The Philip T. Snowden House, Columbus OH

The Philip Snowden House, Columbus, OH. 1850

The Philip Snowden house is one of the premier homes left in Columbus' East Town Street district, an area of the city which was the wealthy district in the early 19th century. Snowden was a textile importer and built this house in 1850, though he only held onto it for a decade before he went bankrupt. The house is currently owned by the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. It follows a pavilion style plan, with shallow projective pavilions connected by a recessed pavilion with porch. It is the detailing of the house which is exceptional. All the windows of the house are round arched, with heavy stone surrounds. Each surround begins at the base with a curved ear in a Renaissance style, arising from stylized foliage. This transforms as one ascends to an engaged column supporting a capital of Gothic style foliage. The arch has a thick exterior molding with a toothed/arched design (very Romanesque); the keystone is established by a rococo cartouche. This juggling of styles in the 19th century is especially emphatic here. On the first floor, each window has a paneled apron. The porch is made of three arches and is an exceptionally lacy piece of ironwork resting on thin, stylized Corinthian columns with classical rinceaux in the spandrels. An image from the late 19th century shows a different porch, one which is far less delicate and much clunkier. To me, that certainly looks like a later development as well as it seems to ignore the entire rhythm of the façade and the paired windows.

From History of Columbus.

The door has a pilastered surround. The whole is topped by a cornice structure of the bulls eye type with the bulls eye window inset between rather elaborate panels beneath a row of dentils. The brackets alternate between smaller s scroll brackets and longer double s scroll brackets at emphatic points. Each pavilion is topped by an engaged round pediment (also bracketed) with a rococo foliage and shell element at the apex. The crowning touch to the house is its fine cupola, one of the most attractive of which I know, with a run of four arched windows, and paired brackets (from the picture once also repeated on the lower half) and a dramatic curved tent roof with a thick finial. One of the most impressive houses of its kind, I must say that its degree of finish and preservation make it one of my favorites.

The Clark J. Whitney House, Detroit MI

The Clark J. Whitney House, Detroit MI. 1857 Photo: Scott Weir

The same house in 1882. Photo: Scott Weir

It's rare to see an Italianate remodeled into another Italianate. Typically you slap a mansard roof on top or a Queen Anne gable and call it a day. But that's not what Whitney did with his chaste 1857 house in Detroit. Instead, he took his genteel Italianate and decided to display his new status with a zany new design, doubling the size and basically constructing a new house right into the fabric of the old. The house has a rotated side tower plan. In the 1857 design, the house had a projecting bay with two windows and a typical three stage tower, all ensconced in a lovely arched porch topped by a railing with a guilloche design. The window treatments were simple, with rectangular windows that had rococo iron designs as the hood moldings on the second floor and arched windows on the first floor and tower. The cornice design featured a thick architrave molding with double s scroll brackets (Detroit couldn't get enough of those) all very closely spaced. All in all it was a nice house reflecting the taste of the 50s.

When 1882 rolled around, Whitney had made some money. He was a major purveyor of Detroit's music scene, selling instruments and sheet music. In 1882, he helped rebuild the old opera that had burned and really came into his own. No doubt, the rebuilding of the opera (in a rather refined modern French design) caused him to think about updating his own home. To the fabric of the old house, Whitney started by removing the wrapping porch, replacing the porch on the front two windows with a bracket surround supporting a balcony with a series of segmental arches and hanging drops, a very picturesque touch. Around the door, a rich and complex two story porch was built. The rectangular windows were disguised by segmental arched stone surrounds (oddly, an incised angular line runs through the arch). The center of the entablature on the projecting pavilion was cut (after new c scroll brackets were installed), the roof was raised, and a dormer was added with a segmental arched open pediment. Although the old decoration of the tower was retained, the eave was removed and a new story was attached with a triple arched palladian window, no doubt to compensate for the poor optics of a stubby tower with a steeper roof slope. A rather bizarre and heavy finial crowned the whole. The most drastic change, however, was the addition of basically a second house to the side, designed in the pavilion plan. Unlike the old house, where the windows were only disguised as segmental arched, here they were actually so, and were connected by a string course of stone that distinguished the older from the newer section. The new wing was all about diagonals, with two two story bay windows flanking an equally diagonal lacy porch. One odd feature is the bracket placement on the diagonals of the bay windows, with few brackets there contrasting with the forest in the other sections. 

So, which do you prefer? 1857 or 1882? I'd love to know!

With this, I end my short series on Lost Italianates of Detroit, but will revisit the topic soon.

The Thomas W. Palmer House, Detroit, MI

The Thomas W. Palmer House, Detroit MI. 1864-74 Photo: Scott Weir

Potentially one of the most intriguing houses of Detroit, it was built between 1864 and 1874 for one of the most important senators in Michigan history, Thomas W. Palmer. The house is the product of a variety of remodels, continued throughout a decade, and thus there is no single date for its construction. The house as it stood after the remodels was a pavilion plan house with a central tower, but it started off as a simple Federal or Greek Revival farmhouse, which survives in the right hand pavilion of the central block. That is why the house's pavilions are actually asymmetrical, with the right hand pavilion being taller and thinner than the left. It doesn't follow the typical pavilion plan. The left hand pavilion features paired rectangular windows joined by a rather baroque pediment on brackets. The right hand pavilion has a triple arched palladian also topped by a curving baroque pediment (the sort of baroque styling seems to have been a favorite in Detroit). Both have c scroll brackets, paired, with tiny thin brackets in between pairs. The central tower has double tombstone windows (they looked painted), a round window, and a broad arch that outlines the whole. The tower has s scroll brackets, but of a rather strange type, with very strong curves and an elaborate trefoil shape at the top; a Gothic quatrefoil balustrade and partial roof top the whole. The porch, unlike a typical pavilion plan stretches around the right hand pavilion, with a triple arched palladian entrance in the center and ogee brackets.

The side of the house looks to be from a later phase and features a second, taller tower, somewhat plain with a basket handle arch outline with small Romanesque drops. Oddly, the squat tower is topped with a cupola with a tent roof. Note the ladder that provides access to this tower angled on the roof! A final side wing seems to be of the latter phase with segmental arched windows and a small entablature. While not necessarily a harmonious plan, and even though it feels somewhat imbalanced like a slope to the right, the house is very picturesque in the finest tradition of individualistic Italianate conceptions. It was demolished to provide a home for the current Detroit Institute of Arts.

The Neil Flattery House, Detroit, MI

The Neil Flattery House, Detroit, MI. 1859 Source: Scott Weir

The Neil Flattery house, built in 1859 for a city politician and merchant, is an interesting example of the pavilion plan treated asymmetrically. Typically, pavilion plan houses will enforce a somewhat rigid symmetry around the central bay, but here, asymmetricality is created by the varying window treatments, with a box window with paired tombstone windows above to the left and a two story bay window to the right, injecting a bit of the irregular plan spirit into the design. The pavilions themselves feature little engaged gables that jut out from the eave, encasing small pointed windows (note the miniature balcony attached to the one on the right, a particularly precious Victorian touch). The more recent image shows the house in its later conversion to stores, but the woodcut shows it in its prime with original details intact. The house featured a plain brick façade onto which a series of decorative details were added around openings which drew the eye to them, such as the rococo piles of foliage above the window moldings, the heavy brackets on the bay windows, and the triple arched palladian porch around the main entrance. The cornice featured an architrave molding with a run of double s scroll brackets paired at the accent points at corners and around windows. The engaged gables find their way into the elaborate cupola, creating a continuity with the main façade. Note that the brackets on the cupola actually run all the way down the sides and drip onto the roof, giving it an almost Jacobean sculptural appearance and serving as bracket surrounds for the windows.

The H. E. Benson House, Detroit, MI

The H. E. Benson House, Detroit, MI. 1860 Source: Scott Weir

The H. E. Benson house was built in 1860 for a prominent lumber mill owner on Jefferson Ave. one of the chief society streets in Detroit. As opposed to some of the more flamboyant houses, the Benson house is rather reserved, accomplishing its goals with verticality rather than ornament. The house has an interesting plan, apparently irregular, but with the tower shifted to the side rather than placed in the center; this movement of the tower and placement between two gabled pavilions establishes the side façade as a towered pavilion plan. It appears the main entrance was actually quite recessed from the front of the house, at the base of the tower under the (what seems to be) iron porch. Each section of wall is framed by a slight projection that follows the corners and the gable, outlining the façade, with a string course separating the floors; it's clear the painters chose to exploit this feature in their scheme. The thin brackets are only complemented by an architrave molding. The gabled facades are uniformly treated, with triple rectangular windows with a bracketed molding above and in the gable there is a round window. Note the small metal fringe that runs above the eaves with classical anthemia. The tower is particularly surprising, as it is rare to find one on which every side is gabled. A triple arched palladian window tops the tower while lower stories have arched windows, with three on the top stage, two on the second floor, and one on the first floor. The architect used arched windows exclusively on the tower for emphasis and to differentiate it from the rest of the angular house.

Woodland Terrace, Philadelphia PA

Woodland Terrace, Philadelphia PA. 1861.

Woodland Terrace is the finest collection of Sloan architecture that survives, in large part because it remains substantially intact (though there have been alterations over the years). Built in 1861 by Charles M. Leslie as a speculative development, Sloan designed a series of double houses on both sides of the street, five on the east side and six on the west side (a variation required by the intersection of the street by the diagonal Woodland Avenue. The terrace has two types of plan. The houses at the ends of the street have an irregular plan, with towers (though these vary), while the houses in the center of the block follow a symmetrical plan of four bays. The end houses following the irregular plan have a projecting pavilion with triple windows and a slightly recessed pavilion with two bays, with a further deeply recessed bay. The towers are placed to the side of the projecting pavilion and are deeply recessed. A porch extends to the principal recessed bay and the deeply recessed bays to either side. The main entrances for both houses are on the deeply recessed bays. The symmetrical plan houses have a central block of four bays and to either side there is a two story deeply recessed bay with a taller three story projection behind. A porch extends the full front. Some of the symmetrical designs have a cupola, but others do not. The main entrances here as well are placed in the deeply recessed side bays.

Sloan arranged the progression of houses with an eye to symmetry without creating monotony, an eye for large scale composition he demonstrated on Pine Street. On the east side of five bays this can be seen best. The two end units follow the irregular plan, but while the northern house has a stubby gabled tower with two rectangular windows, the south house has a full hip roof tower with triple arched windows. The three central units follow the symmetrical plans, but units two and four do not have cupolas, while the third unit in the center has a large cupola divided between the two houses with four arched windows, marking the center of the block and creating emphasis. Sloan has masterfully balanced the composition with regularly spaced focal points in units one, three, and five and provided a deemphasized background in units two and four. This design was somewhat complicated in its repetition on the west side, since the even number of houses prevented the central focal point. Sloan handled this by putting cupolas on both houses in the center, three and four, maintaining a central focus. The most unfortunate loss is the demolition of half of the final unit on the west side, depriving that section of its grand punctuating tower.

All the houses were designed consistently, with facades of irregularly cut brownstone (a Pennsylvania specialty) divided into three floors, with rectangular windows on the first two floors with bracketed hood moldings, a stringcourse between the second and third floors, with arched windows on the third floor and paired brackets. The brackets are of the double s scroll type. The principal facades feature fine cut brownstone, while the sides are made of irregular fieldstone. The porches are simple, with small brackets, sinuous ogee curves, and thin paired posts supporting the porch (lost in a few examples). That is the base design that forms the stylistic unity between each unit. Originally, the houses would probably have featured a very consistent paint scheme, avoiding the jarring effect when owners paint different sides of a unified house different colors, divided in the middle. The entire ensemble was photographed by HABS.

The East Side of the row:

The West Side:

Sloan also designed the nearby Hamilton Terrace at 41st and Baltimore in 1854. Little of this survives.

Another double house of interest, sadly demolished, one block over from Woodland Terrace at 435 S. 40th Street where the transit station is now. The house featured two towers surrounding a central block of paired windows with wooden awnings, balconies, and an elaborate arched porch with fine jigsaw work. While not attributable as Sloan, and perhaps a bit too fanciful for him, nonetheless, it displays Sloan's influence in its fascination with varied massings, differing volumes, and variety in design, producing a balanced symmetry.

This same design, certainly by the same builder could be seen rendered in Second Empire on Baltimore Avenue:

A final Italianate of interest in a very Sloan like style could be found across the street from the 40th street houses, at 440 S. 40th Street. It looks like it might have been a triple house by the number of entrances. The house follows the pavilion plan, though somewhat asymmetrically. A large pavilion on the left featured a two story bay window (with a tower to the rear), while the left hand pavilion was two bays, evenly spaced. The central four bays had a large porch running across the front. The quoins, the string course, the side placement of the tower, and the simple porch are all highly reminiscent of Sloan's designs nearby on Pine Street and demonstrate his influence in the area.

'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