'Orianda' the Thomas Winans House, Baltimore, MD

The Thomas Winans House, Baltimore, MD. 1856

Photo: Wikimedia

The Thomas Winans house is another one of these Russian themed estates of the 1850s. Winans' father was an inventor who worked on the construction of the Russian railroad, like Harrison in Philadelphia. He named his estate Crimea, after the peninsula in the Ukraine, and his house Orianda, after a Greek revival palace in the Crimea designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel as one of his commissions for the Greek royal family (never built). The house has a five bay plan (the entrance is to the right of the above photo) with a porch around the door matching the porches to the sides and to the rear. The house, like other country houses around Baltimore, is finished in fieldstone with stone molded window lintels and simple decoration. The porch is quite attractive, with a lattice railing and ogee spandrel brackets. A cupola tops the whole almost entirely glass with a pointed roof. The house has no brackets, but instead uniquely features very strange thick gothic finials hanging down from the large eave at the corners of the house and cupola. This is a highly individualistic feature that rarely appears. It currently sits in the middle of a large park on a dramatic bluff overlooking a valley and is a museum and event facility (more images there).

'Tivoli' the Enoch Pratt House, Baltimore, MD

The Enoch Pratt House, Baltimore, MD. 1855 Photo: Wikimedia

'Tivoli' was constructed as the summer house of Enoch Pratt, one of Baltimore's major philanthropists and businessmen, in 1855. The house is a hulking mass, a three story, five bay plan of fieldstone and wood. The house has a string course that separates the second from the third floor. The window treatment is standard on the house, with a simple wooden surround and a molding above. Oddly, the house doesn't have an entrance porch, which I suspect was once there and similar to the back Tuscan porch, but has an entablature resting on brackets. The main entablature has c scroll brackets and is simple, akin to other country houses like 'The Mount'. It's here the house is particularly interesting. While on the front, an angular engaged pediment and arched window emphasize the center of the house, the side takes a different tack, dividing the façade into two main bays with stacked box windows with triple arched windows and panels above. These are topped by two engaged round pediments framing arched windows, contrasting with the angular front. A side service wing to the left offers a different scale, emphasizing its subordination to the main block. It is now the administration building of a mental hospital, finding new life like many of Baltimore's country houses, as an institution.

The Cyrenus Adelbert Newcomb House, Detroit, MI

The C. A. Newcomb House, Detroit, MI. 1876 Source: Scott Weir

Built in 1876 for a major Detroit retailer and opera house owner, the Cyrenus Adalbert Newcomb house (gotta give the Victorians props for their unique names), is an exceptionally high style symmetrical plan villa with a protruding central bay with an open pediment. The house is a play on variations, with brick and stone and arches in various combinations all vying to be different and grab attention. On the first floor, we have two bay windows, with columned pilasters. Interestingly, the cornice of this window has an architrave molding that forms a gable over each window, clashing with the roundness of the window arch but reflecting the angularity of the pointed keystone. The first floor porches are characterized by fanciful, foliate and decidedly unclassical capitals supporting shallow basket handle arches. Heavy balustrades top each element. On the second floor, we have triple arched palladian windows (the arch variation is very slight) on the sides, and a double tombstone window in the center; all are joined into a single unit with thick stone surrounds and a bracketed, pedimented cornice (open on the sides, closed in the center). The third story has a stringcourse that separates it visually, a very Sloan touch, with a repetition of the window patterns between flanking and central bays, though with simpler surrounds and no cornice. These interrupt the architrave molding which supports paired double s scroll brackets that appear very elaborate with bulls eyes and incised designs, and a run of smaller rotated s scroll brackets, resting on yet another molding! To top it all, and to contrast with the angularity of the gables, the cupola is classically designed with Tuscan pilasters, a further triple arched palladian, and an engaged segmental arch in the cornice. The only variation on this scheme are the segmental arched windows found on the simpler side façade. The whole effect is one of extreme richness and complexity, kind of like a piece of renaissance revival furniture transformed into a house. Nearly every trick in the architectural book to jazz up and make complex the façade is used. Surely nothing could be more appropriate for the man responsible for Detroit's over the top opera house downtown.

The Florence Luling House, New Orleans, LA

The Florence Luling House, New Orleans, LA. 1865 Photo: Infrogmation

Photo: Wikimedia

Located off of Esplanade Avenue far out of central New Orleans at 1436 Leda Ct. is one of the most impressive Italianates in the area, the Florence Luling House, built in 1865 and designed by the famous architect James Gallier Jr. Luling lost is fortune soon after the Civil War and the home was sold to the Jockey Club of New Orleans who stayed there until 1905, after which its grounds were parceled off, outbuildings demolished, and was divided into apartments. Currently, it is in a state of decay, but the following historic images show the house's extensive grounds and outbuildings in its heyday.

The house has a five bay plan and is at once distinctly Anglo-Italianate and characteristic of New Orleans. Built of stone, the house displays its Anglo-Italianate characteristics in its reliance on Renaissance precedents in its design: there are quoins on the corners as well as a string of quoins defining the central bay, strong but simple string course moldings that connect all of the arched windows, and traditional palladian windows in the center of the front and side bays on the second floor. The door as well assumes a palladian shape with Ionic columns. The whole stands on a full story, very European rusticated base with a grand staircase and patio. Like the Gauche house, it has a balcony that wraps around three sides of the facade with a Renaissance style balustrade. The cornice is extremely heavy and thick; no doubt its thickness was necessary because of the house's height to maintain a sense of proportion and scale. The brackets themselves are suitably long to fill the deep eave and are deeply carved s-curves. The whole is topped by a simple cupola. In ostentation, this house resembles some of the "Fruit Palaces", Italianate homes built in Australia by wealthy fruit barons.

Unfortunately, the rear of the house remains unfinished and is a bit of a let-down. Clearly, this was built for frontal show. Perhaps the greatest loss are the outbuildings, which were connected to the main house by arches, a unique and grand feature. Also lost are the gardens of the house, which featured statues, circular walks, and even a lake with an island. Hopefuly the house will get some attention soon.

Photo: Wikimedia

The John Hardy House, Newcomerstown, OH

The John Hardy House, Newcomerstown, OH. 1874 Photo: scottamus

The John Hardy house in Newcomerstown (quite the town name!), built in 1874 was lovingly restored after a fire that require much of the interior to be restored, but it nonetheless has all of its amazing details and grandeur thanks to its invested owners (who by the way seem to have a lot of plants). The house, although in a small town, would fit in in any urban community with its grand central tower plan. Executed in brick, the trim of the windows and door is stone, and the owners have appropriately painted the wooden trim to match and simulate the stone. Score one for historic paint schemes! The windows alternate in style; the main facade windows are segmental arched with pedimented hood moldings, while the windows on each distinctive feature (bay window and tower) are round headed with Venetian tracery. A similar variation between body and tower can be found in the cornices, with a regular paneled cornice and brackets (s-curve) on the body and a more high style dentil cornice on the tower. The top stage of the tower itself has impressive engaged pediments with a heavy paneled cornice and a cluster of three arched windows (a constant nod to Romanesque bell towers). Two of the features on this house are particularly impressive. First is the door surround, a very urban looking stone door with pilasters, entablature, and an engaged round pediment, similar to those we saw on the Hauck house in Cincinnati, although it is perhaps a little bit less ornamented. Second is the amazing lacy ironwork at the top of the tower. Though most Italianates with towers have, or had, some sort of finial on the tower, this house has a cascade of thin wrought iron in rococo rocailles and fantastic blossoms that make me think of some vine growing on the house. Not only is this uncommon, but it is extremely rare that it survived and allows us to view how people in the country could come up with designs that have whimsy and uniqueness.

'Nuits', the Francois Cottenet House, Irvington, NY

'Nuits', Irvington, NY. 1852 Photos: Wikimedia

'Nuits' is an impressive early Italianate mansion overlooking the Hudson River Valley in Irvington, NY, a city full of impressive homes. It was part of the push in the early and mid 19th century to construct elaborate showplace estates on the river to both take advantage of the impressive views and the company offered by the artists, businessmen, and writers who had country homes in the area. It was designed by the German architect Detlef Lienau for Francois Cottenet, a French immigrant to the US.

The house is a highly unique example of Italianate design, and its plan is complicated and expansive. It is in general an example of the central tower plan with a strongly projecting tower bisecting a narrow three story block. This central block, while it gives the appearance of symmetry soon dissolves from the sides into a mass of asymmetrical projections, bays, and corridors. As can be seen on the plan below, the house is a series of intersecting cubes, which seem placed where they seemed most conducive to interior planning rather than exterior symmetry. Whoever said function followed form in historic design? Indeed, the house does seem like some fantastic cubist sculpture, and must have seemed striking to 19th century steamboat passengers.

Unlike many Italianates, Nuits is actually built of stone. Apparently Cottenet had no problems with importing expensive Caen stone for his house. Decoratively, the house is in line with the severity characteristic of Italianate designs of the 1850s: spare walls and light colors only relieved by porches and around the windows. The entablature is only marked by a slight projection in the stone and rafter brackets. At Nuits, the windows are liberally supplied with Juliette balconies, wooden tent roofed awnings, and even a tent roof box window. The front itself has a few interesting features in that the windows flanking the tower are actually triple segmental arched windows, and the archway surrounding the main door is rusticated (the seams between stone courses are emphasized). Very simple, spindly porches are liberally supplied around the main block. A large conservatory was added in the 1860s, a unique survivor.

The house is still a private home and seems to have had a pool added behind the billiard room. Recent pictures of the front and of one of the interiors can be found online.

The Lewis W. Hasselman House, Indianapolis, IN

The Lewis W. Hasselman House, Indianapolis, IN. 1865

 

The above photos are from the publications Indianapolis Illustrated
and Art Works of Indianapolis.

The Lewis W. Hasselman house stood on Indianapolis' fashionable North Meridian Street until the 1920s when it was razed for the Indianapolis Athletic Club. The house was built in the 1865 for Hasselman, a manufacturer of steam engines and mill parts. The designer was Francis Costigan, basically Indiana's answer to Connecticut's Henry Austin, whose Lanier house is probably one of the country's best Greek Revivals. This is one of his only Italianate designs and is a showstopper. It is a symmetrical plan house, although the flanking bays have protruding two story bay windows, a very grand statement indeed. It was faced in limestone. The house has a variety of unique features that made it an important example of Italianate. The first floor features an impressive door surround with Corinthian columns and a pediment that is broken around the arch of the door frame, hearkening back to Georgian design. The triangular pediment is broken is the center by a curve, an interesting reinterpretation of a traditional form. The flanking bay windows, as all the windows on the house are arched with thick hood moldings enriched with carved foliage. The central window on the bay has Venetian tracery, but the space that would have featured the circular element has been filled with carving, as have the areas beneath the window. The hood molding on the central window of the first floor bays has a swoop of molding that comes to a carved finial, a reminiscence of Gothic architecture. This window design is repeated in the central window above the door. This level of carving is similar to the work on the Backus house and must have been a statement of the owner's wealth and ability to afford such expensive rococo carvings.

Although the second story windows are plainer, an interesting profusion of brackets underlie their sills. The third floor is where things get really strange, with pairs or round windows that are connected by carved rosettes and have ribbons and strapwork extending from the sides. This feature is particularly unique to this house and shows a real originality in design. It almost looks like fancy portholes on a yacht. The cornice is not particularly complex, but the same richness of carving adorns it; the brackets feature carved garlands, s curves, and incised designs. The originality of the design continues to the octagonal cupola, which repeats the cornice stylings and seems to have windows with angled tops. The whole is capped by a finial that resembles an acorn. In every way, the Hasselman house exemplifies high style Italianate design that was not Anglo-Italianate but American in inspiration. It is similar to some of the zany and experimental designs found in Detroit's lost mansions. The style of this house seems to be related to another Costigan work, the Odd Fellows' Building in Indianapolis with its ornate carved detailing and bay windows. An Italiante carriage house can be seen in the background. A lovely work, it's a shame this house is gone.

Hopewood: The William Bailey House, Providence, RI

 William Bailey House, Providence, RI. 1848 Photos: Providence College Wiki

Here we have a particularly strange example of Italianate. Built by an unknown architect between 1848 and 1850 for William Bailey as the centerpiece of his estate Hopewood, it was bought by a convent, girl school, and is currently called Dominic Hall and is a part of Providence College, whose art class wiki provided me with many images and plenty of information. The house follows a somewhat squashed version of the side tower plan. This squashed version is uncommon, but it forms a distinct type that I will explore in a later post. What's impressive about the Bailey house is the undulation of the front facade and the focus on octagonal forms rather than the usual 90 degree angles popular in Italianate. This is reminiscent of the Vanderheyden house in Ionia. The projecting pavilion has chamfered corners with the central section having Greek Revival triple windows and narrow side windows, as if it were a large bay window. The central section has an arched window on the second floor and an arched door with a glass surround. The hip roof has a dormer. The bayed porch continues the undulating shape. The tower is recessed and is octagonal, a very uncommon shape that occasionally occurs. The four stages of the tower have variation between round, arched, and rectangular windows. Small exterior awnings top the flat headed windows, while the round windows have a small course of stone. The whole house is made of a grey stone, that gives an weightiness to the design.

Interestingly, this elaborate undulation is not repeated on the sides or the back. The sides have two rectangular gable fronts with box windows. Thus, the back has right angles and the elaboration on the front seems rather just glued on to the boxy back facade. The decoration of the house is severe; besides the wooden awnings, the elements are stripped to their basics; the cornice lacks brackets, and the porch eschews complex columns or decoration. Overall this is a fascinating example that chooses geometry rather than ornament as its mode of expression. Pictures of the well preserved interior (which has seen a great deal of modification and then restoration) can be found on the wiki site.