'Woodlawn' the Henry Howard Owings House, Columbia, MD

The Henry Howard Owings House, Columbia, MD. 1840 Photo: Wikimedia

Starting out life as an 18th century wooden farmhouse, the Owings house (he bought it in 1858), aka 'Woodlawn' was extensively remodeled in 1840 in the Italianate style, a rather early manifestation of it by the looks of the design. It follows the symmetrical plan, with a central gabled projecting bay. Like most of these earlier designs, the decoration is pretty sparse, consisting of a tight cornice with no entablature, featuring the early style beam brackets. An odd feature is that these beam brackets are attached to the moldings above the windows, and not typically just at the corners but in a full run. This provides an odd bit of shadow and movement on an otherwise simple house. The porch is similarly simple, with thin chamfered posts and diminutive cut out designs. It's finished in appropriate stucco, and the painting of the house is quite appropriate to the Davis and Downing principles that underline its planning. Unfortunately, once surrounded by woods, the house is now surrounding by parking lots! Talk about some unpleasant rezoning. At least they left the house, even though its context is gone.

'Clifton' the Johns Hopkins House, Baltimore, MD

'Clifton' the Johns Hopkins House, Baltimore, MD. 1858 

Photo: Doug Copeland

Photo: Wikimedia

'Clifton' is another remodel of an earlier house, a five bay home built in the Federal style in 1803 for Henry Thompson. In 1838, it was bought by Johns Hopkins, the same university benefactor, and was remodeled in 1858 to its current Anglo-Italianate design by Niernsee and Neilson, a firm whose Baltimore work I have previously explored. The house has a five bay plan inherited from its previous incarnation, but the wings and tower placement are very unprecedented. Unlike Locust Grove, Niernsee did not disguise the original house, seen as the tall central block here, but rather expanded it drastically, making it the centerpiece of a much larger Italianate composition, adding Anglo-Italianate surrounds to the windows, a small entablature sequestering the third floor, and an entablature-less cornice with simple beam brackets. A broad porch was built linking the entire design and wing (an unexpectedly large porch!) with simple arches with bulls eyes in the spandrels resting on chamfered, paneled pillars. The bulkiness of the porch is relieved by a rather delicate railings with Roman-style crosses tied with bulls eyes. A simple beam bracket cornice completes the design with a pediment indicating the front entrance. The house gets very Italianate in its tower, connected by a wing with double tombstone windows with no surrounds. The tower covers a port cochere and seems to combine the full gamut of tower motifs with an arched window on the second stage, a Renaissance surround rectangular window on the third (with Renaissance balconies), a Romanesque series of drops that underlie a simple dentilled string course, an uncommon fourth stage with three deep panels and a window in the center, and on the fifth a triple arched window with an iron balcony surrounding the whole. This might be one of the tallest Italianate towers I have featured. The rear of the house has a polygonal bay and a very strange broad eave with c scroll brackets that fill almost the whole second floor, perhaps the most exaggerated brackets I have seen.

A blog post shows detailed shots of the house and the interior during renovation, with great images of the stunning plasterwork, fine stenciled walls, and unique woodwork. The design of the tower, semi detached and connected by a low wing suggests strongly to me Osborne House, one of the UK's premier Italianate palaces:

Photo: Wikimedia

'Locust Grove' the Samuel F. B. Morse House, Poughkeepsie, NY

'Locust Grove' the Samuel F. B. Morse House, Poughkeepsie, NY. 1850

Photo: Wikimedia

Photo: Wikimedia

Photo: Wikimedia

Thinking of remodels into the Italianate style, the Samuel F. B. Morse house, Locust Grove, originally a 1771 five bay house, was remodeled extensively by the famous painter and telegraph developer (think Morse code) to the designs by Alexander Jackson Davis, America's premier Italianate designer of the period. The house, especially in its large arches, finish, and tower proportions very much resembles John Notman's Riverside in NJ. Davis successfully disguised the five bay house so that it is difficult to imagine what it originally looked like today, and because it was a remodel, the house does not follow any regular plan but is a custom design. The five bay façade, with the exception of the two outermost bays was completely hidden behind a massive projecting pavilion that covered the three central bays and entrance and sheltered a port cochere. This pavilion featured a large arched entrance in the center with a palladian window above. On the right side, Davis extended the façade with a polygonal bay framed by a large porch with thin, iron lattice supports. The left bay was originally supposed to be polygonal as well, but something seems to have changed in the design. Davis placed the tower to the rear, overlooking the Hudson, but aligned it so that it is centered on the projecting pavilion, making it look like a cupola from the front, a central tower design from the back. The whole façade is flushboarded with simple details reflecting its early period, a plain entablature board with c scroll brackets on the house (beam brackets on the porch). The window surrounds are complete moldings. The paint scheme for this house is certainly one of the most historically accurate, reflecting the pale colors favored by Downing and Davis. The house is now a museum.

The Eli Slifer House, Lewisburg, PA

The Eli Slifer House, Lewisburg, PA. 1861. Source: otandka

Source: Bill Badzo

Source: Wikimedia

Eli Slifer commissioned Samuel Sloan to design his country house in Lewisburg, completed in 1861, just as the Civil War was breaking out in which Slifer played a major role as a bigwig in state government. In this house, we can see Sloan moving somewhat away from all of his precedents and into more creative territory in design. While the plan and first two floors look like most of Sloan's five bay symmetrical plan houses, such as the Packer house, to which this bears some similarity, above the roof, Sloan has raised the roof pitch dramatically to accommodate tall central gables. An additional oddity is the placement of the tower in the rear, invisible from the front unless one stands at just the right angle to see its steeply pitched tent roof poking out. So emphatic is the right side of the house, that it almost becomes a principal façade in competition with the main façade. The design of the house is rather spare, with no window surrounds, though this would appear much less cheerless if the shutters were restored. The façade as well seems to have been faced in fine stone, now obscured by a rather rough plaster job. The front of the house features a simple porch that extends around the design, very much a Sloan standby which softens the mass of the main body and expands the profile. The central window is paired with a curved wooden awning over it, uniting the two. The dramatic gable, with paired tombstone windows, has bargeboards, decorative wooden boards attached to the cornice, with a few whimsies thrown in for drama. The simple beam brackets are mostly obscured by the angled eave overhang. The right side features a large fringed second floor balcony, perhaps the frilliest thing on this mostly somber design. The tower's curved roof is a feature that hearkens back to an earlier stage of Italianate, with balconies and triple arched windows. In a sense, one might consider the placement of this tower along side the rear towers found in Woodland Terrace.

Sloan published his design for this house in Homestead Architecture, as Design 33.

After serving as a religious institution for many years, the house is now a museum. On their website is a gallery of interior images, which indicate the house seems appropriately furnished for its period.

'Dunleith' the Robert P. Dick House, Greensboro, NC

Dunleith the Robert P. Dick House, Greensboro, NC. 1856.

Source: Greensboro Historical Society

Source: NCSU Library

'Dunleith' was built in 1856-8 for a Supreme Court Justice in Greensboro, the site of one of the country's earliest Italianate houses, and was a unique example of the pavilion plan which includes a large central bay that extends above the side pavilions. Even stranger, the house's central section is gabled, echoing the pavilions, a device that was unparalleled in this plan type. This only highlights Sloan's creativity in the design. The ornamentation of the house was simple but varied. The pavilions featured bay windows on the first floor and paired, segmental arched windows on the second. The central section was a series of triads, with a cast iron triple arched opening on the first, a very shallow triple arched palladian on the second, and a set of triple arched windows on the third. The windows were surrounded with thick eared moldings with some rococo foliage crowning the peak of the arches. The house had a Gothic trim with quatrefoils intersected by simple beam brackets. The house was demolished in the middle of the 20th century. A color image can be seen here. A recent plan for the site featured a possible reconstruction (in an altered form) of the house. Fortunately, before its demolition, the house was extensively recorded by HABS (the source of the images below).

Elevations:

Plans:

Details:

Another house is Greensboro that seems modeled on a Sloan design was 'Bellemeade' the William Henry Porter house (demolished). This is another manifestation of Design 9 from the Model Architect. This is an impressive symmetrical plan house in its own right, with an octagonal cupola and paired windows, as per Sloan's published plan. Where it differs is in the details. Unlike the plan in MA, the house has a rather elaborate, heavy cornice with a fringe and panels. The brackets are larger and heavier. And the ornamentation over the central triple window is unprecedented as an example of carpenter whimsy, with a design of fringes, and tassels that almost looks like a wooden manifestation of an interior cornice box. The porch as well, though it keeps the simple post design, has been gussied up with fringe.

Source: Ginia Zenke

'Alverthorpe' the Joshua F. Fisher House, Jenkintown, PA

 

'Alverthorpe' Jenkintown, PA. 1851
All Photos unless otherwise credited: HABS



Photo: Diary Sidney George Fisher

The Joshua Fisher house, known as Alverthorpe (frustratingly misspelled as Alvethorpe in HABS) was built in 1851 for a prominent Philadelphia merchant and general rich guy. He was well traveled (Grand Tour 1832) and gathered an impressive historical and art collection at his home. Drawings indicate Notman designed the house and the formal gardens, and it remains one of his most impressive designs. Fortunately HABS documented the house before it was unfortunately demolished in 1937. Notman went all out for this commission, choosing the pavilion plan as his base and adding a tower to the side as well as an extension wing with a gabled pavilion and a particularly fine wrought iron porch, one of the most impressive pieces of wrought iron I've seen from this period. As we expect, Notman never puts a tower where one expects. Resisting the urge to play with polygons here, Notman constructed a cube that is three stories rather than the typical two, making the house far taller than usual. This height is balanced by the service wing, which corrects the vertical with horizontal balance. The façade is they expected fieldstone with brownstone quoins and trim.

 

The detailing on this house is ambitious to say the least. On the principal façade, Notman has turned the first floor into a colonnade with pilasters between the triple windows on the first floor and a large semicircular portico with a full entablature and large brackets. The whole is topped with a Renaissance balustrade. The main entrance continued the glass wall of the first floor with large windows surrounding the main entrance (the first glass curtain?). While the window surrounds are simple on the second and third floors (triple windows in the center bay, single on the sides), each window has a balcony that gives it extra weight. The cornice features not one but two sets of beam brackets superimposed, making for  heavy cornice line. The tower is a sculptural masterpiece, with simple detailing on the lower floors that expands into rectangular triple windows with a heavy bracketed balcony above. The upper stage has triple arched windows with interesting brackets that curve out from the façade in a large c scroll, making it look like they almost organically grow from the masonry. Other interesting details are the porch on the right hand façade, which is an adaptation of a rustic Italian motif we will see at Fieldwood. The service wing with its gabled pavilion that has a triple arched window is especially charming, looking like a small monastery chapel. The wrought iron is amazing, as I already gushed. From the few interior views, one can see the house had an impressive amount of classical detailing. Coupled with the fine formal gardens, patios, urns, and sculptures, this house is the picture of a wealthy wonderland. All I can say is its a shame we can't enjoy this today.

 



'Hollybush' the Thomas Whitney House, Glassboro, NJ

'Hollybush', Glassboro, NJ. 1849 Photo: JasonW72

Photo: Wikimedia

The Thomas Whitney house, built in 1849 for Thomas Whitney, the owner of one of the most profitable glass companies in South Jersey (Glassboro!), cannot be perfectly identified with John Notman, but its early date coupled with its Notman-esque stylistic features means that if he didn't design it, he surely influenced it very heavily. I'm minded to say it is a Notman product. Whitney commissioned the house after a Grand Trip tour that included Italy; what better souvenir than a rustic Italian farmhouse? Unlike Notman's other houses, this follows a more straightforward, irregular plan. Perhaps the publication of Downing's Cottage Residences in 1842 with a similar plan encouraged Notman to use it. The use of local stone, probably at one point plastered, is a big Notman feature as well as gives the house the desired rustic Italian effect. The spare use of decoration is a typical characteristic of Notman and early Italianates. Here decoration is confined to the use of spindly ironwork for the porches with particularly oversized concave tent roofs and wooden awnings on iron brackets. Additionally, laciness is seen on the balconies. The overhang over the front door is a particularly beautiful and Notman feature. A highly elongated shallow gable is supported on three beams with interlacing arches; the whole rests on, you guessed it, spindly iron brackets, a rarity. The strangest feature of the house is the eave, which is far wider than any in a typical Italianate, and the eave inclines upward, as can be seen on the tower. This construction has the effect of reducing the visual impact of the beam brackets, making them almost invisible underneath the huge overhang.

The house was sold by the Whitneys in 1915 and promptly bought by what would become Rowan University as the president's house. It's well-known primarily because it hosted a Soviet-American summit in 1967 over the Six Day War. Interiors can be seen here.

Photo: Wikimedia

'Fountain Elms' the James and Helen Williams House, Utica, NY

'Fountain Elms', Utica, NY. 1852 Photo: Wikimedia

Following Photos: mrsmecomber

'Fountain Elms' is a fine house on Utica's Genesee Street, a major thoroughfare. Built for Helen and James Williams in 1852 by architect William Woollett it is currently a museum space for the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute. Because the Williams planned to make the house a museum space, the interiors (created in a much higher style than the house featured originally) and exterior are well preserved and feature an exceptional collection of mid-19th century furniture and artwork. As with the other houses of the 1850s I have been exploring, it is severe in its design, but it employs an uncommon plan, the pavilioned plan with two symmetrical projecting pavilions connecting a central entrance bay. The pavilion design seems to be reflected on the right side of the house as well, where two bays strongly project at the ends (pictured below).

Interesting features of the house include thick brownstone moldings around the windows, fine rafter brackets typical of early Italianates, and blind arches (even in the chimneys). The thickness of the moldings on the second floor round headed windows gives the house a top-heavy appearance because of the simplicity of the bracket and cornices on the first floor windows. The Palladian window in the center is uncommon, but particularly unique is the Palladian configuration of the door with detached side lights. The porch and balustrades are dignified and Renaissance-inspired. Finally, the color scheme of this house is particularly historical and well conceived. Here, the stucco is painted yellow, while the trim is all a uniform brown to simulate the brownstone of the moldings. This house allows us to consider the effect of using simple and historically correct colors for an Italianate house.

Photo: Mike Christoferson

'Blandwood', the Charles Bland House, Greensboro, NC

Blandwood, Greensboro, NC. 1844

Continuing my exploration of some early Italianate houses, Blandwood in Greensboro is one of the nation's oldest Italianate homes, and it's spare design reflects the simplicity of many early Italianate houses. Begun as an 18th century farmhouse (the four room plan of which can be seen below), the home reached its current design in 1844 under the aegis of none other than Alexander Jackson Davis, the man who introduced Italianate design to America. Davis altered the house for James Moorehead by creating a new wing connected to the original house by a central hall and adding Italianate details, such as the arched entryway, central tower, plaster exterior, and rafter brackets, which are characteristic of most early Italianates. The lack of cornice ornamentation is also typical of an early design. The facade is of the symmetrical and central tower type, and unusual for this kind of design the tower projects dramatically from the facade and is not relieved by side porches. The overall effect is severity at its extreme.

Atypical for an Italianate house, this building lacks the usual play of round and flat headed windows that are usually found in towers. Similarly, the small size of the second floor windows is uncommon. The house also creates a strong sense of formality by the connection of the kitchen and side buildings with segmental arched arcades and simple pilasters. A folly like this is more common in English formal design than American. The interiors are well preserved, since the house was saved from demolition and now operates as a museum. A couple images below, selected from the NCSU page on the house, illustrate the elaborate interiors in their pre-restored state. Blandwood is a rare survivor of a fascinating early page in the history of Italianate design in America. 

Following Photos: NCSU