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.

The Francis C. Sessions House, Columbus, OH

The Francis C. Session House, Columbus, OH. 1840, alt. 1862

From: Columbus Illustrated

From: Illustrated History of Columbus

The Sessions house, built for a banker on E Town Street, certainly started life as a Greek Revival house, given its 1840 construction date. But it appears that it was transformed into a fine Italianate residence in an 1862 remodel. The house was torn down in 1924 to make room for the current Beaux Arts Columbus museum. The house was a symmetrical plan villa, with a projecting central bay with a shallow gable. While the central bay was decidedly flat, the side bays were articulated with elaborate brick work which formed a thick set of quoins at the corners and recessed frames for the central sections of each bay. Whether these were part of the original house is unknown, although it would be very atypical for a Greek Revival house to have such fripperies. On the first floor, the sides featured rectangular windows framed by delicate fringed porches (with almost invisible balustrades atop), perhaps of iron (that wisteria really makes it unclear), while above, the windows had small wooden awnings with a fringe. The central bay had a recessed entrance with, again, a porch with triple arches and a rather weird set of three arches in the central span. Above was an iron balcony with fancy urns at the corners in front of a wide arched window with a bracketed wooden awning forming a Palladian form. Above, the cornice has a strong resemblance to the Baldwin house which survives up the street, with elongated brackets the break into strong s curves. These enclosed a pair of windows with concave corners, another reminiscence of the Baldwin house. The whole was topped with an octagonal cupola, with pierced s curve brackets, paired windows (also seeming to have concave corners), and a lacy iron cresting. All the bells and whistles abounded, with a conservatory and a whole other cube built on back. A shame it didn't survive, but it was replaced by an exceptionally fine museum building.

The James F. Baldwin and Barzellai N. Spahr House, Columbus, Ohio

The James F. Baldwin House, Columbus, OH. 1853

The Barzellai N. Spahr House, Columbus, OH. 1873.

Built 20 years apart and standing at opposite edges of the East Town Street Historic District, these two five bay plan houses make an interesting pair. The Baldwin house, above, is the earlier and more elaborate of the two. It features a brick façade with exceptional moldings over the windows that consist of a segmental arch, blind, with foliate carvings and panels under an engaged triangular pediment. The cornice has a heavy architrave molding with paired brackets separating windows under a run of dentils. These brackets are rather unique, since most of their surface is flat with a rope molding, and only toward the top of the bracket do they curve out into a very sharp s curve with a finial at the end. The porch might be a later addition; the ironwork balcony over the front door, on the other hand, looks original, and the door may have featured a balcony resting on brackets. Finally, we have the low monitor/cupola with much bolder brackets. But a unique feature here is that the square windows feature wooden, pierced cut outs that give the windows the appearance of having concave corners. I actually really like the paint scheme on this house. It's very similar to those I see in my article on paint schemes illustrated in a book of the period.

The Spahr house, built for a reverend, is 20 years later, but not drastically different. Unfortunately, this house has suffered from some remodeling in the 1920s, with a new porch and very odd windows (18 over 18!). It looks to me that what once might have been more elaborate hood moldings have been cut down to flat forms, something that was all the rage in the early 20th century, perhaps as a way of reducing ornament. But the house does retain its paneled cornice with double s scroll brackets.

A third house of note is at 124 S Washington Street, a little ways from E Town. It is currently the Replenish Spa Co-op. One of the few houses we have seen that has its original porch, the delicacy of the details sets it apart. The house is also five bays, but the central bay sticks out from the façade and has a gable. The windows have engaged pediment moldings with Eastlake designs, resting on sculptural brackets. The central window in the gable is rounded with an eared surround. The cornice type is fringed, as it features a very fine trefoil fringe running as the architrave underneath the rotated s scroll brackets. This fringe is repeated on the gothic arch gingerbread in the gable, surrounded by fine jigsaw work of stars and rinceaux. The porch repeats these same decorative features, a fringe, which looks more Moorish than Gothic below, which runs under the gable and atop the posts. The brackets here have francy rinceauz on the sides and are elongated. Although I do not know anything about the house, it is definitely a product of the late 1860s or early 1870s.

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.

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 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 John Crouse House, Syracuse, NY

This is a rather interesting design, demolished, from Syracuse, NY. It was built by John R. Crouse, a major banker in Syracuse, in the 1850s, and in 1904 became the law school at Syracuse University. Fronting on Fayette Park, one of the city's early planning and mansion districts, it would have had a rather over-landscaped Victorian park as its front yard. It was demolished in the 1920s. The house bears a striking similarity to the design of Henry Austin for the Willis Bristol house is New Haven, CT, particularly in its proportions. There it was a simple form with Indian architectural elements grafter on; here the same sort of design is interpreted in a Gothic mode. Following the symmetrical plan, like Austin's house, it featured a spare stuccoed facade, with a generous third story and long s scroll brackets, paired and without an entablature. The gothicism is restricted to the windows, as the porch is a rather typical design. Above each window is a simple Gothic molding with carved stops; each window is inset with a unique gothic tracery overlay, with intersecting pointed arches and foils in the tracery. The bay window to the side receives a similar treatment, with more traditional pointed arches. A low cupola, another Austin feature, topped the whole with large brackets. Note how the ironwork similarly matches the Austin formula. Though I could not produce an exact chain of influence, it is clear that Austin's plans, perhaps published or seen in person influenced this house. Other images can be seen here, here, and here.

'Woodlawn' the Henry Howard Owings House, Columbia, MD

The Henry Howard Owings House, Columbia, MD. 1840 Photo: Wikimedia

Starting out life as an 18th century wooden farmhouse, the Owings house (he bought it in 1858), aka 'Woodlawn' was extensively remodeled in 1840 in the Italianate style, a rather early manifestation of it by the looks of the design. It follows the symmetrical plan, with a central gabled projecting bay. Like most of these earlier designs, the decoration is pretty sparse, consisting of a tight cornice with no entablature, featuring the early style beam brackets. An odd feature is that these beam brackets are attached to the moldings above the windows, and not typically just at the corners but in a full run. This provides an odd bit of shadow and movement on an otherwise simple house. The porch is similarly simple, with thin chamfered posts and diminutive cut out designs. It's finished in appropriate stucco, and the painting of the house is quite appropriate to the Davis and Downing principles that underline its planning. Unfortunately, once surrounded by woods, the house is now surrounding by parking lots! Talk about some unpleasant rezoning. At least they left the house, even though its context is gone.

'Evergreen on the Falls' the Albert H. Carroll House, Baltimore, MD

The Albert H. Caroll House, Baltimore, MD. 1860 Photo: Wikimedia

'Evergreen' was built by the owner of a cotton mill, Albert H. Carroll, in 1860, following an irregular plan, but an idiosyncratic design. The house does not have a tower, nor, like many tower-less irregular plans, does it suggest a tower with a cupola, fenestration, or the placement of the entrance in the center. Rather, this house places the entrance on the projecting pavilion. While the façade is painted brick, the windows have no surrounds, but the emphasis is placed on a series of elaborate wooden awnings that project further than any typical wooden awning. The entablature is nonexistent, with the s scroll brackets projecting right from the façade without any framing. The projecting pavilion has the main entrance, a triple arched palladian design; above, the window is a normal palladian design, but oddly the central window is especially long with the sides placed high up, a very unclassical formula. This is topped by a wooden awning with an engaged rounded pediment in the center and very elongated c and s scroll brackets. On the recessed façade, a double window on the first floor with a wooden awning with a tent roof design sits underneath a single window. The simple side façade has a spare bay window with a round window in the gable. A unique house, unfortunately much of it was destroyed by a fire in 1970, but it was well restored by the Maryland SPCA.

'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 Mount' the James Carey Jr. House, Baltimore, MD

The James Carey Jr. House, Baltimore, MD. 1858 Photo: Doug Copeland

Baltimore had some impressive country estates surrounding it, such as 'The Mount' built for a Quaker businessman and philanthropist, John Carey Jr in 1858 by William H. Reasin, a local architect. The house is supposed to be renovated soon, but seems to have caught on fire. Fortunately it was saved from destruction but remains vulnerable. The house is beautifully proportioned, with a five bay plan and a fieldstone façade with quoins; the windows have simple stone lintels. The central bay projects from the façade grandly, with an thick arch at the base a stone stringcourse and two arched windows above; basically there are three arches each diminishing with each floor. A row of bricks diagonally set into the sides of the projection where the stringcourse ends, indicates there was a porch once, now gone. The simple entablature has double s scroll brackets (with very shallow curves) and the whole is topped by a fine centered cupola with a broad eave and nicely framed triple arched windows. The house's massing and simple design makes it a beautifully simple villa. Hopefully, the house will be restored soon!

'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 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.