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| South side of the Reiley-Reeves house of AD 1911 |
A day spent in perfunctory on-line search, trying to learn
why Roseland Terrace’s Reiley-Reeves house has been called “untutored Queen
Anne” led to some surprises.
First, “Queen Anne” houses are, of course, American, but by Victoria’s
death in 1901 they were no longer so popular. For example, in Carthage, MO, the exemplary tour guide shows
Queen Anne dating from the ‘80s and ‘90s of the nineteenth century. So, indeed, in Google Images. Rather than invest in a new book, I
have ordered three more Dover reprint volumes: these have a special authority,
since they are photographic copies of period books, and they usually include
plans.
One must wonder whether such epithets are not fashionable
merchandising devices, like the “Kate Greenaway” dresses for little girls of my
childhood and “Grand Prix” attached to perfectly ordinary street and road cars.
One Dover reprint that I ordered is for wooden Victorian
houses, some with arcades. The old
photo of the Reiley-Reeves house shows a darker-colored arcade. The white stuff on all later photos of
our house is unharmonious. I can
hardly go with an ice pick to find out!
Much more puzzling is the plain clapboard south face of the
house. Of course, there might have
been another house as little as six feet away, but not when the big house was
built—as isolated as if on a hilltop.
For that matter, the only view of the house that looks “Queen Anne” at
all is from the NE.
Going through the invaluable MacAlester book that heads my
basic reading list, I noticed in the period around AD 1910 a style that
typically has proportions of the Reiley-Reeves house: Richarsonian
Romanesque. Remarkably, clapboard
though it is, this house has some of the quietly solid, not to say stolid,
character of that style. Why, in
the San Francisco Bay Area we have somewhat Richardsonian houses faced in brown
shingle (also typical of the first two decades of the twentieth century). It seems to me that, whatever Mr.
Reiley and his architect called its style, the house is true to its own decade.
It is essential to remember that if they did, perchance,
fancy a Richarsonian character, there is no local stone here to build it of,
and the arcade in the old photo somehow does not look like brick.
My friend jbk sent the tour booklet provided by Erv Dunham,
and I thank them both. I have no intention to master American Houses, but questions do arise.
Enjoying this series of posts. I think you got one of the photo links from this source, but if you've not seen them all, check out: http://cdm15196.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/search/collection/p15196dc
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, I'll have to go downtown to the State Library sooner of later, but it is good even now to know that our lots were costing about what Sears, et al., said lots cost. Sears 1926 includes actual order forms and estimates forms to help first-time home owners learn what they're doing. Dover Press is wonderful! What I'm really interested in is developing a line of learning that will help us understand how and why neighborhoods grew and changed as they did. For that reason, I want to eliminate whatever seems to be a hindrance (such as arguing whether a given house is Colonial or Federal or Queee Anne or Craftsman. I know the mentality that stops at that all too well. Now, consider the pamphlet that advertises Steele (behind the local Walgreen) and Zeeland (next over opposite the local State Farm Ins office). Why did those never develop the character and permanent saleability that the Garden District did? And I leave the question of their % of Kit Houses to someone else to study. Me, I'm just doing the GD and from the social (you might say) point of view.
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