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.

'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:

The Alexander Magruder House, Vicksburg MS

The Alexander Magruder House, Vicksburg MS. 1850 Photo: Wikimedia

Source: Wikimedia

This house was built in 1830 as a single story house in the Greek Revival style by Richard Featherston, but was remodeled into a two story Italianate structure in 1850 by Alexander Magruder, a doctor. It is a five bay symmetrical design, reflective of its Greek Revival roots, with sparing details, and a noticeable lack of window surrounds (the tracery looks to be an addition of the 1890s). The facing appears to be some kind of stone or perhaps a very deeply scored and textured plaster, with quoins in the corners, giving it a rather grand frame. The entablature on both the porch (with thick, square, Greek Revival pillars) and the house match, following the paneled style with sharply angular brackets. Perhaps its most attractive feature is the main door, which has an elaborate pilastered surround with panels matching the entablature, curvaceous brackets, and a fine basket handle arch transom. The house is currently a place one can rent to stay in. The fine and tastefully decorated interiors can be seen here.

Source: Jeff Hart

I'd like to mention another Italianate here, the demolished rectory of St. Paul's church (all images from HABS).

It was built in 1866 and designed by the priest, Jean Baptiste Mouton, and pieces appear to have been prefabricated in Ohio and shipped down. Despite the Gothic detailing, the house is solidly Italianate, given its cornice with angular brackets closely spaced, its symmetrical five bay plan, and its hip roof. It is one of several hybrid Italianates, like Indian Italianates, with a different stylistic vocabulary applied to a Italianate frame. Here, the Gothic details consist of window labels in a Gothic vein, a Gothic porch with a heavy ogee arch, and pointed windows. This last feature is an interesting transformation of the typical Italianate triple arched palladian into a Gothic formation. The whole façade was stuccoed and scored to appear like stone, making the undoubtedly brick house match the grandeur of Gothic stonework. Unfortunately, this was demolished in 1972.

'The Magnolias' Vicksburg, MS

'The Magnolias' Vicksburg, MS. 1877 Source: Wikimedia

Source: Wikimedia

Known as 'the Magnolias' this house has little information about its original builder, although it was constructed in 1877. Like McRaven, the house is a side hall plan with a porch façade, but unlike McRaven, it exhibits many more Italianate details. The window treatments of the house are all segmental arched with thick hood moldings swooping over, and the door fits a Greek Revival design into the segmental arched shape. The house is all about its jigsaw work, with the porch, like McRaven, supported on thin openwork posts with Gothic jigsaw designs and with a jigsaw balustrade. The spandrel brackets on the porch are especially delicate and frilly and form basket handle arches. The entablature is of the bull's eye paneled cornice type, with a row of panels in the frieze filled with incised Eastlake designs, and a layer of dentils with small bulbous brackets emerging. This run of short brackets is interrupted by longer brackets coordinating with the posts of the porch, keeping the verticality of the design. I have to say, while very kitschy, there is something quite authentic, especially to the 1870s, to the yard crowded with all kinds of clashing odds an ends, a Thorvaldsen Hebe, a canon, and Japanese lanterns. Victorians loved those kinds of tchotchkes in front of their houses as a sort of exterior furniture that personalized the house as the objects collected by the owner personalized the interior.

Source: Wikimedia

The Joseph Harrison House (Second)- Holmesburg, PA

The Second Joseph Harrison House, 1856. Holmesburg, PA

Philadelphia SAH

The country house that Joseph Harrison commissioned Sloan to design for him, as he had for his city house (see previous post) was neither less grand nor less eccentric. This is potentially the only surviving photograph of the house, which was poorly documented. This picture was taken before its demolition in 1901 for a water treatment plant. Harrison had had Sloan design him a sophisticated, European, Anglo-Italianate structure for his city living. For his country house, he continued with the elaborate European styling. The house, at least from this angle, follows the pavilion plan. It has two pavilions jutting out from the sides with a porch in between enclosing a polygonal bay (it appears to hold a staircase) connected by glassed in bays. The roofline varies dramatically between the three elements, central bay, pavilion, and connecting wings. The façade is stuccoed with quoins and a thick entablature with closely spaced s curve brackets intersecting a thick architrave molding. The window surrounds are Greek in inspiration, with eared moldings and a small pediment, unclassically supported by small brackets. The whole was topped by a cupola. To one side was a classical greenhouse with an onion dome. But the real eccentricity was the Russian baroque belltower. Harrison spent time in Russia developing the railroads there, and like Samuel Colt, another industrialist who spent time in Russia, when building his house incorporated Russian designs. Colt added an onion dome to his factory in Hartford as well as a series of onion-domed greenhouses to his own Italianate mansion. Harrison's is rather more drastic and a great example of the folly-design found in the picturesque English Romantic tradition in which one's house reflected the souvenirs of their travels, even in the form of structures.

The First Italianate-'Riverside' the Bishop George Doane House, Burlington, NJ

'Riverside', Bishop Doane House, Burlington, NJ. 1839 All Photos: HABS

 

In thinking about the sources for the double tower plan by Richard Upjohn, a house that is often hailed as the country's "first Italianate" came to mind. Indeed, although I think the distillation of Italianate into the US was far from a simple process with any clear "first", it cannot be disputed that this house is one of the first. Built for an Episcopal bishop in 1839 who founded one of the US' first all girls boarding schools, it was designed to be the bishop's residence in Burlington, and was kept by the diocese until it was demolished in the 1950s tragically. Apparently, no one cared about saving a key monument in the history of 19th century architecture; the house is a major casualty of the low esteem for Victorian architecture in the mid-20th century. It was designed by John Notman, one of early America's greatest architects who constructed both some of the first Italianates as well as some of the first major academic Gothic buildings in the US. With building started in 1837, it does come first in the history of Italianate design.

The house does not follow exactly any of the plans that shape Italianate design throughout the 19th century. Notman was breaking new ground here and thus had less standard examples or published plan books to work from. Nonetheless, one can see elements of several different plans in the house and can trace the contours of more familiar shapes. If we look at the house head on and cover up the back, tall tower, we can see the root of the irregular plan with its deeply projecting pavilion, set back tower, and recessed wing. On the other hand, if we cut off the projecting pavilion and the recessed wing, we can see the outline of the double tower plan. Looking at the side of the house, to the left (lower elevation) we can see the general shape of the side tower plan. In effect, many of the familiar plans are all present in this house. The Italianate plan is like putting together a set of blocks, blocks which are symmetrical in form. If one takes the tower block, the pavilion block, the recessed wing block, one can make dozens of possible and stylistically appropriate shapes. Judging by the dictum "form follows function", the Italianate house offers all the possibilities for any kind of protuberance or room to be added as needed without violating the requirements of the style. The focus on the picturesque and asymmetrical allows the house's interior to be perfectly comprehensible from the exterior. Thus, it's able to balance both form and function effectively without picking one or the other. Looking at the plan, it seems that Notman started with a central block and then added wings as rooms were necessary, balancing all of his blocks to form a picturesque and varied whole.

Looking at the house as its own entity, without reading other designs in, there is a central long wing with a tall tower tower to the left side. In front of this block, there is a dramatic projecting pavilion, a shorter tower/wing (it appears as a tower from the front view but as a wing off the central block from the sides) where the entrance is located, and a low, one story wing to the right of the lower tower. The wings of the house give it a Greek cross shape. Decoration is spare on the house, appropriate to its early date. The walls are stuccoed and almost all rectangular with the exception of the triple arched windows in the tower. These triple arched windows are intimately associated with the upper stage of Italianate towers from this example. A triple window sits above the excessively wide, heavily molded arched door with an incredibly thick Renaissance style balcony with massive brackets. The projecting pavilion is enlivened by a full story bay window with a tent roof and Gothic diamond paned panels while the cornice has a wooden fringe running around it. The only other bit of decoration is the projecting wing on the back façade which features a bay window and Greek Revival pilasters. The simple cornice without any entablature has rafter brackets, simulating the rafters of Italian houses that project beneath the eave. Interestingly, despite being a country house, the house lacks the usual multiple windows with broad swaths of blank wall.

HABS has a few pictures of the interior with a simple staircase with iron spindles and a lotus shaped newel post, an impressive Gothic paneled room, and Greek Revival interior window surrounds.

The Charles McLeod House, Troy, NY

The Charles McLeod House, Troy, NY. 1867

The house at 149 Second Street in Troy, built in 1867 for Charles McLeod, the vice president of a stove manufacturing company, is one of the most sophisticated designs in the area. It has gone through a variety of owners after the McLeods after 1907 and was altered in 1885,  It follows the side-hall, row house plan, although the left-hand bays are filled with a large three story bay window. The facade is articulated in fine brownstone which is distributed in a series of pilasters, blind panels, and horizontal string courses. These features are usually associated with the "Brick-panel style" known from Boston. Because the panels and pilasters form the facade's articulation, window and door surrounds are kept simple. The front doors themselves with their rich carving and the odd insertion of a round arch into a segmental arch are one of the finest sets of Victorian doors in the city. The impressive bay window is especially interesting, as it is so heavily defined by thick cornices and is framed so well by the facade's pilasters. The first and second floors feature filleted openings with rectangular windows inside them. The top floor draws the eye up with arched windows with floating triangular pediments connected by keystones and brackets to the windows. The elaborate paneled cornice completes the design, with s-scroll brackets with carved acanthus leaves and panels with blocks in the corners. The house is currently the home of a wellness retreat and suffered a devastating fire in 2010. Fortunately, the owners love Victorian architecture and have worked tirelessly to rebuild and restore the grand interiors with fine woodwork and painting, images of which can be seen here.

Further down the street back towards Washington Park is another fine brownstone at 167 Second Street. This house was no doubt another product of the late 1850s and is a fine tribute to the segmental arch in a row house plan. A severe brownstone facade with all the demureness of Anglo-Italianate design, features simple hood moldings and a very plain cornice. The largest note of fun is the door which has a full molded surround with a riot of rococo vegetation flowing from the top.

The last little note, across the street is probably one of the coolest, almost intact runs of temple-front Greek Revival houses. You almost never see them all lined up like this, especially in an urban setting.

The James B. Crosby House, Janesville, WI

James Crosby House, Janesville, WI. 1851 Photo: Wikimedia

Photo: Wikimedia

The James B. Crosby house was built in 1851 and has been connected to the work of Samuel Sloan because it is closely based on his plan for "an Ornamental Villa" in his book The Model Architect (pictured below). In its long history, it has been a hospital, a drama school run by a minister, and a foster home. It is currently owned by an architect who bought the dilapidated house and is in the process of restoring it, even rebuilding its demolished surgical wing from its hospital days as his facebook page says. The house displays its early design with its simple ornamentation and irregular massing, something that definitely is very Sloan (his designs, though early vary the most from standard plans). In essence, it is a symmetrical plan house with a gable rather than hip roof and a deep gabled central projection with a triple window. Another early feature are the very tall double windows with Greek Revival eared surrounds, the large overhanging eave, and the absence of an architrave molding. The porch is simple and stick like with some Arabesque designs similar to the Tallman house and a little fringe. The brackets are s-scroll type and pierced with large finials and intersect a run of dentils. Perhaps most magnificent is the octagonal cupola, which has rectangular windows and extends the s scroll brackets down the entire height of the cupola, adding c scrolls until the brackets reach the bottom. This creates a very exotic profile indeed!