The James S. Marsh House, Lewisburg, PA

The James S. Marsh House, Lewisburg, PA. 1860s Photo: Joseph a

The James S. Marsh house, built in the 1860s by an important iron foundry owner in Lewisburg is an excellent survival story. Left in terrible repair and condemned after conversion into apartments, the house was restored by the Ludwigs as you can read here (with accompanying photos).

It is a tour de force of Italianate design and includes all sorts of bells and whistles. It is a symmetrical five bay house with a gable roof and, unusually, a cupola. Usually cupolas are placed on hip roofs and not gabled roofs. On the first floor, the house has segmental arched windows and on the second and third round arched windows. All have a similar drip molding that conforms to the arch shape and ends in Gothic style finials and almost all have Venetian tracery. In the center is a triple arched palladian window, also with a conforming molding. The designer even put grand windows in the attic story at the end, a rather expensive decision. The finish is stucco with impressive quoins at the corners and a rusticated basement. The front looks a little bare. It's likely that it had an entrance porch that matched the side porch, a rather rich design with a fringe, s and c scroll brackets, and arches interrupted by carved keystones and a wooden fringe. The cornice is the fillet cornice type with a deep architrave and filleted panels alternating with filleted windows topped by a run of fringe made by pieces of wooden molding. The brackets are s scroll type and the sides form curved rinceaux. Particularly lavish is the cupola with wood rusticated to look like masonry. The backets and two windows match the facade windows with Venetian tracery and strong moldings with added multi eared surrounds. A different cornice type, the undulating cornice was used here. An earlier view of the house shows a grand balustrade on the cupola and a balustrade atop both porches. These things always rot off. 

The Francis Crum House, Columbus, OH

The Francis Crum House, Columbus, OH. 1850

The Francis Crum house stands next to the Snowden house on the east side of E Town Street. It was started in 1844 by another builder, but finished after a long delay by Francis Crum in 1850. The house is a three bay, side entrance plan house, with an additionally two bays added later, slightly recessed. This is a common form of extension for houses of this plan. The house shares some of the design features of the Snowden house, with round arched windows on the first floor and three point arched windows on the second. The surrounds are more abbreviated than the Snowden house, with hood moldings ending in foliate Gothic stops with a rococo cartouche in the center. The windows feature Venetian tracery. The cornice and entablature follow the bull's eye form, as next door, except here the windows are elliptical intersecting the panels. The brackets are especially elaborate, being a s scroll form attached to a rotated s curve design. Deeply carved acanthus leaves and finer carving on the brackets distinguish it from Snowden's. The cupola is very low, with strong brackets echoing the cornice, and rectangular windows with arched ends. Note how the cupola is centered on the original three bays rather than taking account of the addition. Unfortunately, the house has experienced some mutilation, with the front door replaced by a colonial revival form and the first floor of the side wing obliterated with a columned, glass picture window. Both these changes are probably from the 1910s-20s. 

The Emil S. Heineman House, Detroit, MI

The Emil S. Heineman House, Detroit, MI. 1859 Photo: Scott Weir

A slightly less elaborate version of the later Ward house was built for Emil S. Heineman, a clothes merchant, in 1859, five years before the Ward house. Like the Ward house, Heineman is a symmetrical plan and has a similar fenestration, with double arched windows on the flanking bays and a triple arched palladian (somewhat more extreme) in the center even in the porch, as well as protruding windows on the first floor (boxed rather than bay). Clearly, a slew of Detroit Italianates followed this type. The decoration of the windows and porches is finer here, with cast iron hood moldings on the windows with central leafy anthemia in a rococo style and leafy finials. The porch has very thin columns and long dripping brackets. Of course, the necessary balustrades are provided, a sort of stylized Renaissance motif with urns. Notably, the windows on the second floor and the sides all feature Venetian tracery. Curvaceousness does not transcend the third floor, where the windows are simple rectangles paired as the principal floor windows. These are enclosed by an architrave and thin paired double s scroll brackets interrupting a run of smaller brackets. The whole is topped by a triple arched palladian cupola, with an engaged arch in the cornice and squiggly brackets. By comparison with the Ward and Newcomb types, one can readily see the restraint of the 1850s in comparison with the 60s and the 70s.

'Longwood' the Haller Nutt House, Natchez, MS

'Longwood' the Haller Nutt House, Natchez, MS. 1859 Photo: Wikimedia

'Longwood' is perhaps Sloan's most famous commission, his most eccentric, and his greatest unrealized project. Dr. Haller Nutt, a wealthy planter and agricultural inventor, commissioned Sloan to design the house in 1859, and by 1861, the exterior was completed. The outbreak of the Civil War, however, caused the workmen from Philadelphia to abandon the project and return north. The house was left with a finished exterior, but an unfinished interior, with only the basement complete and the remainder framed. The house suffered neglect, as Nutt lost most of his wealth during the war, but has been restored as a tourist venue. As a unique survival, Longwood provides us with a wealth of information on the process of construction and framing in the 19th century, an ironic testament to the work of Sloan as a pioneer of balloon framing. Additionally, the house is one of the most important and well known monuments of Indian Italianate in the US.

Sloan's design for the house, an octagon, was based on the briefly popular octagon shape popularized by Orson Quire Fowler, a lifestyle theorist in the 19th century who theorized that the octagon shape was more healthful and economical, leading to a spate of houses based on Fowler's designs. The plan that Sloan selected as the basis of Longwood was published in the Model Architect v.2 in 1852 as an "Oriental Villa". It remains one of the most elaborate examples of the fanciful strain of Indian Italianate design in the US, but, like the style in general, it remains Italianate to the core with a spattering of oriental details and design elements.

The original design:

The plan is octagonal, but Sloan has complicated the design. Four of the facades on the first two stories project by several bays, forming a Greek cross shape; these bays alternate with double storied porches, filling out the octagon shape. Each façade on these first two stories has three arched windows; on the projecting facades, these are closely spaced with a hanging porch on the first floor with three arches answering the windows. One the recessed facades, there are two windows flanking a door on each story, forming three arched openings. The third floor reverses the rhythm of projections and recesses on the first two; where the façade projects on the first two stories, it recedes on the third and vice versa. The fourth floor abandons the triple arched motif in favor of paired tombstone windows, a typical Sloan maneuver to differentiate the third floor. The whole is topped by a tall polygonal drum with arched windows and an onion dome, the consummate Indian/Mughal design element.

As much as the house makes a pretense of Indian design features, it doesn't nearly capture the authenticity of Henry Austin's Indian houses in New Haven, such as the employment of candelabra columns. Rather, it uses primarily vernacular Italianate motifs, but arranges them in such a way as to suggest the oriental world. For instance, a look at the double story porches shows Corinthian columns (of a slightly lusher variety than a strictly classical design), but the scrollwork on the porch is designed to mimic the horseshoe arches and ogee shapes in Islamic architecture. Horseshoe arches can also be found on the balustrades. On the side balconies, we see horse shoe arches again with interesting moldings above the columns, a further feature that recalls the Alhambra. Finally, the fringes on every cornice line and the dome itself, which has an onion shape, pull the entire composition into the Indian mode. One bizarre feature that I am at a loss to explain is the strange tracery in the windows, which looks more Chippendale gothic than Moorish.

All following photos from Wikimedia.

Unfortunately, the interiors were never finished, but this allows us a good glimpse of the construction methods of the house:

The Joseph Harrison House, Philadelphia, PA

The Joseph Harrison House, Philadelphia, PA. 1856.

Sloan designed the Joseph Harrison house in a prominent location in urban Philadelphia, on Rittenhouse Square in 1856. Harrison was an extremely wealthy railroad inventor and builder who was responsible for building a large portion of Russia's 19th century railroad system. Harrison bought an entire side of Rittenhouse Square in 1855 and set about building his house facing the square and also designing a series of row houses behind, filling the block. Considered one of Philadelphia's most extravagant houses, it housed an art collection that would form one of the core collections of the Pennsylvania Academy in one of its wings. The house was demolished in the 1920s.

Architecturally, the house does not follow a typical Italianate plan, and may have reflected a design that impressed Harrison in St. Petersburg, though which house this would be is anyone's guess. The house has strong European influences; it is completed in masonry with strong quoins (the whole is basically strong Anglo-Italianate in finish, and the central pavilion block has no entrance in the center of the façade, as one might expect. Rather, we find entrances placed to the sides, similar to how some European urban houses contain a building entrance and a carriage entrance both disguised as doors (here the carriage entrance is placed under the left hand pavilion). Additionally, there are no high stoops here; the stairs that elevate one from the entrance level to the principal floor are placed inside. The finish with balustrades, attic, and rustication is a perfect example of Samuel Sloan's more sophisticated taste having free reign.

The house is, from the front, a large symmetrical cube of three stories and three bays set on a high basement. The façade is stone, with quoins. The basement is rusticated with segmental arched windows. On the first and second floor, three tall windows with depressed arches each contain Venetian tracery with a small gothic column at the joining. The windows are framed only by a very deep molded surround that casts a strong shadow. The third floor varies the design, with small paired arched windows, a device seen in other Sloan designs in which the third floor breaks out into a series of grouped arched windows. The whole has an entablature without brackets with a tall attic railing above, which was carved with Harrison's monogram. The main entrances flank the central block, tall arches with massive doors and balustrades. The side pavilions are the real innovation here, not recessed or subordinated to the main façade, with a strong rusticated base and a smooth second story with a projecting oriole window. The pavilions balance the austerity of the central block with a richer texturing that allows them to hold their own and maintain themselves as visual focus points in relation to the massive bulk of the main block. The whole had a unique stone fence, almost Moorish or Gothic in design, running around the front of the property.

The rear of the central block differed significantly from the austere front. Two bay windows that ran the full height of the building connected by a two story porch with strong arches, Gothic-esque posts, and interlacing tracery. It almost has a Moorish air with the grand octagonal greenhouse and overlooked an impressive garden. This was probably one of Sloan's greatest accomplishments; it's unfortunate it didn't survive. Sloan published his plans, elevations, and details in his publication of 1858, City and Suburban Architecture.

"Bartram Hall" the Andrew M. Eastwick House, Philadelphia, PA

"Bartram Hall" the Andrew Eastwick House, Philadelphia, PA. 1851

Courtesy: The Library Company of Philadelphia

Courtesy: The Library Company of Philadelphia

Andrew Eastwick, a locomotive manufacturer, gave Sloan his first commission in 1850 after a return from Russia where he had been making locomotives for the new Russian railroads. The house was built on a portion of Bartram's Gardens, the first botanical gardens founded in the US in 1728. Since Eastwick was a great admirer of the gardens, he made sure to inform the public he wouldn't harm "one bush" in the preserve and named his hall in honor of the gardens. As Sloan's first independent commission, Bartram Hall made a huge splash, and it is surprising the young architect's first big job was such a lavish house. Sadly, the house burned down in 1896 after being sold to the city in 1890. Currently there's a picnic pavilion on the site.

Sloan designed Bartram Hall in what he termed the "Norman" style, a form of Italianate that hearkened to Romanseque medieval precedents. Stylistically, this conforms to the Rundbogenstil, an Italianate form popular in Germany that gained ground in the US, primarily as a design style for public buildings. In fact, Sloan's design for Bartram Hall is one of the earliest examples of this style in the US applied to a domestic building. A close second is the James Bishop house is nearby New Brunswick, NJ that bears many similar qualities and stylistic features. The house follows the irregular plan and has features typical of the Rundbogenstil, Venetian/Florentine tracery, inverted crenellations, or drops which are rows of small arches near the cornice, shallow gables, and thick quoins. The primary addition is the octagonal crenelated tower at the back, which gives the house more medieval flair. The design was so significant, Sloan offered several views of it in The Model Architect, under Design 10, and used a colored image as his frontispiece:

As can be seen from the images, the house has a straightforward irregular plan with the expected tower, but while it appears narrow and l-shaped from the front, side views show it to be a massive cube that has elements of the pavilion and irregular plans on the sides. The walls were finished in heavy masonry. As other examples of this style, the real interest is provided by the ornamental treatment, which Sloan described as rich and based on zig-zags and chevrons. Instead of brackets, the cornice features deep inverted crenellations that run around the house. All the windows are arched, filled with Venetian tracery, and are surrounded by thick drip moldings that terminate in medieval vegetal finials. Sloan did add some vegetal rococo forms on the brackets for the balcony as well as at the gable peaks. Even the bay windows are topped with crenellations and are paired with thick, arcaded porches (which run around most of the first floor of the house) that convey the massiveness of the medieval style. In fact, the ornamentation is surprisingly consistent throughout the house's facade. The tower is impressively tall, breaking with typical Italianate gradations where the topmost story in smaller than the stories below. A tall gently curving roof with dormers gives it added height an impressiveness, more like a church tower than a house tower. The details are drawn carefully in Sloan's plans. Also attached is a ceiling design in color that might have gone with the house, as it follows closely on the description of Design 10.

Sloan included a full set of floorplans for the house. As can be seen, the rooms are large and arranged attractively around the central stair hall with a variety of lobbies and intervening halls. The attic floor is particularly well designed with its ample closets and smart hallways.

The Jonathan Newton Harris House, New London, CT

The Jonathan Harris House, New London. 1859 CT Photo: Wikimedia

The Jonathan Newton Harris house in New London (130 Broad St.) was constructed in 1859-60 for a businessman and mayor of New London. After serving as a school in the 1890s, it became a church, which it functions as today. The house is clearly an example of Upjohn's double tower plan, as shown by the fenestration and the treatment of the entrance; however, it departs from the plan in the type of windows it employs, the height of the lower tower, and the detailing it uses. Perhaps more so than other examples of this plan, this house differs most in its details. Like the King house, it has the same distributions of windows, large windows on the first floor, on the second, double windows on the left hand tower, three windows on the right (here they are segmental arched), and on the third, triple arched windows. The central bay has two stacked recessed porches, the lower with a triple arched palladian form, the upper an arcade of three arches. The house lacks all of the wooden awnings and balconies of the King house. The façade is brick and the trim is extremely fine cut brownstone. The windows have engaged columns flanking the windows with Gothic arches over the round arched windows. Even the porch has its columns and balustrades in brownstone, a very expensive detail.

In general, this house is a unique combination of Gothic detailing on an Italianate form. While the first floor windows are pretty typically Italianate, the other windows on the house are divided in the manner of Venetian tracery with Gothic tracery forms throughout. Additionally, the gothic arches and columns, the front door, and the impressive three story bay window on the side continue with strong Gothic detailing. Other unique features are the low placement of the triple arched windows on the tower for the insertion of a small round window on the side and the extremely uncommon triangular window on the left façade. No doubt in the remodeling for the church, the Gothic details were seen as a sign that the house might serve an ecclesiastical function. The cornice as well is intriguing. Even though it is extremely narrow with closely spaced brackets, small windows repeat every other pair of brackets. Some of these are arched, other square, but they must be no taller than a foot. This makes their functionality rather dubious. Probably one of the finest examples of the plan with some of the most unique details, the house's impressive siting on a hill with a huge front yard gives it a suitably commanding presence on Broad Street.