The Justin Loomis House, Lewisburg, PA

Photo: Lewisburg Architectural Project

This house was constructed in 1866 by Justin Loomis, a president of Bucknell College. He, himself, was an amateur architect, which explains the eccentricities of the design. It doesn't comfortably fit into any of the standard facade plans, through its base is three bay and symmetrical. The body of the house is generally standard, with a typical porch, brackets, and window hood moldings. But two features really stand out. First and most obvious is the polygonal tower to the right. Polygonal towers themselves are quite a rarity, but to have one stuck on the front of a house with a conical roof is extremely uncommon. Second is the great height of the roof, which is almost as tall as the first two stories and the pointed dormers. The roof seems to scream Gothic Revival, while the rest of the design is standard Italianate. I'm not sure I find it the most successful design, but it is certainly inventive. I give kudos to whoever picked that paint scheme; it looks very period appropriate!

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.

The James S. Marsh House, Lewisburg, PA

The James S. Marsh House, Lewisburg, PA. 1860s Photo: Joseph a

The James S. Marsh house, built in the 1860s by an important iron foundry owner in Lewisburg is an excellent survival story. Left in terrible repair and condemned after conversion into apartments, the house was restored by the Ludwigs as you can read here (with accompanying photos).

It is a tour de force of Italianate design and includes all sorts of bells and whistles. It is a symmetrical five bay house with a gable roof and, unusually, a cupola. Usually cupolas are placed on hip roofs and not gabled roofs. On the first floor, the house has segmental arched windows and on the second and third round arched windows. All have a similar drip molding that conforms to the arch shape and ends in Gothic style finials and almost all have Venetian tracery. In the center is a triple arched palladian window, also with a conforming molding. The designer even put grand windows in the attic story at the end, a rather expensive decision. The finish is stucco with impressive quoins at the corners and a rusticated basement. The front looks a little bare. It's likely that it had an entrance porch that matched the side porch, a rather rich design with a fringe, s and c scroll brackets, and arches interrupted by carved keystones and a wooden fringe. The cornice is the fillet cornice type with a deep architrave and filleted panels alternating with filleted windows topped by a run of fringe made by pieces of wooden molding. The brackets are s scroll type and the sides form curved rinceaux. Particularly lavish is the cupola with wood rusticated to look like masonry. The backets and two windows match the facade windows with Venetian tracery and strong moldings with added multi eared surrounds. A different cornice type, the undulating cornice was used here. An earlier view of the house shows a grand balustrade on the cupola and a balustrade atop both porches. These things always rot off. 

The John T. Leigh House, Clinton, NJ

The John T. Leigh House, Clinton, NJ. 1860.

John T. Leigh was one of the major leaders of Clinton. He founded the towns major bank and helped it incorporate in 1865 along with Bosenbury. He also provided the land on which the town's major institutions were established. Leigh suitably built himself a grand Italianate house to reflect his influence (on the appropriately named Leigh street). The house suffered a fire in 1971 and then became the town municipal building with additions added to provide needed office space.

The house is a five bay, symmetrical plan block articulated in fine brick and brownstone. The first floor features five almost floor to ceiling windows with a grand porch that bears much in common with that at the town's Bosenbury house, including the chamfered columns, filleted flat arches and the central engaged pediment over the entrance. The columns of the porch are themselves interesting for their extremely exaggerated moldings, making them look a bit exotic. The cornice of the porch features a cut out fringe. On the side porches, only one of which survives, the columns are pierced with cut out designs. The second floor features a typical brownstone lintel design over the windows with a palladian window in the center with a corresponding hood molding on brackets. A projecting brick architrave molding sets off the third floor with its windows that correspond even to the proportions of the palladian window. The brackets are executed with a high degree of carpenter's elaboration with the main body being a large c scroll and then a rosette with a small s scroll below, rather layering on bracket type over bracket type. The whole is topped with a cute little cupola also with three windows. I suspect that there are some missing doo-dads like a finial.

Overall this is a beautifully preserved house with an imposing presence (standing in front of it, its proportions are very grand and it's rather tall). Design-wise, there is much to remind us of Samuel Sloan's work.

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 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.

'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.

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.

The David Ward House, Detroit, MI

The David Ward House, Detroit, MI. 1864 Photo: Scott Weir

Continuing with Detroit's love affair with arches, the David Ward house, built in 1864 for a wealthy lumber mill owner, is almost the inverse of the Newcomb house. It also follows the symmetrical plan with a gabled central bay and bay windows on the two flanking bays on the first floor, but where the Newcomb house had triple windows on the sides and doubles in the center, here the arithmetic is reversed, with the triple arched palladian in the center, an arrangement even reflected in the front door and the porch, which extends to cover the one angle of the bay windows. Whereas the Newcomb house pulled out all the stops, the Ward house is a bit tamer, with simpler, more spindly porch supports, windows that only have thick brick surrounds with carved terminals for the molding (almost Romanesque in style), higher pilasters on the bay windows, and much less classical balconies, with crosses for balusters. The third floor has a very interesting feature. Instead of having the windows break the architrave molding, the architrave curves downward to run under the windows, a rather unprecedented breaking of traditional conventions. Additionally, the central gable window is provided with its own balcony (rather obviously for show). Here the double s scroll brackets are grouped in triads on the corners, pairs and singles on the gable, an interesting way of mixing it up and emphasizing the corners strongly. Sloan would have been proud of this arrangement. The cupola is a triple arched palladian with some stocky brackets. Like a lot of symmetrical plan houses, it has side porches which makes it somewhat pyramidal in shape. It's interesting that the Newcomb house and the Ward house represent two kinds of very masculine design. Newcomb does it with elaboration and Renaissance complexity, thick stone and strong elements. Ward does it with thickness and bulk of elements, particularly the window surrounds.

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.

The Francis Adams House, Detroit, MI

Francis Adams House Detroit, MI. 1860s Photo: Scott Weir

The Francis Adams house, built sometime in the 1860s (he moved to Detroit in 1857 and was established at this location by the late 1860s) for yet another lumber merchant, is one of the zanier Italianates I've seen. It's hard to classify what stylistic influences are at work on this building, but rococo revival springs to mind, as we saw its influence in the Backus house in Baltimore. This symmetrical plan brick home has a very sedate first and second floor, with pairs of tombstone windows sitting atop bay windows on the flanking bays and a triple arched palladian in the central bay. But like the Swain house, the top is where the action occurs. The cornice's architrave molding swoops and dips fantastically along the façade, interrupted only by paired c scroll brackets; this culminates in the central open pediment which appears to be a rococo/Flemish form topped by a pile of carved vegetation. This pediment rests on stepped brackets and encloses a window with a swooping hood molding that reminds me of Chinese designs. The whole is topped by a magnificent cupola that repeats the triple arched palladian form as well as the vegetal carving. In considering the house, it is clear that some continental European baroque forms are at work; considering Adams and his wife were both Maine natives, it's anyone's guess why they chose such a playful European form for their home.

Detroit's Lost Italianates: The Isaac Swain House, Detroit, MI

The Isaac Swain House, Detroit, MI. 1863 Photos: Scott Weir

This post kicks off my discussion of a fascinating series of lost Italianates from Detroit. I have to especially thank Scott Weir for his collection of photographs of these gems. 19th century Detroit was one of the wealthiest, growing cities in the US, and that wealth as a transportation hub with close access to Canada and Michigan natural resources. Detroit was a well planned city from the earliest periods in its history, with broad boulevards, a grand street plan, and plenty of impressive homes constructed by the city's wealthy merchants. Unfortunately, the economic decay of the 20th century, as well as geographic changes in Detroit's fashionable areas took a major toll on the city's architectural heritage, as they have in most American cities. Wealthy Detroiters constructed their elaborate 19th century mansions near the downtown in neighborhoods that soon succumbed to business pressures and lifestyle changes. The Swain house, built in 1863 for an abstemious, uptight, and wealthy lumber merchant was built at 1115 Fort Street, a site now occupied by industrial buildings and an MDOT office near the highway. Still, for the purposes of this blog, lost homes are as valuable specimens as existing ones, in that they give us a clearer picture of the stylistic diversity of Italianate design.

The house is one of the most substantial Italianates featured on this blog (the biggest ones are always the first to fall). It follows the five bay plan with a strong central projection and appears to have been built of brick. The photo at the top of this page shows the house in the late 19th century, while the one below is closer to the period in which it was built; apparently the entrance porch was in need of some expansion at some point in the house's history. Chimneys seem also to have been added. All of the home's windows were arched (first floor round, second floor segmental) with extremely heavy drip moldings festooned with foliage and carved keystones. The windows on the top two stories of the central bay were both triple arched palladians. But while the porch and body of this house are not particularly elaborate, the cornice and upper stages are a testament to the possibilities of the lumber Swain made his fortune in. The height of the paneled cornice which is of the arched variety is extreme, giving the house a very top heavy feel. The elaborately carved brackets accentuate this, being expensive double s scrolls that alternate in size. A bold architrave molding with dentils below the windows places an exclamation mark on the overdone cornice. Additionally, the surprises continue as the eye moves upward, with an odd, seemingly hexagonal, cupola. The unusually tall cupola repeats the triple arched palladian windows and is topped by a very strange rounded railing with strong newel posts. This same railing, which almost looks art nouveau or jugendstil, seems to have been repeated, as the second image shows, further down on the roof, perhaps a second rooftop balcony. The cupola is also unique in that it is rare that a house has such strong gables also have a cupola, which is primarily associated with the hip roof. In a house of rooftop surprises though, the strange cupola merely completes the top heavy design.

'Floweree' the Charles Floweree House, Vicksburg, MS

The Charles Floweree House, Vicksburg, MS. 1866. HABS

This is perhaps Vicksburg's most impressive Italianate house (all images in this article comes from the HABS survey). Built in 1866 for Col. Charles Flowerlee, it is a rather uncomfortable hybrid Greek Revival/Italianate design that is an impressive and unique seven bay expansion of the five bay plan, finished in warm cream painted brick. The first floor features a central entrance with flanking windows and then two bay windows; these bay windows project slightly outside the façade, and are a strong Italianate feature seldom seen in these kinds of symmetrical houses. The central three bays have double height, square Tuscan pillars, hearkening back to the Greek Revival which run somewhat oddly into the bay windows, giving the house a strong variation of volumes with projections, diagonals, and varying shading effects, and presenting an exceptional sculptural quality. The top floor features a row of segmental arched windows with thick brick hood moldings, the same moldings seen in other Vicksburg Italianates that seem to be a local building trait. The windows flank a central grand entrance that repeats the paneled, pilastered decoration of the first floor entrance and the Greek Revival transom and side-lights fitted into a segmental arched frame, another Vicksburg feature seen in the Magnolias. The cornice is paneled, with filleted panel ends just like the Magruder house under a row of dentils; these are interrupted by c and s scroll brackets in pairs at the accent points of the house. Surprisingly, the house has a tall gabled roof instead of an expected hip roof, and a large seven bay Italianate conservatory projects from the back. The house is certainly an uncommon and individualistic design, but the contractor and designer are unknown; perhaps, given similarities to other houses in the area, it is a Beck design or a local tastemaker.

The interiors of the house are especially impressive, with some of the finest, most florid, and deepest plasterwork in the state. Every surface seems to have some viney outgrowth emerging from it. The house is for sale, and the realtor website has several color images of the exterior and interior. A video slideshow is also available. HABS fortunately provides some drawings, plans, and interior images.

Elevations:

 Plans:

 Interiors: