2

Photo: Wikimedia

The Joseph S. Winter house, designed by Sloan in 1852 for an inventor, banker, and owner of an ironworks in Montgomery, was another early commission, but one out of state, in Alabama. The house was published in The Model Architect as Design 53 "A Southern House". Though not as opulent by far as Bartram Hall, the Winter house displays much of Sloan's ability to work with a simple design and craft an eye-catching composition. The house follows the gable front plan with a side tower, though it could also be interpreted as an irregular plan with exceptionally off massing. Sloan took a typical gable front house plan and removed the entrance to the side tower. Typically, such design is used to allow an uninterrupted front room across the entire front of a building, but Sloan kept the hall in the right hand bay, allowing the window to provide light to the central stair hall. As cooling in the southern climate was a chief concern in his design, perhaps he intended the parlors, which usually remained closed during the day to not prevent all the air from the front of the house from circulating. From the façade, the lacy iron porch with a fringed roof that runs across the front creates an impression of interior unity when there was none. Also interesting is his placement of principal rooms in the first floor of the low block to the right of the design.

The house's details are especially nice with the whole a stuccoed brick façade. Sloan went with segmental arched windows with classical anthemia and eared surrounds, a hearkening back to the South's strong Greek Revival tradition. The cornice on the shallow angled gable, a particular trait of Sloan's Italianate designs, is heavier than most of his houses with strong panels and a cresting of wave-like Vitruvian scrolls. The tower is particularly elegant, though it seems to have been executed differently than planned. Images show a deeply recessed blind arch on the first two stories with a single arched window and Juliette balconies. Above that is an austere stage with three rectangular lancet windows, while the top stage has paired tombstone windows with thick moldings; the top is crowned by a finial. The basement is raised high above the ground with large windows, a feature that Sloan explains he took from native Southern practices in order to keep the basement dry in the humid, wet climate. Below are Sloan's elevations, plans, and details from MA.

Winter had to leave his villa after a financial loss in 1855, but built a second house nearby, also Italianate and also probably designed by Sloan; though abandoned for many years and joined to a second house built in 1870 in the Second Empire style, things seem to be looking up. It is listed on the National Register (good documentation) and some restoration was recently carried out by volunteers.