TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION—EXTERIOR.
Overall Dimensions. Width: 78 feet by 25 feet in central section, and 20 feet in wings. Height: central section, two and one-half stories; wings, one and one-half stories; sunporch, one story.
Foundations. The central section of the house stands on brick foundations which are carried up through the basement walls.
A brick wall extending upward to the second floor divides the basement into two sections and served as part of the original foundations. In the basement, a series of arches in this wall permitted passage between the two sections. In 1960, the upper portions of this wall 40 were found to have deteriorated to the point that it was necessary to pour concrete footings in the basement and erect a series of steel columns up through the wall to relieve it from bearing the weight of the second-floor beams and floor joists.
The east wing (present living room, former kitchen) rests on brick foundations, with the present wooden flooring laid over the original cobblestone floor of the old kitchen. The west wing (present kitchen) rests on concrete footings and slab at grade.
Wall Construction. Walls are constructed of medium red brick (3 by 9 by 12 inches), using the following bonds: central block front—Flemish bond; central block rear—English bond; central block end walls—English bond; east wing—American or common bond, with seven courses of stretchers to each course of headers; west wing—American or common bond, with six courses of stretchers to each course of headers.
Chimneys. Interior brick chimneys are located in the center of the east and west ends of the central block. These chimneys have separate flues for four fireplaces (two each on the first and second floors) and measure 5 feet by 2 feet 8 inches. Three courses of brick are corbelled to make the capping of the chimneys.
The end walls of the east and west wings of the house also each have an interior chimney centered in the wall. The chimney in the east wing, measuring 3 feet by 1 foot 8 inches and having three courses of brick corbelled for a capping, was used for the fireplace in the old kitchen which occupied that part of the house prior to 1942.
Doors and Doorways. The front doorway is inset (1 foot 8 inches) in an entrance faced with white painted wooden panels. The entrance is framed by a plain triangular pediment and pilasters without decorations on either shafts or capitals. The front door is a six-panel door, designed to harmonize with the interior doors which are originals. Over the door is a four-light rectangular transom.
The rear entrance is a 6 by 8-foot portico, built up three steps from ground level. Along the sides of the portico are 3-foot railings, inside of which are wooden boxes which serve both as storage boxes and as seats. The portico roof is supported by wooden Doric columns set at its outer edges, and the front end of the roof is a plain triangular pediment. The rear doorway has a transom and door similar to the front doorway.
The kitchen door opens onto a 4 by 4-foot wooden porch with railing and three steps to ground level.
The sunporch door has interchangeable screen and glass panels for winter and summer use and opens on the front of the house at ground level.
Windows and Shutters. In the central block, the front doorway is flanked by French windows, with 12-over-9 lights in double-hung wooden sash. The rear windows on the 41 first floor are 9-over-9 lights in double-hung wooden sash. Windows on the second floor front and rear sides are 6-over-6 lights in double-hung wooden sash, as are the dormer windows and gable end windows. The windows on the first and second floors of the central block have 2-foot 10-inch wooden sills and full-length louvered shutters hung on pintles (two on each side of the window frame). Window frames, sills, and muntins are painted dark green.
In the east and west wings of the house, the front windows are 6-over-6 lights in double-hung wooden sash. The rear window in the east wing (living room) has a dead-light picture window (6 by 4 feet) flanked by windows with 6-over-9 lights in double-hung wooden sash. Window frames, sills, and muntins are white, and full-length wooden shutters are dark green.
In the brickwork of the house, flat arches have been laid over all of the windows on the first floor, except over the windows on the rear of the central block.
The sunporch on the east end of the house is of frame construction and has nine windows (2½ by 5 feet) on three sides.
Roof. Photographs taken about 1900 show the house with an enclosed porch across the front and a sheet metal roof on the porch. In contrast, the central block of the house and the kitchen (east) wing have shingled roofs (figure 5). Photographs in 1936 show the central portion of the house with a sheet metal roof (figure 7). In 1942, the roofing on all parts of the house was replaced with specially made concrete shingles, which are still in place.[90]
The roof is a simple medium-pitched roof with plain gable ends. Interior chimneys are centered in each end of the center section and in the east end of the living room (former kitchen) wing.
Full-length copper gutters are incorporated into the eaves and project approximately six inches above and beyond the cornice.
Cornices on the front and rear of the center section of the house are composed of dentils, running approximately three segments per foot. Identical plain wooden cornices are used on the front and rear of the two wings of the house.
Each wing has one dormer centered in the front and two on the rear sides of the roof. The center section of the house has three dormers on the front side of the roof. All dormers have a single window, consisting of 6-over-6 lights, set vertically in the front face. All dormers have beaded ship-lap siding laid parallel to the pitched roof. This latter feature appears to be a change made in 1942 since photographs of the house in 1885 and 1936 show the siding on the dormers laid parallel to the ground.
Enclosures. A post and rail fence stands at the edge of the front lawn and, together with a line of hemlocks growing immediately inside the fence, forms a screen between the house and the entrance road leading in from the Little River Turnpike. In the rear, a semicircular screen of boxwood frames the lawn.