The Fernando Cortez Kelton House, Columbus, OH

The Fernando Cortez Kelton House, Columbus, OH. 1852

The Kelton house, just a bit past the houses featured in my last post, is not only well preserved on the outside but within, as it is currently a house museum which has a substantial collection of the family's objects intact. It's an early design, 1852, and as such is a somewhat transitional symmetrical house that grafts some Italianate features, notably brackets, onto what is essentially a Greek Revival design with slim stone lintels over the windows and a fine stone, Greek Revival door. The house does feature an early Italianate roof design. Like most early Italianates, there is no strong entablature or heavy sculptural quality to the cornice line. The brackets here are of the s and c scroll type and have deep ridges. One unique quality about this house is the tiny, fine drops at the corners of the eaves, a feature that is strikingly uncommon in Italianate houses and one of the coolest features on the house. It's also nice to see the original roof balustrade at the peak intact; roof balustrades were once a ubiquitous feature of 19th century architecture. Unfortunately, once they rotted off they were rarely replaced, distorting the appearance of many a house.