The Gardner-White-Pingree House
THE GARDNER-WHITE-PINGREE HOUSE
Samuel McIntire, the famous Salem architect, died in 1811. The Gardner-White-Pingree house was designed by him in the previous year, and was possibly his last achievement. The shape of the building is oblong, most of the best houses of the period being square. The windows of the top story are foreshortened. The narrow bands of white marble running across the façade at the height of the first and second floor deceive the eye, and make the building appear lower than it is.
In the front doorway and porch we have a notable specimen of McIntire’s work, illustrating the freedom with which he employed original ideas in the use of the various architectural orders. Corinthian columns support the porch roof, but they are without the usual fluting; while the pilasters farther back are fluted. The slender grace of the tall columns is most pleasing and the elliptical roof with its simple mouldings well crowns the whole. A spider-web fanlight of beautiful proportions surmounts the doorway, which is flanked by side-lights of pleasing design. The wide door itself, though not of original Colonial type, is not a discordant note in the ensemble.
A most elaborate cast-iron fence with square openwork posts resembling tree-boxes, standing at the foot of the steps and continued by simpler hand-rails, lends a proper finish to the approach; while the marble sills and keyed lintels of the windows relieve the plain expanse of the façade.