AMERICAN RENAISSANCE

A REVIEW OF DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
ILLUSTRATED BY NINETY-SIX
HALF-TONE PLATES
BY
JOY WHEELER DOW
ARCHITECT

NEW YORK:
WILLIAM T. COMSTOCK
MCMIV

Copyright, 1904, By
Joy Wheeler Dow
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York

PREFACE

This review of American Renaissance originally appeared as a series of papers in the “Architects and Builders’ Magazine,” and the interest shown in them as they were brought out and the later inquiry for these numbers of the Magazine have led the publisher to suggest the propriety of putting them in more permanent shape.

With this in view the author has carefully collated the articles, added some new illustrations, and in some cases the plates have been enlarged where the subjects seemed worthy of fuller representation than was possible in the limited space allowed in the Magazine.

The book is intended to be an impartial outline history of American domestic architecture from Colonial times to the present day, and the salutary influence upon it of whatever has been good in past building epochs.

How well the subject has been presented, it remains for the readers of the following pages to judge.

The Author.

CONTENTS

Chapter Page
[I.][Ethics][17]
[II.][Art and Commercialism][30]
[III.][The Ancient Régime and—Andrew Jackson][40]
[IV.][Humble Beginnings of a National School][51]
[V.][The Grand Epoch][61]
[VI.][Early 19th Century Work][79]
[VII.][The Transitional Period][89]
[VIII.][Reign of Terror—Its Negative Value][108]
[IX.][Fashion in Architecture][118]
[X.][Adaptation][132]
[XI.][Concerning Style][149]
[XII.][Conclusion][156]
[Index][173]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece—Garden Front of Bennett House, New Bedford, Epoch 1840.
PLATES.
[I]—In an Old Time Renaissance Garden.
The Governor Smith House at Wiscasset, Me.
[II]—Doorway, Washington Square, North, New York City.
[III]—Pickering House, Salem, Mass. Erected A.D. 1649.
Cole House, Farmington, Conn.
[IV]—If you want atmosphere and plenty of it, go to Salem.
Historic Atmosphere in a Modern Dwelling,—Silvergate.
[V]—Shirley-on-the-James.
American Renaissance Dwelling by an imitator of Richardson. Date about 1890.
[VI]—Doorway at Bristol, R. I.
[VII]—American Renaissance and Analysis.
[VIII]—The Newly Invented Architecture and Analysis.
Eastover, Terrace and Peristyle.
[IX]—Eastover: Garden Front.
[X]—Not every Architect is Able to Give you this Atmosphere. Page House, Danvers, Mass.
Money will not buy the Cotton Smith House.
[XI]—Victims of Commercialism, Belmont Houses, New York City.
Chimney-piece, American Renaissance. Designed by T. Henry Randall.
[XII]—Simplicity of Art, Wadsworth House, Middletown, Conn.
Efflorescence of Commercialism.
[XIII]—Mantelpiece, American Renaissance. Epoch 1806.
Orne-Ropes House, Salem. Epoch 1720.
Both name and identity of its designer have in all probability been irrevocably mislaid in oblivion, but he was an architect.
[XIV]—Doorway, Means House, Amherst, N. H.
[XV]—Munro-French House, Bristol, R. I. Epoch 1800.
These apprentices essayed no stunts.
An Ancient Farm-house at Durham, Conn.
[XVI]—So far as teaching architectural art is concerned it must be admitted that our public schools have been a dead failure.—Modern Farm-house.
Type of Farm-house. Epoch end of Eighteenth Century.
[XVII]—Peristyle to a House in Wyoming, N. J. (1897).
American Renaissance, 1899.
[XVIII]—Detail, Princessgate, 1896.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing,” etc.
[XIX]—Wyck, Germantown. Epoch A.D. 1700.
[XX]—XX—Doorway, Philadelphia Club.
[XXI]—Derby-Ward House, Salem, Mass. Seventeenth Century.
Souvenir of Abigail and Deliverance Hobbs, two alleged witches of Topsfield, Mass.
[XXII]—Modern Cottage with a Germantown Hood.
Modern Cottage with a Dutch Hood.
[XXIII]—Germantown Motive Applied to a Modern Cottage.
Type of Early Connecticut House, Stratford, Conn.
[XXIV]—Type of Early Connecticut House, Middletown, Conn.
[XXV]—Johnson House, Germantown, Pa.
House at Hackensack, N. J. Eighteenth Century.
[XXVI]—House at Bogota, N. J. Eighteenth Century.
[XXVII]—Mount Vernon-on-the-Potomac. River front.
[XXVIII]—Mount Vernon-on-the-Potomac. West front.
[XXIX]—A Salem Gateway, Nichols House.
Hoppin House, from the close, Litchfield.
[XXX]—House of Captain McPhædris at Portsmouth, N. H.
[XXXI]—Doorway at Warren, R. I.
Chimney-piece, American Renaissance, 1899.
[XXXII]—Morris House, Germantown.
Wister House, Germantown.
[XXXIII]—Wyck, Germantown.
Terrace and Garden Front of a House at Wyoming, N. J., 1899.
[XXXIV]—John Cotton Smith House, Sharon, Conn.
The Deming House, Litchfield, Conn.
[XXXV]—Ford Mansion, Morristown, N. J. Eighteenth Century.
Doorway with Hood, Lynn-Regis, 1897.
[XXXVI]—Morris House, Philadelphia.
[XXXVII]—Winter View of Eastover.
Rosewell, Gloucester County, Va.
A Ghost of the Grand Epoch.
[XXXVIII]—De Wolf-Colt Mansion, Bristol, R. I. Epoch 1810.
[XXXIX]—Local Color, Old Philadelphia.
[XL]—House with the Eagles, Bristol, R. I.
The Norris House, Bristol, R. I.
[XLI]—Chestnut Street, Salem.
[XLII]—West approach and entrance to De Wolf-Middletown House, Bristol, R. I. Built in 1808.
The Back Buildings of Philadelphia.
[XLIII]—The Captain White House, Essex Street, Salem.
[XLIV]—Doorway, Silvergate.
Doorway, Watkinson House, Middletown, Conn.
[XLV]—Watkinson House. Epoch 1810.
Benefit Street, Providence, R. I.
[XLVI]—Modern Chimney-piece.
[XLVII]—Grace Church Rectory, New York City.
[XLVIII]—No. 23 Bond Street, New York City.
Doorway on East Fourth Street, New York City.
The Sargent House (Common East), New Haven, Conn.
[XLIX]—Sun Dial, Grace Church Rectory.
[L]—House of Mrs. Richmond-Dow, Warren, R. I.
View from the close, same subject.
[LI]—House on High Street, Middletown, Conn.
Bennett House, County Street, New Bedford.
[LII]—Doorway, New York City.
[LIII]—The De Zeng House, Middletown, Conn.
The Roberts House, Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia.
[LIV]—No 1 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Waterbury House, Fifth Avenue and Eleventh Street, New York.
[LV]—Remaining Half of the Colonnade, New York City.
Typical architecture of the transitional period.
[LVI]—“And that house with the coopilows his’n.”
A Fifth Avenue Mansion during the Reign of Terror.
[LVII]—“I think that Dante’s more abstruse ecstatics,” etc.
[LVIII]—“There were the sincere radicals——”
[LIX]—LIX—“And the Scaramouches.”
[LX]—Franco-American Roof. Typical example.
Jacobin architecture was at least symmetrical.
[LXI]—“I never was so glad to get home in my life.”
[LXII]—Ultra-fashionable Queen Anne architecture.
Fashionable House, Eastlake School.
[LXIII]—Bellwood, Madison, N. J. Epoch 1878.
[LXIV]—A Queen Anne House at Short Hills, N. J. Frederick B. White, architect.
An Ultra-fashionable Colonial House of the Present Day, 1904.
[LXV]—A Country House, San Mateo, Cal. Bruce Price architect, New York.
[LXVI]—Doorway at Sharon, Conn.
[LXVII]—The Château of Chenonceau.
[LXVIII]—Kingdor, Summit, N. J.
Canterbury Keys, Wyoming, N. J.
[LXIX]—The Louvre, Paris.
[LXX]—House of W. K. Vanderbilt, Fifth Avenue and Fifty-second Street, New York City.
[LXXI]—Lambton Castle, England.
[LXXII]—Haddon Hall, England.
[LXXIII]—Charlecote Hall, England.
[LXXIV]—Hampton Court, Wolsey Palace.
[LXXV]—LXXV—Hampton Court, South Palace.
[LXXVI]—Chambord, “The Valois Shooting-box.”
[LXXVII]—Azay-le-Rideau. The celebrated coup d’œil of the château.
[LXXVIII]—Elevation of a Country House for Mrs. H., at Morristown.
[LXXIX]—Kingdor, front elevation.
Kingdor, detail.
[LXXX]—A Cottage at East Orange, N. J.
[LXXXI]—Doorway, Bristol, R. I.
[LXXXII]—Mitchell Cottage, East Orange.
[LXXXIII]—Detail, Mitchell Cottage, East Orange, N. J.
[LXXXIV]—Princessgate.
Princessgate, rear.
[LXXXV]—Eastover, the west front.
[LXXXVI]—Searles Cottage. Exemplifying architectural style.
The Modern American Dwelling. Exemplifying fashion.
[LXXXVII]—Style and the picture. Middletown, Conn.
Detail in South Eighth Street, Philadelphia.
[LXXXVIII]—Detail, Silvergate.
[LXXXIX]—Miss Simplicity—her house.
Detail, Princessgate.
[XC]—Green Tree Inn, Germantown.
[XCI]—Princessgate (modern) developed from Dutch and English Farm-house Motives.
Try to have the rear of your house as attractive as the front.
[XCII]—Biltmore, in North Carolina.
[XCIII]—House of H. W. Poor, Tuxedo, N. Y.
[XCIV]—House of H. W. Poor, Tuxedo, N. Y.
Phillips House, Lawrence, L. I.
[XCV]—Garden Gate at Wyoming, N. J.
Window of a Dining-room, Wyoming, N. J.
Edgar House, Newport, R. I.