The Charles F. Loomis House, Suffield, CT

The Charles F. Loomis House, Suffield, CT. 1862

The Charles F. Loomis house is the last house I will examine in this set. Again it was built by one of the Loomises in 1862, but instead of following his relative's symmetrical and almost Moorish designs, Charles chose to build in the irregular plan. The house doesn't appear irregular from a frontal viewing from the street; the expected façade is turned toward the left on the lot, and the entrance has been altered so that it faces the street rather than the left side as the plan dictates. Also odd is that the recessed façade is incredibly short, only one bay wide, instead of extending further than the projecting façade. Because it is so short, the porch wraps around the tower rather than extending along the recessed façade. Thus the house has a very strong vertical thrust. The façade is clapboarded, but the tower façade includes elaborate strapwork, or boards applied to a façade in a pattern, which resembles Medieval half timbering. This type of Medieval decoration was characteristic of the contemporary Gothic Revival and Swiss Chalet styles. The gables also reflect a Gothic or Swiss influence in their use of barge boards, or boards that are applied to a gable and extend it.

Besides these features much of the main body of the house is simply decorated. The window treatments are varied between segmental arched windows (including a tripartite segmental arched window on the street façade), round, tombstone, bay, and round headed windows. The street façade is given some importance by the wooden awning and balcony on the first floor. The door features a glass surround that we have seen on several houses with etched panels that seem to be intact. The tower is interestingly composed. Each stage is carefully defined; the second and third floors have a small roof that leads to a slenderer second stage. The third floor is topped with an eave with dentils, and the fourth floor has a wide eave with a steep tent roof topped by an iron cresting. This tower has a very pagoda like effect with the defined floors and tapering shape. The strapwork is employed to articulate each façade separately while providing a decorative continuity. Although it lacks the grand siting of the George Loomis House, the Charles Loomis house definitely makes a dramatic statement.

Looking at these three houses built by the same family in a relatively short period of time, we can see what it took to express wealth around 1860 in Suffield. Grand exotic touches, imposing siting and massing, and individuality of style allowed this family to both express itself in a similarly exotic idiom while maintaining an independence from each other. Some families built identical houses as their other relatives or even connected houses, but the Loomises insisted on each one doing their own thing with their design. It has certainly given Suffield a grand architectural legacy.

The George W. Loomis House, Suffield, CT

The George W. Loomis House, Suffield, CT. 1860

The George W. Loomis house is the second of the Loomis houses I will be exploring. The house was built by one of the Loomis brothers for their son; in 1912 it became the rectory for St. Joseph's Church next door. The house follows the symmetrical plan with a hip roof and cupola. Despite being sided with what appears to be aluminum, the house preserves many of its fine features. Like the Byron Loomis house, this house also features a central two story porch, but this porch has a much more flamboyant treatment. The first stage is simple enough, with fluted columns, but there is no crowning cornice here. The columns rise to the second stage where they flare out with four pieced curving pieces that stick out on each side, looking like some gnarled tree trunk. The second story is crowned by a jigsawed ogee and wide eave. Because there is no intervening cornice line between the porch's two stages, the effect produced is of the first stage being the column and the second stage being the elongated almost Moorish capital. Other Italianates with Moorish treatments do this with their porches, and it might be the influence of Henry Austin's Indian style of ornament. Adding to the odd effect is the iron cresting that caps the wooden balustrade on the second stage of the porch.

The cornice is surprisingly large on this house, and the brackets are correspondingly elongated with finials that suggest the icicle effect of some Italianates. The windows in the frieze are segmentally arched, as are the windows on the first story at the front, but are currently serving as vents. Over the windows on the front façade on the second floor hang exterior lambrequins. These are wooden cut out pieces, in this case representing arches, that are applied to a rectangular window to alter its shape.
Another unique feature of this house is that two of the panes on the front of the cupola are stained, blue and orange respectively. This treatment is probably part of the original scheme in which all the windows of the cupola featured glass of different colors. It's impressive that these two pieces survive! The house has a dramatic siting on a small hill set back quite far from the main road. This gives the house a very commanding presence on the street and increases its visibility. The George Loomis house is calculated to create a grand and exotic effect which not even its current state of poor restoration can dim.

The Byron Loomis House, Suffield, CT

The Byron Loomis House, Suffield, CT. 1850-1860?

Suffield is a beautiful Connecticut town in which a parade of grand 18th and 19th century homes are strung along the main street. One of the most important 19th century families in Suffield were the Loomises, a group of six brothers who made a fortune as tobacco merchants in Suffield; in the next three posts, I will be looking at three of the brothers' houses which were built in the Italianate style. The Byron Loomis house was constructed between 1850 and 1860; it follows the symmetrical plan with a cupola. The house has a variety of interesting features. First, it is sided entirely in flush boards, or boards laid without any overlap. This gives the wall a smooth surface reminiscent of plaster. Often flush board siding was characteristic of Greek Revival design, while plaster over brick was a more common Italianate variant. Second, is the two story porch in the center bay of the house. Another of the Loomis houses in Suffield also has this feature, as well as some houses in New Haven. The porch is architecturally complex; the first stage features thick square, chamfered cornered columns with an open segmented arch. The second stage also has square columns with chamfers and a lattice. Both stages are bracketed.

Other interesting aspects are the hood moldings which feature small tent-roof projections, which reminds me of the Fisher house in New Haven, and the brackets that jut to the cornice and fill the entire frieze of the entablature. While the porch features only brackets at the corners, the rest of the house has a constant run of brackets. Although it is not by him, the house bears a strong resemblance to the architecture of New Haven designer Henry Austin. The cupola has segmental arched windows separated by pilasters, an elegant touch that makes it appear more open than enclosed. Overall, the house has a somewhat exotic air, especially with the construction of the porch. The lattice reminds me of Moorish designs, which can sometimes be seen on Connecticut Italianates.