The George Henry Corliss House, Providence, RI

The Corliss House, Providence, RI. 1875 Photo: Wikimedia

                                                                         Photos: HABS

The George Henry Corliss house in Providence was built in 1875 for a steam inventor and is an interesting example of the double tower plan. It's currently part of Brown University and houses two of the school's departments. This house shows the same tower variation as the King house, although the right hand tower does not project above the roofline. Nonetheless, the massing, square design, and verticality of the house make it a part of this plan with slightly projecting side masses and two tower like ends. The right hand facade, like the King house, has a projecting bay. In the Corliss house, this is represented by a three story bay window. The back of the house features a wing that really could be its own house and continues the design of the main body. Like the other houses I have noted in Providence, this one has the same Anglo-Italianate austerity, with a brick facing, and simple brownstone Renaissance details. The rectangular windows have simple eared moldings with hood moldings on the first two floors, while the third floor features segmental arched windows. The fourth floor of the tower has simple rectangular windows with fine Renaissance balconies. The entrance has a correct classical brownstone porch with paired Tuscan columns. The cornice has closely spaced Renaissance style brackets that surmount a simple cornice with dentils. A fine balustrade surrounds the entire top of the house, rounding out the building's European pretensions. Of all the houses on this blog, this is certainly one of the tallest and it's massive bulk really anchors this block, like the keep of a castle.

Photo: Wikimedia

The interior of the house was well documented in the following photos from HABS. Apparently, the Victorian decor was almost entirely intact when these photos were taken, and the house seems to be a particularly interesting example of interior trompe l'oeil decoration.

The Edward King House, Newport, RI-the Double Tower Plan

The Edward King House, Newport, RI. 1845 Photo: Wikimedia

I'm introducing a new plan today; it's one of the rarest Italianate plans, hence it's lack of inclusion in the initial plan post. The first example of this plan, which was developed by the famous architect Richard Upjohn, is the Edward King house in Newport, RI (1845). The earliest phase of Italianate design was a period of experimentation with the Italianate form and a constant search for the combination of towers and volumes that would create the most "picturesque" and romantic design. The King house is of the same early period as Blandwood (1844), the earliest Italianate, in Greensboro. Basically, the plan is almost a square, but the volumes are dramatically broken up by the front facade which has two projecting towers around a central recessed bay. Hence, I call it the "double tower plan". This closely resembles the plans which I call the "pavilion plan" and the "side tower plan" in that the emphasis is placed on the corners on the house rather than a central feature, and the double tower plan belongs in this family of designs.

The primary difference is that in the double tower plan, the corners of the house have emphatic masses that counteract the horizontality of these other plans. The two towers are usually romantically varied by being different heights. Additionally, the central mass is de-emphasized by having both its decoration and volume compacted and simplified. The double tower plan was widely praised in its day. Andrew Downing published the King house and its plan in his Architecture of Country Houses:

Downing offered the above illustrations of the plan and design of the house, and added of the form: "The sky outline of this villa has the characteristic irregularity of the Italian school of design, and the grouping of the whole is a good study for the young architect who is embarrassed at how to treat a large square mass of a building-for the ground plan is nearly square". Downing continues gushing about the design, citing its harmony despite the many window forms, and calling it "one of the most successful specimens of Italian design in the United States".

In looking at the King house, built in brick and brownstone for a wealthy Newport landowner and merchant, one can see what Downing is talking about. The corner towers are thick, much thicker than a typical Italianate tower, and they vary in both height, projection, and design. The left hand tower is less emphatic, with rectangular windows with open pediments on the first floor, tombstone windows with a wooden awning, and three arched windows on the top stage. The right hand tower projects much further and is far wider than the left. The first floor here has a large round arched window with Venetian tracery, a triple rectangular window with both a balcony and fringed wooden awning, and triple arched windows on the top stage; this same window variation can be found on the tower's side. The central bay of the facade is recessed with triple arched palladian shapes on each level. This is repeated on the pavilion on the right hand facade, with a triple arched palladian on the first floor and a round headed window with a balcony on the second. The several Juliette balconies particularly seem to create a sense of fantasy. The whole is topped with closely spaced s curve brackets in the Anglo-Italianate tradition, an early feature.

The King house, after spending most of the 20th century as a public library, is currently a very fancy senior facility on whose website you can see some interior pictures.

Amos N. Beckwith House, Providence, RI

The Amos N. Beckwith House, Providence, RI. 1861

Here is a good example of a non-sober Italianate in Providence that dared to break with the symmetrical cube shape and materials that characterized other Providence homes. This house is also expansive, receding back further and further. Much of it might be later additions. The house was built in 1861 for Amos Beckwith by Alpheus Morse, Providence's premier Italianate architect. There were enlargements in 1867, and in 1880 some Colonial Revival details were added. When built, it was in the countryside, but now it is in a tightly packed neighborhood of lovely late 19th century homes. The house follows the irregular plan with some variations. The projecting pavilion in this house does not project as far as the tower does, so the house has a rather aggressive forward thrust. I also believe that a porch has been filled in adjoining the tower. It is constructed of wood as well, rather than the usual brick and brownstone.

This house is mostly about the tower. The wall treatment is actually very simple with windows that have simple moldings and surrounds. The cornice is also rather plain with small brackets. The tower however is highly ornamented, with each stage separated by some kind of molding. The first two stories where the tower intersects the house are covered with recessed panels, an unusual feature. The porch is paneled as well with Corinthian columns and a filleted corner arch. At the cornice line of the house, the panels are augmented by large balconies that projet on brackets ornamented with wreaths and ribbons. The third stage has segmental arched windows set into a rectangular frame, and the fourth stage has the triple arched windows so characteristic of the Italianate tower.

The sides of the house are bizarrely long. It's as if the Beckwiths couldn't get enough space in the house and kept crazily adding on. The house features all types of bay windows, box windows, even Colonial Revival Palladians on the sides. One very interesting feature of the house are the dormers on the sides. What's unique is that the dormer windows intersect the cornice and they are supported on large brackets, a design scheme I haven't really seen much. As a final note, I really like the coloring of this house, although people find it drab. This is Downing scheme at work here: the earthy tones, the dark trim, the picked out detail. The house seems much more period appropriate for its proper painting scheme. The Beckwith house is one of Providence's zaniest Italianates, to be sure.

The Thomas F. Hoppin House, Providence, RI

The Thomas Hoppin House, Providence, RI. 1852-5 Photo: Tom Bastin

The east facade. Photo: Wikimedia

The west facade. Photo: HABS

Just when you thought Providence would only offer another cube, here is a truly interesting composition! The Hoppin house is built across the street from the Bowen house, but couldn't be more different in design, at least from the sides. Hoppin was a dramatic artist, according to Guide to Providence Architecture, who had just returned from a European tour. He hired Alpheus Morse as an architect because of his speed of design. It is likely that Hoppin and Morse's experiences in Europe influenced the sophistication of the design. The house is currently the home of Annenberg Institute for School Reform, a rather gloomy sounding fate for an artist's house. It is an Anglo-Italianate design that is meant to be enjoyed from all of its sides, each of which differs. The front (south) facade is a normal symmetrical plan, however the sides are both examples of a very European scaled pavilion plan with extended side wings and a recessed center. On the west facade, facing Benefit Street, there is an enclosed porch between two slightly projecting pavilions. The east facade has more dramatically projecting pavilions and an open porch. This side is next to the carriage house pictured below by HABS, which served as the entrance for those arriving by horse.

The window treatments are similar on all three facades with backeted cornices on the first floor, simple cornices on the second, and eared moldings on the third. All the windows are rectangular. As in other Providence homes, like the Lippitt house, there is a belt course between first and second floors, and quoins on the first floor. The bricklaying like the Lippitt house suggests corner pilasters. The cornice is simple and expected with brackets and dentils (no large frieze of course). The central bay of the south facade above the front door has a series of triple windows, the second floor's surmounted by a round pediment that gives it a Palladian air. The front porch is very classical in design with Corinthian pilasters and a full entablature. Although it is enclosed now, it probably was open in the past, as the older HABS image shows. The porches on the side facades are simpler with a belt course and three arches with moldings. A fancy flourish occurs on the east facade. On the second floor in the recessed section there are no windows. Instead in the center is a large brownstone niche with a classical statue, no doubt a touch of grandiosity suggested by European precedents with exterior statuary. It's a piece of high style design that must have seemed impressive in sober Providence. The house is brick, but it is painted to simulate stucco in a very Downing style palette, making the house look like a stuccoed brownstone, which seems very period appropriate and accentuates the elements of the design. The surrounding balustrade survives on the property with dramatic pillars at the carriage entrance.

The William Binney House, Providence, RI

The William Binney House, Providence, RI. 1859

Photo: HABS

The William Binney house is another work by Alpheus Morse on College Hill in Providence. Built in 1859, it is another fine example of the Anglo-Italianate features of Providence's symmetrical plan homes for the wealthy. It is brick with brownstone detailing, divided into two sections by a belt course above the first floor, and has a small bracketed cornice without a frieze. Hood moldings are cornices with brackets on the first and second floor with simple moldings on the third floor's small windows. The central window on the second floor is enlivened by a pediment. What I find lovely about this house is the delicate Federal style doorway. It projects from the house with Tuscan pilasters surrounding an arched doorway. Morse seemed to like these projecting classical styled entrances. The balustrade over the entrance is a real treat, made of carved interlocking rings, an expensive element. The house has a massive classically styled monitor, a low cupola on the peak of the roof. That is a feature that definitely does not occur often in Providence Italianates. That Again, Providence's architects chose fineness of detail and harmonious proportions over elaborate ornament in their design.

The Tully D. Bowen House, Providence, RI

The Tully Bowen House, Providence, RI. 1853 Photo: Mr. Ducke

The Tully D. Bowen house (not to be confused with the Tully Bowen house, oy!) was built in 1853 for a cotton manufacturer and was designed by Thomas A. Tefft. Again, this is a sober design characteristic of Providence, but instead of the usual brick and brownstone, this house is faced entirely in brownstone (fancy!) and follows Anglo-Italianate design. The house is a  symmetrical plan cube with the usual division between the first and second floors. Some aspects of the house give it a more grandiose presence than other Providence homes. It has more complex pedimented window moldings on the first and second floors (the segmental arched third floor windows are just like the later Lippitt house). Quoins at the corners with somewhat elongated long elements assure that they don't look silly in comparison to the massing of the facade. The front door lacks a porch, but has an elaborate if severe surround of Tuscan pilasters surrounding an arched door. The glass surround is particularly glassy here, looking like a door set into a great window. The house has no projection in the center, and the cornice is small with brackets and dentils, so in vogue with anglophilic Italianates. I do wonder, since so many Providence cornices lack a large frieze and architrave molding, if it was part of the vogue to shorten the full entablature. It definitely makes the facade look larger and less broken up. One cool aspect is that the brownstone retaining wall around the property is intact, allowing us to appreciate the house as it was intended with all of its parts. It's a lovely composition, especially because of the varying effects the light has on the stone, something Downing would have loved.

Zachariah Allen House, Providence, RI

The Zachariah Allen House, Providence, RI. 1864. Photo: Mr. Ducke

The Zachariah Allen house was built in 1864 by one of Rhode Island's most important 19th century industrialists and scientists who revolutionized textile mill design. In 1938 it was bought and turned into the Brown Faculty Club. I have actually attended conferences here, although most of the space used for these functions is in the rather ugly but suitably subdued and hidden addition from the 1980s. The building was designed by Allen Stone. This house also has the elements of Providence design, brick face, brownstone, sober design and follows Anglo-Italianate precedents.

The house follows the symmetrical plan and is also cube like in its massing. Like the Lippitt house which was contemporary with this one, a belt course separates the first from the second and third floors. Here, the architect chose marble, rather than brownstone, to liven up the composition. Simple moldings around the windows are expected. The third floor's windows also follow the simplification seen in the Lippitt house, with plain stone lintels rather than molding. The central bay projects and is pedimented; the pediment is reflected in the central second story window's molding. The porch here is simple, almost a Greek Revival composition, with Ionic columns and a proportioned cornice. The main cornice as well is suitably dull and Anglo-Italianate with small brackets and dentils. It is an example of the Providence way of demonstrating wealth, conformity and simplicity with an elegance of proportion and detail. I have a few pictures of the interiors which I snapped the last time I was there.

The Seth Adams Double House, Providence, RI

The Seth Adams House, Providence, RI. Photo: Wikimedia

This Italianate double house was built by Seth Adams as a rental property in 1854 and was designed by notable architect Richard Upjohn. It was bought by Brown and is now the Horace Mann house where the English department is housed, according to an article. Double houses were extremely popular in crowded cities, especially with developers, because they allowed the maximum usage of the property without requiring the land to build a row. From an architectural perspective, the double house usually tries to simulate a single family home in its style and massing. This example follows the pavilion plan, a tries to fit in architecturally with other impressive mansions. Like other Providence Italianates, its style is severe, with brownstone trim and brick facing. In this house details are kept to a minimum. Window hoods are simple brick, there are spare stone belt courses, there is not a full entablature but only cornice and brackets. Even the doors are plain. The windows on the first and second floor are segmental arched, but incorporate tombstone windows within the frame. Semi-circular fanlights appear in the gables, answering back to earlier Federal design. Although it may not be an extravaganza of ornament, the house is typical of the considered designs for even routine commissions.

The Henry Lippitt I House, Providence, RI

The Henry Lippitt I House, Providence, RI. 1856

This was the first house constructed by Henry Lippitt in 1856, and it lies directly across the street from the house he constructed in 1865. He apparently left this house after several children died here of scarlet fever. Perhaps the memories were too much to remain there (that is so Victorian!). This is a double house that simulates a single family home. The architect was the famous Russell Warren, one of Rhode Island's most famous architects of Federal and Greek Revival designs. This work, which was started when the architect was in his seventies, exemplifies his versatility. Although a double house (the second entrance is tucked around the back), it employs the irregular plan without the customary tower or tower projection, giving it a distinctly L shape. It displays a variety of similarities to other Providence mansions of the period, brick facing, brownstone trim, sobriety of design, but it does not fall into the Anglo-Italianate of the later Lippitt house.

As we might expect, the window moldings are spare and simple, although there is a variation of window shape on the second story, with a round headed window marking the spot of the expected tower and the odd placement of windows on the projecting section's side. The third story windows are segmental arched, but interestingly, they intersect the entablature (which is a simple dentil, bracket, cornice affair), a technique we saw on the Decatur Miller house in Baltimore, which is repeated on several Providence Italianates. This creates an undulating cornice effect. The porch is arched with square paneled columns and a bracketed simple cornice, a design which is repeated with a bit more elaboration on the box window. The box window is surmounted by a double window with a wooden awning, one of the fripperies allowed in Providence's sober aesthetic it seems. Although the house is simple enough, one thing caught my eye. Opposite the front door, one bay of the porch has been filled in with exceptional etched glass with panels of many colors cut to clear in floral designs. I'm not really sure about the origins of this. Cut glass panels are valuable enough that some enterprising antique hound might have collected them and created a frame for them to enclose the space at the front of the door. The frame, however, looks and feels old in its composition. It might actually be a period embellishment, and if it is, it is unprecedented. It would shower those awaiting entry with a barrage of colorful light effects, a sophisticated and beautiful concept which seems very Victorian to me. Whatever its origin, it is a truly exceptional object!

The Henry Lippitt House II, Providence, RI

The Henry Lippitt House II, Providence, RI. 1863-5

Any walk through Providence will tell you that it is a city of fantastic Second Empire homes; however, Providence developed its own sober style of Anglo-Italianate detached house that characterized the homes of the wealthy. At the height of its wealth in the 19th century as a textile manufacturing center, Providence was littered with beautiful homes, most of which survive today in this well preserved city. All the homes I will be featuring are on College Hill, one of the best preserved 18th/19th century neighborhoods in a major city in the US. Providence's Italianate architecture on College Hill is very consistent and simple. It's characteristics include almost an obsession with the symmetrical plan, brownstone and brick facing, simple decorative schemes, a belt course between the first and second floors, Anglo-Italianate influence in the cornice and window surrounds, and three full stories.

The Governor Henry Lippitt house was completed in 1865 and remained in the family until the 1980s when it became a house museum. The house is the second Lippitt house; the family's earlier home built in 1856 diagonally across the street, seems to have been abandoned by the family after several of their children died in the house of scarlet fever.

The house has the gravitas expected of a gubernatorial residence, but does so with simplicity and elegance of form rather than exuberant ornament. It follows the symmetrical plan and the facing is of brick with brownstone and wooden trim. The painting of the wooden trim brown to harmonize and simulate brownstone is period appropriate. The central bay projects from the house, which is almost a cube and is topped by a triangular pediment. The first floor is set off from the second by a strong belt course of brownstone. Quoins (pieces of staggered stone) at the corners give the impression that the first floor serves as an English basement and differentiates it from the second and third; the blind balconies further increase the importance of the second floor as a "piano nobile" even though it doesn't serve this function. The window surrounds are simple eared brownstone moldings with brackets and a cornice, all appropriate to the Anglo-Italianate's dependence on Renaissance precedent. The third floor windows are segmental arched. The bricklaying at the corners and under the entablature suggests pilasters which divide the composition. The main cornice is simple with brackets and dentils. Throughout the house, classical proportions are maintained and this is evident in the appropriateness of every detail to classical precedent. The portico and surmounting window are especially lovely specimens. The portico projects from the facade and ends in a semi-circle; the Corinthian columns and delicate carving in the frieze are particularly nice touches which are repeated on the Palladian window above with an elaborate surround. The front door is segmental arched and has elaborately paneled leaves. I actually love this house's proportion and especially like the carving and composition of the porch.

The sides of the house as well do not disappoint, repeating the same level of decoration as the main facade rather than skimping as many houses do. The north facade features a port cochere (a porch under which carriages could drive) which breaks with the house's classicism with a more Italianate design with filleted corners and heavier molding. The port cochere is attached to a shallow bow projection in the facade. The south facade features a central bow projection as well that is more sharply curved. The first floor windows on either side have wooden awnings and opened onto balconies. The following pictures show some details.

The north facade

The house is notable for having its original interior decorative scheme from the 1860s, particularly the painted and stenciled walls, and most of its original furnishings. The house was not altered much in its history and is a treasured example of mid 19th century design. The following images are selected from the HABS file. Some color pictures of the interior can be seen at the house's website.