The Thomas E. Powell House, Columbus, OH

The Thomas E. Powell House, Columbus, OH. 1853

Both Photos Columbus Illustrated and History of Columbus

Although not part of E Town Street, but part of the E Broad Street area, another mansions street in its own right, I couldn't resist this rather bizarre Italianate of 1853. The house is a symmetrical plan Italianate with a brick façade, and it's in this paneled brick style that it is most distinctive. The house is divided by its brickwork into three bays by pilasters topped with moldings. The side bays enclose double windows with filleted corners, while the central bay has a rectangular triple window with narrow side lights. The lintels above seem to be stone with incised designs, eared, rising to a shallow point. But the entablature is truly strange, comprising on the side bays three evenly spaced segmental arches with some kind of projecting finials and panels that match the curve of the arches. In the central bay, there is a more elaborately framed trefoil curve that suggests a triple arched Palladian design, but it is strange that that is not reflected in the window. The porch similarly has this trefoil shape, albeit with open spandrels, resting on thin columns. I can't actually tell the forms of the brackets from the images. The cupola seems almost oversize for the house, with curved frames around the tombstone windows and a balustrade above. The Midwest liked its fancy brickwork, but this is a very odd design. The house was torn down in 1928.

'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.

'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 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

'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.