The Architecture of Colonial America

by Harold Donaldson Eberlein

THE LINDENS, STAIR AND HALL, C. 1770. New England Georgian of second phase.

WENTWORTH HOUSE, HALL AND STAIR. New England true Colonial type.

to be found round-headed arched doorways with double doors and the arch, either round or flattened, appears in various forms from time to time while the fluted or carved or turned key block, in sundry curious varieties, appears at the centre of arches and also in other places. The key block practically disappears in the second phase of Georgian. The arch also loses its prominence and we find more straight lines. Indeed, during the second or more distinctly Palladian phase of Georgian we scarcely find the arch at all in domestic architecture except in the middle member of the Palladian window or in the lights over house doors. One might go on almost indefinitely tabulating characteristic details that belong essentially to the first Georgian phase but enough has been said to direct attention to the general aspect and to enable an observant person to differentiate it from the others.

Of the second Georgian phase in New England we could not desire a better or more thoroughly typical example than the Lee house in Marblehead, erected in 1768. It is the embodiment of robust and yet agreeably proportioned classicality. The mouldings and cornices have lost the ponderosity of proportion that was observable in many of the houses of earlier type. The placing of ornamental detail is far more carefully considered and governed with a reasonable restraint. Interesting as some of the earlier examples of door treatment were for their very exuberance of fancy and their vigour, they were, nevertheless, a trifle awkward when compared with a well designed and better balanced doorway of a subsequent date. When acanthus leaves, rosettes or other decorative motifs are introduced, it is in a thoroughly well mannered way that leaves nothing to be desired regarding proportion or propriety of placing. The spiral baluster spindles on the staircase of the Lee house are exceptionally fine and worthily represent the style of baluster turning and carving that belongs especially to this middle period.

In the banquet hall the overmantel presents an unusually fine specimen of the wood-carver’s art. The great panel, with dog-ear corners and Flemish scroll supports, is flanked by two pendants of fruit, flowers and leaves carved with all the delicacy and intricate finish of the school of Grinling Gibbon. It is more elaborate, of course, than most of the interior carving found in the second Georgian phase but it is typical in that it is better disciplined than the earlier efforts in the same direction which were often inclined to be crude. The interior cornices are more refined in detail and not so bold in contour as formerly. The egg and dart motif becomes common and other ornamental details are used in an understanding way and in their conventional forms, whereas at an earlier period they were not always historically correct, though often ingenious, nor were they invariably well placed.

The last phase of New England Georgian architecture was distinctly a period of Adam inspiration as it was in other parts of the country, with this difference, however. Elsewhere the third Georgian phase was forsaken all too soon for the newer glamour of the Classic Revival for which, in a manner, it prepared the way. In New England, under the influence of such men as Charles Bulfinch and Samuel McIntire, the delicate proportions and fascinatingly refined details brought into English architecture by the Brothers Adam remained in favour until well into the nineteenth century and exercised a beneficial effect that has not yet lost its force. With excellent taste both Bulfinch and McIntire employed the Adam heritage of urns, pendent husks, anthemia, ovals, spandril fans and all the rest of the Pompeian refinements, and McIntire unhesitatingly lengthened out the proportions of pillars and pilasters until he had removed all suggestion of grossness from his design and imparted a slender grace to all his work. Though he made various innovations, McIntire really prolonged the Adam period in New England and saved domestic architecture, wherever his influence was strong enough, from the deplorable banality into which the more unconsidered forms of the Classic Revival degenerated.

In the felicity of its local adaptations, in the dignity it imparted to the visible side of public life, in its virile development manifested in the churches and other public buildings, the Georgian architecture of New England has given us numerous patterns worthy of emulation in toto or in part and has left an indelible and beneficial impress upon the nation’s artistic consciousness.