Colonial architecture Archives - Page 3 of 5

Architectural Monographs: The Charms of Olde New Castle, Delaware

Posted on July 22, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

In 1926, the authors of this issue of the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs declared that New Castle, Delaware still exuded all of the character of the original community as it existed when it was first built. Anyone familiar with this charming colonial town would agree that the same is still true nearly a century later. Established in 1651, New Castle is a showcase of colonial, Dutch and Federal architecture inhabited by people living their daily lives just as residents of this town have for the past three hundred years.

Far from the sort of Disney-fied colonial towns that have commodified their history with reenactments and actors in historic dress, New Castle is a vibrant yet relaxing place to live and visit, full of brick sidewalks, bed and breakfasts, taverns and townhouses dating back to the 18th century.

Volume XII, Issue I looks at New Castle as it was in the 1920s, giving us a glimpse at its history and the role it has played in a number of important events, including the Revolutionary War. Take a virtual tour of the town’s most significant colonial architecture, including Amstel House, the Kensey Johns House and the Van Dyck House.

“There is, moreover, another reason for the probable permanence of the town as it now stands, in that there is a real pride and understanding in the community of the architectural heritage represented by these buildings, an appreciation of tradition which is in restful contrast to the incessant changes which are sweeping away so much of our colonial background. New Castle is still the complete setting for the simple and genteel life which brought these eighteenth-century houses into existence.” Read more at the White Pine Monograph Library.

Architectural Monographs: Moravian Architecture of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Posted on July 1, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

A religious sect of Germans known as the Moravians purchased five thousand acres of land in the ‘Forks of Delaware,’ founding their first settlement in Pennsylvania in 1740. Deeply spiritual and devoted to their own community, the Moravians established their own particular variety of colonial architecture as they spread throughout the state, building stunning log cabins and stone cottages.

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was named by Count Zinzendorf, the leading bishop of the Moravian church, in honor of the Christmastime completion of the town’s first log cabin. While quite a few of these buildings still survive today, three in particular are noted in Volume XIII, Issue IV of the historic White Pine Monographs: ‘Brother’s House’, ‘Sister’s Home’ and the seminary.

These buildings are singled out for being the most exotic, showing “a well-defined architecture of German derivation,” the authors explain. “We are reminded, by the heavy stone and timber construction, the steep roofs with two rows of sloping dormers, and the flanking buttresses, of the medieval buildings of the old world.”

Read more about the Moravian architectural legacy in this area of Pennsylvania and see detailed images taken in the 1930s at the White Pine Monograph Library.

Architectural Monographs: 18th Century Builder’s Guide to Style

Posted on June 16, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

Practicing architects in 18th century America relied on British handbooks packed full of hand-drawn moldings, cornices, entablatures and other architectural details to produce many of the nation’s oldest homes. The White Pine Monograph Series made this guide publicly available once again in 1931, and now modern-day architects can enjoy it at EasternWhitePine.org.

The guide, “The builder’s companion demonstrating all the principle rules or architecture,” is a re-print of the handbook made by William Pain in London in 1762. It was discovered among the working library of one of America’s most famous carpenter-builders of the eighteen century, the oldest dating to 1724, offering “elementary problems in geometry” and plates of the five orders as well as details of construction.

“The knowledge that these books on architecture were owned by ‘practicing architects’ in America in the middle of the eighteenth century strengthens our conviction that the handbooks were generally within arm’s reach of the amateur designer. They were published at a time when almost every man of culture in England interested himself in architecture and when a high standard of lay criticism existed.”

“Believing that those interested in the sources of colonial work would joy having a reprint of one of the best and least familiar of these books, we have selected ‘The Builder’s Companion’ by William Pain. The modern designer will be convinced, we feel sure, that William Pain, Architect and Joiner, endeavored to catch the spirit of classic proportion and ‘by an entire New Scale’ to show the significance of the orders and to make it easy for anyone to adapt the proportions to modern usage.”

Architectural Monographs: Cooperstown in the Days of the Author

Posted on May 24, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

William Cooper, father of the author James Fenimore Cooper, wrote of the impression that the land that would later become Cooperstown in his name made upon him the first time he visited in 1785. The land, along the coast of Lake Oswego in New York, showed no traces of inhabitants, and had not a single road. “I was alone, three hundred miles from home without food, fire and fishing tackle my own means of subsistence.”

“My horse fed on the grass that grew by the edge of the waters. I laid me down to sleep in my watch coat, nothing but the wilderness around me. In this way I explored the country and formed my plans for future settlement and meditated upon the spot where a place of trade or a village should be established.”

Nearly one hundred and fifty years later, when this issue of the White Pine Monographs was written in 1923, Cooperstown was well-established, but kept its old-fashioned character thanks to its seclusion from many main line railroad. This issue examines the main historical buildings there as they were in that year, including the home where James Fenimore Cooper lived for a time.

“This region, at the time of the building of many of the early houses, abounded in the finest growth of virgin pines, growing to great heights and of ample diameters for all building purposes. This, together with a native stone which quarries like elongated brick, and other quarries at the head of the lake, where hard limestone was plentiful, must have thrilled even the humblest craftsman in his line to make and fashion from these wonderful native materials, moldings and forms and combinations which grew more pretentious and refined as house succeeded house.”

See them all at the White Pine Monograph Library.

Architectural Monographs: The Town of Suffield, Connecticut

Posted on April 22, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

How would you picture the archetypal American home today? Maybe you envision a suburban neighborhood filled with nearly identical cookie-cutter houses with two-car garages and pristine lawns. Our ideas about what constitutes an iconically American residence have certainly changed since 1921, when this issue of the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs was published. Focusing on the town of Suffield in Connecticut, it celebrates the Colonial “white house with green blinds” as the quintessential American home to which builders should aspire.

“Regardless of the many and varied kinds of houses we build, to satisfy architectural whims, the early tradition of the ‘white house with the green blinds’ is never entirely absent from our thoughts or from our instinctive desires,” writes author David E. Tarn. Some of those idyllic homes can be found a bit off the beaten path in Suffield, founded in 1670.

“A typical bit of New England history, this brief chronicle of the achievement of a group of determined colonists, who turned a wilderness into a town in less than twelve years. They wrought industriously and untiringly with their hands, and must have possessed a will to survive and to progress almost unbelievable in our present era of easy methods and ready-made necessities.”

Take a detailed look at these houses in Volume VII, Issue VI of the White Pine Monographs.

Architectural Monographs: The Classic Montpelier House, Maryland

Posted on April 10, 2014October 21, 2021 by Jeff Easterling

Built sometime in the late 16th century, the ‘Montpelier’ house of Prince George County, Maryland was praised as a beautifully executed brick Colonial home in this 1930 edition of the White Pine Series of Architectural Monographs and still stands today, nearly a century later. It’s a great example of immaculately preserved early American craftsmanship, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.

Officially known as the Snowden-Long House, the mansion was constructed for a family whose wealth came from the iron forging industry, and remained in ownership of that family until 1890. It’s notable not just for its age and historic value, but for the many stunning hand-wrought decorative architectural elements that can be found inside.

There’s the plaster entablature in the hall with its ornamental frieze of wheat, fruit and flowers, and the unusual southeast drawing room with its carved wood mantel, wainscot, china closet and cornice. The author of this monograph notes that one of the most successful features of the home’s interior design is the asymmetry, something that adds a lot of character and is not often seen in modern homes.

The Montpelier House was shown off to the public in 1976 as part of national bicentennial celebrations, and has since become a tourist attraction that can be rented out for weddings, conferences and other events. Read more at the White Pine Monograph Library.