The Daniel Bright Miller House, Lewisburg, PA

Miller House, Lewisburg, PA. 1860s All Photos: Lewisburg Architecture Project

This fine home was built by Daniel Bright Miller, a professor at Bucknell in the 1860s. It is now called Cooley Hall and houses college departments. The house is of the central tower type and makes a very grand impression with all of its heavy detailing, brick and stone, and massing. The facade is fine brick with stone quoins and hood moldings. The first floor features segmental arched windows with hood moldings on brackets conforming to the arch curve; same with the front door, which unexpectedly lacks a porch (is one missing or was it always that way? The second floor has rectangular windows with sharply filleted corners with a triple arched Palladian window in the central tower bay. The third bracketed floor is generous and larger than typical, with arched windows between extremely long double s scroll brackets making it an arched cornice type. Again, the central tower has paired arched windows. Finally the top stage of the tower, separated by a small cornice has paired brackets, double windows with Venetian tracery and carved wooden quoins. The house shows some exact similarities to the Marsh house, the last entry. The top of the tower matches the Marsh cupola; both houses use quoins and rustication; both have a bay window equally located on the side and do not continue the brackets on the side facade. Both feature paired windows with tracery in the side gable and a similar long, finished wing extending out the back. Both also have a triple arched Palladian window in the second floor. These are far too many coincidences and suggest that the same designer designed both.