The Eli Bosenbury House, Clinton, NJ

The Eli Bosenbury House, Clinton, NJ. 1853-60

Clinton, NJ is an amazingly well-preserved small New Jersey town. Coming into the town on Main Street you see this small three-bay side hall plan house, the Eli Bosenbury House, from 1850. Many examples of these side hall houses can be rather bland, but given that Bosenbury was a carpenter and home builder who heavily influenced the style of the town, he used his own house to showcase his abilities. The first floor has a fine preserved porch common in this area with thin paired, chamfered columns (amazingly the apparently metal grills under the porch are intact!). The house emphasizes the central thrust of the design by having a pediment in the central bay of the porch, a pedimented hood mold on the center window, and an engaged pediment in the center bay. The house has s scroll brackets that are particularly drippy and curvaceous with deep carving that suggests leaves. In the entablature there are two small windows with original Greek Revival metal grills and in the center a wheel window, a touch of Romanesque design that is a unique feature to the houses in Clinton, perhaps popularized by Bosenbury as a designer. It's one of the key town vernaculars. A further unexpected design element is the facade is framed by a filleted arch and paneled pilasters, giving it a much stronger frame for the whole facade. It's an amazingly preserved house with all its details intact.

A nearly identical house is a few houses down:

This one has a much grander porch that wraps around the house. There is still the vernacular wheel window in the engaged pediment. Its proximity and similarity suggest it was also by the same designer.

The Bonnet and Bauer Houses, Columbus, OH

The Frank F. Bonnet House, Columbus, OH. 1870s

The Herman Bauer House, Columbus, OH. 1870s

These three houses, all built in the late 1860s/1870s, are associated with later residents. Their plan is nearly identical, being a side hall design. On the east side of the street, the Bonnet house is the more elaborate of the two, with curved lintels and moldings with, while the Bauer house has simpler lintels. Both have Eastlake incised designs cut into the stone. The first floor windows on both houses are very long, indicating they may once have had iron balconies. Both have entablatures that are very similar, with an architrave molding, entablature windows (octagonal on the Bonnet house), and s curve brackets. On the opposite side is a house in a better state of preservation.

More elaborate than either, 565 E Town St. is the best example on the street of this typical type common to Columbus (and much Italianate architecture). In this example, all the key details are intact, with filleted windows and doors with conforming stone lintels with incised Eastlake designs. The cornice features an architrave molding, double c scroll brackets, dentils, and entablature windows. Even the bay window to the side preserves an iron crest. In a sense, though not especially thrilling, it is the houses like these, nice but not spectacular, that work as a group to create a visual effect and serve to emphasize the more dramatic stylistic examples.

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 Magnolias' Vicksburg, MS

'The Magnolias' Vicksburg, MS. 1877 Source: Wikimedia

Source: Wikimedia

Known as 'the Magnolias' this house has little information about its original builder, although it was constructed in 1877. Like McRaven, the house is a side hall plan with a porch façade, but unlike McRaven, it exhibits many more Italianate details. The window treatments of the house are all segmental arched with thick hood moldings swooping over, and the door fits a Greek Revival design into the segmental arched shape. The house is all about its jigsaw work, with the porch, like McRaven, supported on thin openwork posts with Gothic jigsaw designs and with a jigsaw balustrade. The spandrel brackets on the porch are especially delicate and frilly and form basket handle arches. The entablature is of the bull's eye paneled cornice type, with a row of panels in the frieze filled with incised Eastlake designs, and a layer of dentils with small bulbous brackets emerging. This run of short brackets is interrupted by longer brackets coordinating with the posts of the porch, keeping the verticality of the design. I have to say, while very kitschy, there is something quite authentic, especially to the 1870s, to the yard crowded with all kinds of clashing odds an ends, a Thorvaldsen Hebe, a canon, and Japanese lanterns. Victorians loved those kinds of tchotchkes in front of their houses as a sort of exterior furniture that personalized the house as the objects collected by the owner personalized the interior.

Source: Wikimedia

'McRaven' the John H. Bobb House, Vicksburg, MS

The John H. Bobb House, Vicksburg, MS. 1849 (1797) Source: Wikimedia

This house has a complex building history. Originally built in 1797 as a small house, it was expanded in the 1820s and further finished in its present form in 1849 by John H. Bobb, a hybrid Greek Revival/Italianate affair, of the side entrance plan, typical with southern houses. The house was used as a field hospital during the Civil War and Bobb himself was shot in a dispute over flower picking in his front yard, all giving the house, currently open as a museum, the distinction of being haunted. The house has a simple typical Greek revival façade, with spare lintels over rectangular windows. It's the porch which really brings in the Italianate design (the porch façade type), with thin supports, pierced with jigsaw designs and lacy brackets supporting a large Greek Revival entablature pierced by Italianate paired s scroll brackets. Of particular note is the somewhat odd extra layer at the top of the cornice with dentils that almost look like Gothic crenellations. 

Source: Jeff Hart

Similar is this house, at Adams and Grove, probably built as a Greek Revival (1850s?), somewhat later, and furnished with a similar porch and bracketed entablature. Note here how the architect has eschewed the double columns for the porches, instead creating openwork struts with ironwork inset into them instead of jigsaw work that do not divide at the floor of the second story. Also, note how the entablature is less dependent on the Greek Revival, somewhat less classically correct here.

The Edward M. Holmes House, Hannibal, MO

The Edward M. Holmes House, Hannibal, MO. 1885
Photo: Amanda Baird/BlackDoll Photography

The Edward M. Holmes house was clearly very impressive, but is currently in need of some TLC for sure. The house was built in 1885 for Edward Holmes, a cigar manufacturer, and went through a succession of owners. On a corner lot, the house presents two finished facades. The front has a typical side hall design of three bays, while the side facade has a strong projecting central pavilion, gabled, with a two story bay window. The side originally had two porches with tent roofs, but one has been filled in while the other after this photo was demolished and replaced by a mudroom (unfortunately). The front of the house features the most elaborate features, with cast iron window hood moldings with bulls eyes. The thick cornice has several layers of moldings with a thick run of smaller brackets and an odd number of long brackets. Long brackets usually divide bays, so there should be four pairs, but this facade has only three. Finally, the most impressive feature is the intact bracket surround around the front door with an overly thick molding, tent roof, and one massive c scroll bracket that runs the height of the door, which seems to feature large expanses of glass. Throughout are Eastlake incised carvings. I think this house suffers most from a sorely needed coat of paint; a little restoration and it would look fantastic.

The R. A. Loveland House, Janesville, WI

The R. A. Loveland House, Janesville, WI. 1861 Photo: Sarah Lawver

The R. A, Loveland house was built in 1861 and is a smaller, cheaper version of the Lappin house posted two days ago. The house is another side hall plan, but has less features that emphasize centrality, confining itself to a central open pediment in the central bay and an arched window on the second floor. Otherwise, the house has basically the same porch with its paired columns and alternating round arched and filleted openings and similar Greek Revival eared moldings. Additional images can be found here. The cornice itself also lacks the sculptural qualities of the Lappin house with architrave moldings and simple brackets. The fascination of this house is how a similar plan and architectural treatment can manifest in different ways according to the wealth of the builder. There seem to be several example of this type in the city, and the design is clearly an important vernacular base for the town's Italianates.

The Thomas Lappin House, Janesville, WI

Thomas Lappin House, Janesville, WI. 1864 Photo: Sarah Lawver

The Thomas Lappin house in Janesville is a fine example of a side hall plan that oddly functions like a symmetrical plan, built in 1864 for a major early merchant in the town. It was designed by the architect Gary Nettleton, a local designer responsible for many Janesville houses. The house has several fine features; although the there is no central projection, symmetrical emphasis is achieved by an open pediment, a central arched window on the second floor, and a pediment on the central bay of the porch. This is in conflict with the side hall entrance. The house's details are dignified, with simple Greek revival eared window and door surrounds with crown moldings; the windows on the first floor are flat while the second floor alternates between rectangular, round, and segmental arched windows whose alternation makes a pleasing effect. There is an odd diamond window on the right side. The whole facade is outlined with verge boards at the corners. The porch is grand, fully bracketed with paired columns that alternately create arched and filleted openings. The cornice type, which seems common in Janesville, is heavily sculpted with paired c scroll brackets, secondary brackets, and dentils with a thick architrave molding, giving it a lot of weight. Additionally, the third floor windows are cleverly hidden within the cornice's sculpture with decorative grills. The architrave line is broken in the center to provide a further central emphasis. Unfortunately, it seems a second floor window has been replaced by a door and someone has stuck shutters around the central window that have been put on backwards (a personal pet peeve), but all in all, the house is mostly intact. Additional views can be found here.

The Brewster Randall House, Janesville, WI

The Brewster Randall House, Janesville, WI. 1862 Photo: Wikimedia

Photo: Wikimedia

This house is an example of remuddling at its most dramatic. It was built in 1862 for Brewster Randall, lawyer and senator, as a simple side hall Italianate with Greek Revival eared window surrounds and a rather fussy molded door surround, reminiscent of Federal designs. The greatest amount of ornament was confined to the fine cornice, with its attractive c scroll brackets with beads and acanthus leaves, that interrupt both dentils and s scroll brackets rotated under the very wide eave. A view of the house as it was can in 2003 be seen here. At some point, someone decided to have some fun. The visionary decided to add some Gothic style exterior lambrequins to the windows, added somewhat incongruous classical pediments over the windows, glued sculpted lions onto the door, and added an oversize classical balustrade to the door's cornice. Additionally, the simple lattice porch was enlivened with further Gothic and ovoid tracery. However, even though this is unquestionably a remuddle, it is surprisingly consistent with the Victorian innovative spirit and love of ornament. As we have seen in Janesville, there is a strong drive toward the eclectic syncretism of styles, as in the Tallman house. The redesigner's combination of Gothic, Classical, and Rococo forms onto an otherwise staid Italianate house could have been done in the 19th century as much as in the 20th. Although sometimes we value the perfection of style and bemoan later additions, for people in the 19th century a house was something to personalize, to constantly reinvent. They didn't think of their homes as museum specimens and felt no shame at adding a Queen Anne porch or a Second Empire turret to an Italianate cube. Italianate is an interesting style precisely because you can apply any sort of style to it. Thus, although this house may not be the perfect specimen of Italianate purity, it is a perfect example of the restless spirit of Victorian architectural innovation.

The Jacques Dupre House, New Orleans, LA

The Jacques Dupre House, New Orleans, LA. 1830 

Built 1830 by Jacques Dupre at 938 Esplanade, this house is unlikely to have been as Italianate as it is today. Judging by the door, although that's a risky busines in a town of architectural synthesis, I'd say it was probably Greek Revival, but its current form is solidly Italianate, probably from the 1850s or so. The house follows the typical side hall plan and currently has a brick facade. First floor windows, as often in New Orleans are segmental arched while those of the second floor are rectangular; all have thick Renaissance style hood moldings. The cornice itself is paneled with simple paired brackets, and a balcony wraps around most of the building with spartan Gothic ironwork. Although not as flashy as some other houses, the Dupre house appears a good example of an average Italianate.

The Cyprien Dufour House, New Orleans, LA

The Cyprien Dufour House, New Orleans, LA. 1859 Photos: Wikimedia

The Dufour-Baldwin House at 1705 Esplanade is one of the grandest compositions on the street. Built in 1859 by Cyprien Dufour, attorney and essayist, and designed by the architects Henry Howard and Albert Diettel, the house has an imposing presence on the street and conveys its builder's wealth effectively. It is the typical side hall plan of the Porch Facade type, with stucco, Gothic ironwork, and paired Doric columns. The first floor shows the typical expectations for Doric, with an astragal molding separating capital from shaft, ornamental rosettes in the necking, a flared echinus, and a flat abacus capping the whole (diagram below). Oddly, the second floor capitals are unclassical, with an elongated necking and no echinus. The abacus is shrunken, giving them a very strange and elongated appearance.

The other elements of the house are typically Greek, with thick, simple window surrounds, a fine doorway with carved classical wreaths and anthemia on the segmental arched door, and a simple paneled cornice with paired s curve brackets separating a run of dentils. The whole is topped by a paneled attic construction with different sized rectangular elements that draw the eye upward and articulate the divisions of the facade. However, when we look to the side, more strangeness abounds. The triple arched windows on the projection are especially strange. Frequently, one sees triple arched palladian windows where the side members are shorter than the central, as seen here. In this case, the architects surrounded a segmental arched window with two round arched windows, giving the structure an awkward look. You can tell the molding doesn't know what to do where the two different arch types intersect. It's an odd design, but a unique one; this is exactly the sort of fun one expects in a port city with all its different influences.

The Lanaux House, New Orleans, LA

The Lanaux House, New Orleans, LA, 1884

The Lanaux House, built for the family whose daughter inherited the nearby Johnson house is a late Italianate built in 1884, designed by James Freret, a significant Louisiana architect. Plan-wise, the house is somewhat of a conundrum. It takes as its base the typical side hall plan that follows the Porch Facade type, but completely obscures the rectangular design with the diagonal tower on the left, which houses the main entrance and features elongated windows, and another diagonal box window projection on the right, leaving only one flat surface on the front. This gives the house an interesting undulating appearance which requires adjustments to the porches so that they connect to the projections. Unlike the brick and plaster houses we have seen on Esplanade Avenue, this home is faced in clapboard. It also features a tall hip roof that accommodates a French style dormer window. Later than the other Greek Revival designs, the house has an expected Corinthian columned porch on the second floor, while the first floor has segmental arches with keystones, clunky brackets, and incised Eastlake carving in the spandrels, supported by Corinthian columns. The segmental arch is reflected in all the first floor windows and entrances around the house. The sides of this house are excessively plain, but the paneled cornice runs around the entire house, forming a clear cap on the facade with thick s-scroll brackets. I find the plan interesting, since it invites one into the house as if it's enfolding a visitor as well as the emphasis placed on the large central windows. The house is now the Melrose Mansion bed-and-breakfast, and a visit to their site offers several views of the modernized interior.

The Freeman Annabelle House, New Orleans, LA

The Freeman Annabelle House, New Orleans, LA. 1847

This home, at the opposite end of Esplanade (1014) is known as the Freeman Annabelle house, though little seems to be known about the original occupants. As I mentioned, this is a classic New Orleans Italianate/Greek Revival hybrid, and indeed is a basic vernacular type in the city. This type, which I'll call the Porch Facade type, consists of a typical side hall plan and has a two story Greek revival porch, usually with Corinthian or Ionic columns, a deep Greek Revival cornice with brackets, and Greek style window surrounds. This house is a good introduction to this type, featuring flat windows with eared, molded surrounds, a segmental arched door with pilasters, Corinthian double columned porches which cover both levels of the facade, and a tall Greek Revival entablature with pairs of long s and c scroll brackets interrupting runs of smaller brackets. The facade is plastered with brick painted the same color on the sides. An interesting feature on this house, as can be seen below, is the lacy rococo cresting on the left side that hangs down from the cornice forming a fringe on the roof and running around the large projecting bay with a second story ironwork porch. Incongruously, the ironwork on the front of the house is Gothic in form, showing the mixture of cast iron styles displayed on the same house. Often there will be classical, rococo, romantic (very vegetal), and gothic thrown together to form one eclectic composition. The house is now condos.

The Charles Johnson House, New Orleans, LA

Charles Johnson House, New Orleans, LA. 1876

I have been absent for some time; I've had plenty to work on in my career. My resolution for this new year, though is to post more regularly, so I am starting out with one of New Orleans' grand streets, Esplanade Avenue. When dealing with the Italianate architecture of New Orleans, which is well known, a few characteristics come to mind:

1. In southern architecture, a lot more ironwork survives, particularly in porches and sometimes in brackets themselves. This ironwork once was ubiquitous in the US and much more common in different regions, but the scrap metal drives for WWI and WWII, weather decay, and changing tastes encouraged its removal in more northern cities, even from cemeteries. In New Orleans, where it never really went out of fashion given its presence in French and Spanish design, it was even more common than elsewhere and was preserved, giving us a nice image of the range and decorative possibilities of this architectural form.

2. In the south, one often finds a much stronger blending of styles, especially Greek Revival. You often see a double height columned Greek porch with brackets superimposed onto the entablature. Traditional Greek elements like eared window surrounds, anthemia and palmettes derived from the design books of Minard Lafever, and battered moldings (where the sides flare outward) are common in New Orleans Italianates. Additionally, many urban houses of the south display more refined Anglo-Italianate designs, to which residents may have been predisposed by the strong European influences, both continental and British, throughout the south.

3. One of the most popular facade treatments in the south is plaster, another strong European influence, since most French and Spanish colonial architecture was faced in plaster that was perfect for battling the moist weather. Since humidity and wetness cause mortar to decay more quickly, plaster provided a useful protective coat over brickwork that help preserve the structure and was maintained in the south while many plastered buildings in the north have lost that coating. Frequently, we will see the plaster scoured (etched) to look like blocks of stone.

4. Plan-wise, most houses in New Orleans were built on narrow lots, leading to the adoption of side-hall and rowhouse plans that had a narrow front facade and a very wide side facade (the "shotgun" house). This left much less space for decorative towers and unique plans, although there are some of examples of these in the more spacious, suburban Garden District. Wealthier New Orleans houses frequently feature a courtyard behind the house with connected outbuildings that housed horses, slaves, kitchens, and domestic spaces.

The Charles Johnson house, built in 1876 at 571 Esplanade, is an excellent and refined example of the side-hall/rowhouse plan. Esplanade Avenue itself was a major 19th century prestige street in New Orleans. In a city strong divided between anglophone and creole society, Esplanade served as the society street for wealthy Creoles, at the edge of the French Quarter, while wealthy anglophones settled St. Charles Avenue as a prestige street. The house has a plastered facade painted an appropriate grey to simulate stone, although like many houses, the sides are left unplastered, a cost saving measure. All the windows and entrances are segmental arched and are graced by curving hood moldings enlivened by rococo anthemia. The brackets are simple c-scroll and alternate between longer brackets connecting runs of shorter brackets. The facade itself displays Anglo-Italianate raised panel quoins at the corners. What especially caught my eye on this house, however, was how the iron porch (very lacy and delicate) was articulated; rather than merely capping it with a tent roof, this house adds a strong wooden cornice to the porch with intersecting arched pediments. The tympana (the hollow space created by a pediment) are graced with delicate sets of triple leaves in a crown like pattern. This makes this house a particularly bold example of a New Orleans Italianate, since the porch comes off as such a strong element. Additionally, the house is brought together by its heaviness, the thickness of the moldings and the depth of the eave. In a city like New Orleans with lots of houses vying for the passer-by's attention, competition must have been fierce to make a distinctive contribution.

The house, as the story goes, was left by Johnson to his secret lover Marie Lanaux, the daughter of his business partner. It is from this woman that the current bed and breakfast that owns the house derives its name. Take a look at their website for more information and interior views of the house, which is furnished with some fantastic Renaissance Revival pieces appropriate to the house's age. The decorators have definitely created a bric-a-brac filled authentic interior that matches the house very well.

'Beechwood', the Isaac Kinsey House, Milton, IN

The Isaac Kinsey House, Milton, IN. 1871. Photo: Wikimedia

Other images: HABS

The Isaac Kinsey house, also known as 'Beechwood' is a grand estate in rural Wayne County, IN. Built in 1871 and designed by the Richmond architect Joel Stover, it was the family farm for Isaac Kinsey, an investor in a very successful drill company. His house was so important to him, he had a panel painted to advertise his own home (pictured below). Although in a rural setting, Stover gave Kinsey a highly sophisticated, urban style home that would have been suitable in Richmond. The house starts as a typical side hall plan house, but the additions are what transform it cleverly into a fantasy. There is a long thin wing running to the right of the house, and the addition of two, two story bay windows with octagonal tent roofs topped by fantastic, baluster finials makes it seem like the house has exotic towers, although they don't stand out far from the facade as a real tower would.

The two big areas in which this house excels are iron and wood. The actual window surrounds are extremely plain and are basically just holes punched in the brick, stuccoed facade. Everywhere, iron is present to jazz up the design. Most notable is the two story, spindly iron porch around the main entrance with Gothic, Rococo, and Greek Revival flairs (most ironwork is a truly eclectic mix of styles). Additionally, the balcony wraps around the front bay window and is complemented by roof crestings and the metal finial on the bay window roofs. In terms of wood, the cupola itself has heavy molded surrounds for the arched windows, dentils, and moldings that suggest capitals for pilasters. The cornice is one of the more elaborate I've seen. It's of the fillet cornice type, although the windows and panels have semicircles cut out of the sides, a sort of reverse fillet. The windows are surrounded by all the doo-dads one could imagine, dentils, an architrave (uniquely made up of beveled panels), and balls. The house in fact seems obsessed with small wooden balls attached to all of the elements on its cornice. Additionally, the brackets, which are an odd double s type have both s-curves separated by a thick piece of flat molding. It's almost like they bought two brackets and stuck them together. The coolest thing about the cornice is that it runs around the house, rather than stopping like others do when an unimportant section is encountered. This is certainly a reflection of Kinsey's wealth that he could afford to throw money around on all that woodwork (hey that's how 19th century people thought about this stuff). No doubt the zany iron fountain also made a similar statement. HABS has pictures of the interior, drawings, plans, and an image of Kinsey's own house dedication painting.

Henry Street Houses, Utica, NY

These four houses, located on Henry Street in Utica, are typical of the high quality of craftsmanship, carpentry, and design that pervades all of Utica's homes. Utica is the city that I have found the most architectural potential in; not only does it have hundreds of high quality houses, but most of those homes because of widespread neglect, still have their original details unmarred by siding and additions so common in other cities. Although it is a rough town, Utica could be one of the most beautiful cities in the country if its showcase of Victorian design were restored. There is definite tourist potential here, and I would recommend any fan of 19th century design make the trip. The houses pictured here all stylistically date from the 1860s.

The house pictured above and that below are of the side hall plan, and they both bear a strong similarity in their taste for elaborate ornament. The first house above has open pedimented hood moldings that echo the elaborate front door, and the cornice is of the fillet type, with large filleted windows intersecting the moldings and emphasized by brackets.

This house is similar to the first, although it bears the distinctive feature of the side-hall plan in upstate New York. Instead of terminating at three bays, the house has an added fourth bay that is recessed, which usually contains, as here, a bay window.

I would call this house roughly symmetrical in plan. It differs from the clapboard houses by being brick and slightly more reserved ornamentally. Interesting are the stone Eastlake window hoods as well as the taking up of a full bay by a large two storied bay window.

This final house belongs to the side hall plan, but instead of three bays, it has a bay with a two storied bay window. All articulated in brick, the house deemphasizes the cornice in favor of focusing on the cast iron hood moldings.

As you can see, just one street in Utica features some impressive Italianates, all built around the same time, but all distinctive and playful with the plan and pattern of an Italianate in their own way. It is this architectural variety and experimentation that makes Utica one of my favorite architectural ensembles in the country.