Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
[Illustration: BENNETT HOUSE, NEW BEDFORD, MASS.
Garden Front.]
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
A REVIEW OF DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE
ILLUSTRATED BY NINETY-SIX
HALF-TONE PLATES
BY
JOY WHEELER DOW
ARCHITECT
[Illustration: colophon]
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--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--“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--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.
AMERICAN RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER I
ETHICS
The magnificence of this subject, even of a single branch--the domestic
phase--is disproportionate to a review in one volume, in the scope of
which, I fear, I cannot achieve much more than a respectable
introduction. But even an introduction, like the overture to an opera,
is better begun at the beginning.
Civilized man, and especially one of Anglo-Saxon descent, is a
home-loving creature. To him the dwelling-place stands for his most
important institution. The arts, sciences and traditions he pursues,
mainly as they are to minister unto it, and its fruition is the goal of
life. About this dwelling-place, then, there must be a very great deal
to be said, indissolubly associated as it is with everything in life
worth having--one’s childhood, parents, children, wife, sweetheart, and
next to these one’s own personal comfort--one’s hours of leisure and
recreation. Therefore, just so much as domestic architecture departs in
an impersonal, artificial way from whatever relates to or reflects these
associations, just so much does it err--does it fail. It will be
obvious, upon a moment’s consideration, that any cold-blooded practice
or discussion of academic formulæ, alone, looking to the development of
American domestic architecture, is hopelessly inefficient.
The home one builds must mean something besides artistic and engineering
skill. It must presuppose, by subtle architectonic expression, both in
itself and in its surroundings, that its owner possessed, once upon a
time, two good parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and
so on; had, likely, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, all
eminently respectable and endeared to him; that _bienséance_ and family
order have flourished in his line from time immemorial--there were no
black sheep to make him ashamed--and that he has inherited heirlooms,
plate, portraits, miniatures,
PLATE I.
[Illustration: IN AN OLD-TIME RENAISSANCE GARDEN.]
[Illustration: THE GOVERNOR SMITH HOUSE, WISCASSET, ME.]
pictures, rare volumes, diaries, letters and state archives to link him
up properly in historical succession and progression. We are covetous of
our niche in history. We want to belong somewhere and to something, not
to be entirely cut off by ourselves as stray atoms in boundless space
either geographical or chronological. The human mind is a dependent
thing and so is happiness. We may not, indeed, have inherited the house
we live in; the chances are we have not. We may not remember that either
of our parents or any of our grandparents before us, ever gloried in the
quiet possession of as ideal a homestead as is illustrated in Plate I to
convey the atmosphere intended; but for the sake of goodness--for the
sake of making the world appear a more decent place to live in--let us
pretend that they did, and that it is now ours. Let us pretend that God
has been so good to us, and that we have proved worthy of His trust.
With this amount of psychological preparation, I believe it is possible
for every cultivated American man or woman to approach the subject of
American Renaissance architecture--domestic architecture--in the true
spirit of understanding.
By American Renaissance I allude to no “American eclectic style.” That
term “eclectic style,” which so frequently crops out in treatises upon
architecture, were you to follow it up, would be found to signify, as a
rule, merely American nonsense and aberration. And I suppose there is no
nation which may show such an imposing array of architectural nonsense
as the United States during the last fifty years of their independence.
Certainly no nation has evolved a national style of architecture,
intentionally, as is constantly urged upon American enterprise. Such a
thing could have no historic value, while it could not escape being
vulgar and monotonous. Characteristic architecture is of very slow
development, and although there have been building epochs of remarkable
activity, in none is the progress appreciable from year to year.
American Renaissance differs from that of other countries only as it has
been affected by the local conditions and requirements of America. Good
Renaissance--I regret there is a sight of building that is bad--is like
good-breeding, pretty much the same the world over, differentiated only
by local color or custom.
PLATE II.
[Illustration: DOORWAY, WASHINGTON SQUARE NORTH, N. Y. CITY.]
The predominant local color which distinguishes American Renaissance has
been given to it by what has been our great national building commodity,
i. e., wood. The Greeks and Romans built of stone when they had the
money to pay for it, as does everybody else; otherwise, people in new
countries fall back upon a less expensive material. Our less expensive
material was wood. Both stone and wood have grain, and have to be used
with the same careful regard to it. Whether we build our columns up of
stone or wooden sections--latitudinal in the one case, longitudinal in
the other--to support a cornice also constructed in sections according
to the convenient sizes of commerce for the particular material, makes
no difference to the canons of art so long as we are not trying to
deceive or to imitate one material with another simply with that end in
view. It is extremely doubtful if our American ancestors were ever
guilty of premeditated deception. Their material was an honest material;
it had to be fashioned in some way, why not after the manner of the
Renaissance? In our own day of numerous short-comings in matters
architectural it rarely enters the head to deceive upon this point.
Notwithstanding the tremendous resources now at command we yet prefer
wooden columns to stone ones for dwelling-houses. As national wealth has
increased, however, there has been that natural tendency, of course, to
carve the Renaissance details of stone, and the white marble porches of
Washington square, North (see example, Plate II) may be cited as
splendid bits of American Renaissance. But if we go further, and by
reason of accumulated affluence erect the entire structure of the new
Colonial house in stone--columns, cornices, window and door casings,
etc., strange to say we lose an indefinable charm--a certain warmth and
personality with which American history has invested wood. Besides, the
fashion and style of Renaissance motive and detail is as suitable to
wood as it is to stone; and if the first named material is not quite so
durable it is much more easily repaired and replaced.
In English Renaissance, local conditions commonly restricted the use of
wood to the interiors. In American Renaissance, the plenitude of this
material enabled the Colonial builders to use it for the outside as
well,
PLATE III.
[Illustration: PICKERING HOUSE, SALEM.
Erected A. D. 1649.]
[Illustration: COLE HOUSE, FARMINGTON, CONN.]
and with great advantage, for it permitted the Colonist to elaborate the
elevations of his dwelling, gaining thereby warmth, cheerfulness and
grace, and all easily within his means. Without the slightest danger of
bankruptcy he could proceed to embellish the curtilage with arched
gateways, ornamental fences, terrace rails and summer-houses _ad lib._ I
have selected, to suggest such amplification, the photograph of an
old-time Renaissance garden in the rear of the Watkinson house at
Middletown, Connecticut (Plate I), also the photograph of an ancient
house at Farmington (Plate III). The latter has a beautiful Renaissance
gateway which would be an impossibility in stone. I believe it is called
the “Cole house,” and that its owner is a cousin of President Roosevelt.
It serves my purpose, too, on another count--its color scheme. I am not
prepared to say just why two particular shades of common brown paint
should be so effective for certain kinds of Colonial houses. Certainly,
this one frankly disavows any allegiance to architectural stonework. It
fairly proclaims itself to be a wooden building, while all we can say is
that those unerring sensibilities within us by which we distinguish
right from wrong are satisfied beyond the shadow of doubt, and so we
have no great need to question the whys and wherefores upon a purely
ethical point. In Salem, Massachusetts, there are numerous examples of
brown Colonial houses. Extremely effective in themselves, they make the
most beautiful photographs imaginable (see Plate IV). Within the radius
of a few squares you may obtain half a dozen equally charming glimpses
of Colonial scenery. Indeed, if you want atmosphere, and plenty of
it--go to Salem.
Had America been settled and colonized two centuries earlier, under a
Tudor king, most likely there would have been a Gothic influence in the
early work. It is difficult to know in our day how it could possibly
have been exploited in wood, and there is no excuse for our attempting
anything of the kind at this time of unlimited resources in the building
trade. Battlements, keeps and moats were Feudal protectory measures, and
would have been worse than useless constructed of anything inflammable.
About the only legitimate Gothic architecture expressed in wood which
PLATE IV.
[Illustration: IF YOU WANT ATMOSPHERE AND PLENTY OF IT, GO TO SALEM.]
[Illustration: HISTORIC ATMOSPHERE IN A MODERN DWELLING.
“Silvergate,” Summit, N. J. (1901.)]
has stood the test of time, is represented by the 17th and 18th century
châlets of Switzerland, and I doubt if even Yankee ingenuity could have
evolved anything half so good. As a matter of fact we have no ancient
Gothic exemplars. It is said that the old Pickering house on Broad
Street in Salem, built A.D. 1649 (see Plate III), was a replica in wood
of a Jacobean tavern in England, namely, the Peacock Inn, Derbyshire.
The venerable dwelling at Salem has passed through many vicissitudes,
and in 1842, when the influence of John Ruskin was so misused in
America, the Pickering house was largely remodeled, so that it is
impossible to say, to-day, how successful an adaptation of Jacobean work
this was. But even Jacobean architecture is scarcely Gothic architecture
since England incorporates it with all the rest of her Renaissance.
Sir Christopher Wren was supreme upon the architectural stage of England
when the prosperity of the American colonies was sufficient to warrant
the academic study of domestic architecture upon this side of the
Atlantic, and Sir Christopher was the very life of the English
Renaissance in its stricter sense. During this great history-making
epoch, the giant forests of America came into excellent play for
following out--if often in a crude and kind of miniature way--whatever
the prodigious architect executed in stone. There was no bit of classic
detail from either Athens or Rome, transmitted to London through what I
may call the “Florentine Clearing-house” presided over by Palladio,
Sansovino, Scammozzi and their contemporaries, but what could be carved
more readily in wood; and time and history have thrown a glamour over
all this wooden development of ours, and established its right of
succession with a hall-mark.
But the main point in favor of Renaissance architecture, it must be
remembered, was that it lent itself extremely well to the Anglo-Saxon
home-feeling. It emanated from a land that had reached the pinnacle of
attainment in the arts of peace--Italy--and it was so easy to fashion
and make minister to most Anglo-Saxon home requirements. Luckily, the
Colonial builders were conservative artificers, neither so clever nor so
restless as this generation, or they, certainly, could not have resisted
the eloquence of false prophets and knavish architectural promoters and
fakirs who came their way. And we should have been deprived of our
illustrious inheritance, which, happily, cannot be taken from us now.
Fortunately for American architecture, Sir Christopher Wren was what we
would call in our vernacular “all right.” He had a good thing, an
inexhaustible mine for supplying ideas for all manner of buildings, and
he worked it for the best interests of all concerned. His reputation and
success have fired many a modern, would-be Wren to dare to try the
experiment of some rival kind of architecture. Such is the aspect we
have now of the late H. H. Richardson and his Romanesque style (Plate
V).
Trinity Church in Boston was a superb design when it was finished, and
continues to be so to-day. But its best influence, I fear, has been
perverted forever. A quarter of a century ago Richardson was hailed as
an apostle equal with Wren, and America went mad, not in a Romanesque
revival, but in a carnival of it, by which I mean to say it was
burlesqued. It is sad to reflect that such a genius as the man who
designed the church in Boston should have allowed himself to succumb to
the wiles of the flatterers enough to be drawn into the disgraceful
saturnalia which followed so close upon his brilliant début.
Now the home of the Romanesque was not Florence. It pretended to nothing
of the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, which, if it stood for
anything, was elegant living. Mediæval, benighted south of France was
the home proper of the Romanesque, and its proper medium of
expression--churches, cloisters, and monasteries. What could such a
style of architecture contribute to the Anglo-Saxon home? Absolutely
nothing. And when Trinity Church was finally completed, Richardson had
practically exhausted everything there was in the newly borrowed style.
He could have gone on, probably, raising ecclesiastic edifices,
designing an occasional library or two in good form, without directly
cribbing from his masterpiece; but neither he nor his imitators--and
they were legion--cared a fig for the ethics or proprieties of
architecture. They appear to have been actuated alone by the same
principles of expediency which govern the
PLATE V.
[Illustration: SHIRLEY-ON-THE-JAMES. _See Chapter V._]
[Illustration: AMERICAN ROMANESQUE DWELLING, BY AN IMITATOR OF
RICHARDSON.
Date about 1890.]
“New Art” movement. They invented an exaggerated architectural grammar,
without doubt derived from the old mediæval cathedrals in the south of
France, but so vulgarized as to establish a clear case of libel for
those eminently respectable prototypes. This grammar the rabid reformers
proceeded to apply to every kind of secular building in America, finally
to American dwelling-houses themselves. They did not reckon with their
grandparents for an instant, not they. They apparently took the keenest
delight in walking rough-shod over every sacred home memory. They openly
insulted the very ancestors to whom they owed existence. But the balance
of good and evil there is in the world cannot be disturbed so suddenly
or arbitrarily. Outraged history was not slow to assert itself, and
after a while would have no more of the dwelling-house Romanesque. I
regret to say that Richardson’s imitators were not the last of their
race, and that there have been other and as rabid architectural
reformers, of whom I shall speak in the next chapter.