The Lewis Kies House, Cleveland, OH

The Lewis Kies House, Cleveland, OH. 1874 Photo: Wikimedia

The Kies house is a particularly fine mansion, a survival in a city that has mostly had its mansions ripped away. The house gives a grand impression with its symmetrical plan, its paired brackets and paneled cornice, and its brick walls, which could have been stuccoed once. The central bay projects and is topped by a fascinating broken triangular pediment, a feature that can be found on some high style Ohio Italianates. Other examples seem to include some kind of doo-dads in the central open part. The windows are spare, with simple stone or iron drip moldings and segmental arched tops. The central bay, as on most of these Italianates, has tombstone windows, and a porch, which looks oddly plain to me. Perhaps a balcony or some extra parts were removed. All in all, a fine survival.

The McChain-Boardman House, Ithaca, NY

The McChain-Boardman House, Ithaca, NY. 1866 Photo: Alec Frazier

This stately symmetrical plan villa in Ithaca, NY is a lovely example of a high style Italianate house. While it was built in 1866 for George McChain, the first dean of Cornell's law school bought in house in 1886 and thus is included in the name. It was acquired by Ithaca College in the 20th century and is now rented out to a variety of tenants. The house bears a strong resemblance to one in New Haven. Like that house, it has a regular scheme with a central tripartite window and a double columned porch. There is no central projection or recess in this house, though, making it a powerful cube. The windows have brackets with curved pediments that are beautifully ornamented with carved pieces, palmettes and anthemia, relieving the strict classical design of the facade. A cool feature of the window treatment is that, rather than encasing the windows entirely in wood, the architect used a small line of bricks to suggest an architrave molding. The cornice is spare in this house, with a full entablature and very small brackets that seem to be rafter brackets. Nonetheless, the simplicity of the cornice gives the house an Anglo-Italianate air, and the drab color scheme of exposed brick walls and brownstone colored paint seem very appropriate and remind me of many of the houses I discussed in Providence, RI. I'm sure there was once a balustrade over the entrance porch, which is strictly classical/renaissance in inspiration except for the rosettes applied to the plinths of the columns. The doors themselves are elaborate specimens of Renaissance Revival design with rich wood textures and built up carved medallions. The cupola on top, which displays a bit more Italianate whimsy than the rest of the design, completes the house.

The Schlosser House, Attica, IN

The Schlosser House, Attica, IN. 1865 Photo: Wikimedia

Sorry to have been remiss lately. With classes starting and all I have just been swamped, but I promise not to give up. This house, the Schlosser house, in Attica, IN was built in 1865 as a symmetrical plan house, but being in a small town in Indiana it has some unusual vernacular features. First, the lintels over the windows that consist of simple pieces of stone inserted into the facade (called labels) are a strong Greek Revival element. Here, they are heavily carved with Greek designs of acanthus with palmettes; the fact that the owner has picked them out in paint helps a great deal in noticing the design elements. The porch on the front is an elaborate affair, with complex fretwork scrolls (that have the air of steamboat Gothic about them). The central piece of fretwork between the two bracket shaped pieces is particularly interesting. The facing is brick, which forms a band to make an architrave that has paired double s-curve brackets under the eave. The side porch is startlingly simple, being basically simple posts without even a full entablature. However, the simplicity of the wooden design is not reflected in the elaborate cast iron balustrade over the porch, which is a lovely feature and was obviously designed to be used as a balcony, given the elongation of the second floor windows on that side. Although the paint scheme is probably not historical (they would never have picked out stone details like that), I rather like it with its mix of blacks, yellows, and greens. It goes to show that even when historical colors aren't used, a pleasing picture can be formed. The yellows and blacks are in fact harmonious Victorian colors, so it does even out. Even though the house was built in 1865, it is aesthetically a throwback to the early 1850s in its design, showing that regionalism could often trump high style taste.

The Harvey Howard House, Wooster, OH

The Harvey Howard House, Wooster, OH. 1860 Photo: Wikimedia

Photo: Wayne County Historical Soc.

Sorry to have been so remiss in August! It was a busy month.

This house is somewhat difficult to classify. Although it appears to follow the five bay plan it could also be classified as a central tower plan because of how deep the projection is from the central facade. I think I'm going to stick with the latter designation. Harvey Howard, a druggist, built this house around 1860, but it is more famous for James B. Taylor, Civil War commander, living here from the 1880s. At the turn of the century, it became Wooster's first hospital. The house has a stark brick facde with simple stone moldings. On the first floor these have a very Greek Revival impression, being simple "labels", or flat stone pieces inset above the window. On the second floor are arched windows with 'drip moldings'. The unique features of this house are the projecting central bay which forms a porch with a triple arched Palladian opening. Above that are double tombstone windows with an wooden awning. One would usually expect a Juliette balcony below this, though it looks like there never was one. Very strange. The cornice as well is unique with Greek Revival vines applied within the frieze between the brackets, which fancy up an otherwise plain facade. Given the odd Greek Revival elements, the house has a very transitional feel to it. Large windows pierce the cornice on the sides, but I feel these are a later addition as they are both asymmetrical and bizarre protrusions into the design. The house has a strange feel, like a building with a lot of elements that don't seem to really reach their full conclusion. No tower, but a tower projection, a wooden awning but no balcony. Still, it's an interesting design that embodies Ohio's Western Reserve's conservative New England tastes.


The David Q. Liggett House, Wooster, OH

The David Q. Liggett House, Wooster, OH. 1861 Photos: Wikimedia

The David Q. Liggett house, which goes by a variety of names based on those of different owners, was built in 1861 for a significant merchant in the town. It follows the irregular plan, but since the recessed wing is so short (only one bay) it gives the impression of following the rotated side tower plan. The house seems to have been altered by successive owners who added in the late 19th or early 20th century a Colonial Revival porch and glassed in vestibule. You can see from how this wraparound porch marrs the facade how troublesome it is to mix architectural vocabularies. Still it has a bit of charm, like a sock thats been mended with many colorful patches. A large and exuberant Second Empire addition seems to be attached at the back. The strapwork adorning the facade is also probably an older addition, suggesting the influence of the Stick Style or Queen Anne. Still the house retains most of its Italianate features. The design of the facade is simple enough, with plain molded surrounds adorning the windows which are jazzed up a bit on the round arched window on the tower. I'd guess that if the strapwork is not original, the house was brick or stuccoed. The cornice again is plain with double s-curve brackets and an architrave molding; the cornice continues around the tower with a particularly large roof, making it seem like the tower is stuck on the roof rather than an independent entity. The tower is a particularly cool example. It has double tombstone windows with thick moldings. Instead of the usual hip roof, though, it has a sharply angled hip roof with a small monitor with semi-circular windows topped by an iron cresting. This is a lovely little feature that makes some steps toward Second Empire without embracing the mansard roof. Although the house is well painted, I do think the pink a bit much. After all, who really wants to live in a doll house?

The William Judd Mix House, Oregon, IL

The William Judd Mix House, Oregon, IL. 1874 Photo: Teemu008

The William Judd Mix house in Oregon, IL was built in 1874 for Mix, a store owner and merchant, and is a lovely example of Illinois Italianate design. It is currently a bed and breakfast. It follows the rotated side tower plan, an interesting variant on the general Italianate plan types with the tower and a projecting pavilion taking up the front facade. The facade is brick with what looks like limestone detailing that forms the simple window hoods. The windows show a variety of shapes, though double tombstone windows seem to predominate. The variation in the bay window on the front, with two round headed windows flanking a window with filleted corners (a very big feature of the 1870s) is particularly nice. The cornice, which is of the paneled type has double s-curve brackets and dentil moldings. I like the front door surround, which is wood and features an interesting little semicircle in the center of the molding. The tower facade itself has a recessed blind arch in the brickwork, which adds some distinction to that element of the facade. The tower's upper stage has unusually two pairs of double tombstone windows set in rectangular frames, a nice feature, with moldings forming pilasters between them; a tall finial completes the vertical thrust found in this type of plan. There is an interesting side porch to the right that seems to be Gothic, with four point arches. A final note, the house has a more steeply pitched hip roof; this seems to be a feature of Illinois houses of the 1870s.

 

The Nelson Stillman House, Galena, IL

The Nelson Stillman House, Galena, IL 1858 Photo: Richie Diesterheft

Photo: SD Dirk

This is a truly impressive house in a town of impressive homes. The Nelson Stillman house was built in 1858 by a successful grocer. After serving as a nursing home, it is now the Stillman Inn, a bed and breakfast whose owners have restored missing original features of the house and have taken excellent care of the property. As far as the plan goes, it is a typical irregular plan house with brick facing and a simple architrave and bracket cornice. The unique design features of this house are what really set it apart from the usual. First, the most noticeable feature is the tower. Unlike the traditional Italianate tower, this one has a strong ogee shaped gable on all four sides, a feature which is rarely seen (Norwich, CT has some similar towers). The ogee has no brackets, perhaps because they were just too hard to cut. It covers a double tombstone window topped by a round window. As if the tower gables weren't enough, an octagonal, almost Federal, cupola tops the tower with an open platform for viewing the surrounding countryside from the hill on which the house sits. I am not sure I have seen an open cupola like this on an Italianate, and I find it rather pleasing, even if it interacts a bid oddly with the ogee. Two other features catch my eye. First is the fact that all the windows on the front of the house are double (one is triple) and covered with wooden awnings with fringes, that make the house look rather festive. The tent shape to the awnings echoes the curves on the cupola roof and the tower gable nicely. Third is the porch, which, although it seems standard enough, has odd bits of jigsaw work hanging down from the cornice over the brackets. This is a bit of whimsy that is almost Steamboat Gothic in its inspiration and fun. It again adds curves into the house's design, giving the porch cornice a sort of undulation. The sides of the house are much plainer, keeping with the Victorian spirit of thrift which always seemed at war with their desire for display.

Photo: Eric Olson