Trying to determine architect. Have a number of leads of men working in the area from 1861-63; but no records yet. Have been combing newspapers for a while looking for hints.
Have heavily researched all aspects of this building. Have found the lumber order from 1861; Have found the newel post light manufacturer; have found the decorative painters. Know all the owners intimately. Have a good handle on the , original owner, town and it's history.
I would like to attribute the plaster. I have looked at a number of catalogues but haven't been able to locate the exact patterns used throughout this house. Also, would like to attribute the glass. Have looked at a lot of sandblast catalogues for pattern, but again, no matches. Also the cast iron window mantles, are identical to some found in Annapolis MD, but they (hist soc) have been of no help (too new to be of interest to them!). Original builder/owner spends a lot of time between Wash, DC ad Salem, so wondering if iron is from an iron foundry in MD. Does anyone know? Also rumored is that the marble in foyer is left over from the Capitol, which is getting really close to being proven based on some of my research.
Right now, I am working on plaster repairs, decorative painting in the foyer and some wood graining. My husband is doing the really hard stuff, like plumbing, brick pointing, tree removal and TALKING to the heat and air contractors.
Lots more photos, so if any questions for me re decoration, I'll start a new post.
Any help is appreciated.
My Italianate in Salem
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Victorian Homes & Buildings thread on victorianforum.com · started April 17, 2008 by amadara · 10 posts, 7 image attachments · discussion in 2008.
Trying to determine architect. Have a number of leads of men working in the area from 1861-63; but no records yet. Have been combing newspapers for a while looking for hints. Have heavily researched all aspects of this building. Have found the lumber order from 1861; Have…
Very beautiful. Sadly, I have nothing but encouragement to offer. "Go Team!"
I suspect that you have already tried this in your research, so I apologise for stating something that might be "obvious". Regardless, since your house was built around 1861, it stands to reason that you might find some interesting leads in the 1860 census records as those records include occupation. You might come across the names of the local architects & carpenters. I'm not familiar with Salem, so I don't know how big of a haystack that might be. A ~$14 monthly membership to Ancestry.com would give you something to do in between plaster repairs.
Thank you!...do post more pictures!
- Jason
I suspect that you have already tried this in your research, so I apologise for stating something that might be "obvious". Regardless, since your house was built around 1861, it stands to reason that you might find some interesting leads in the 1860 census records as those records include occupation. You might come across the names of the local architects & carpenters. I'm not familiar with Salem, so I don't know how big of a haystack that might be. A ~$14 monthly membership to Ancestry.com would give you something to do in between plaster repairs.
Thank you!...do post more pictures!
- Jason
I've been all over the census, and have documents from the Hist Society that read "The bricks were from Baltimore, as were the bricklayer." My owner/builder was the publisher, printer and editor of one of the two local newspapers. He was also the federal tax collector for the 1st district in NJ. A few months into 1863 he begins running an ad for an "architect" named VanKirk. So I began to wonder if it was run in trade. I did a bit more digging, and found that VanKirk was the builder of the First Presbyterian Church in Salem; built in 1856. The church was built to a plan apparently created by Samuel Sloane but the architect is listed as John McArthur, Jr. and the builder was VanKirk. McArthur built some stuff in Philly, and Sloane also in Philly, so trying to connect all the dots is crazy. VanKirk came from Burlington county where he is listed in the census as first a apprentice, then carpenter, then builder, but never anywhere as architect, even in Salem census.
So, I have been crazy on ancestry, and all over the books and journals in the hist soc library and am now down to picking through the newspapers page by page for any hints. It may never happen, but that is what they told me re my decorative painters, and I found them, so I thought I would give the architect a shot.
I have to jump off of the research wagon for the summer to work on the house, but as things show up, I'll get into them.
So, I have been crazy on ancestry, and all over the books and journals in the hist soc library and am now down to picking through the newspapers page by page for any hints. It may never happen, but that is what they told me re my decorative painters, and I found them, so I thought I would give the architect a shot.
I have to jump off of the research wagon for the summer to work on the house, but as things show up, I'll get into them.
Very nice home - looks like it has some great details, plasterwork (& compo?) & decorative painting. I'm surprised the exterior is not more ornate. It's not plain, it just doesn't seem as grandly decorated as the interior - Italianates could get pretty ornate on the outside too. Looks like you have some work to do, but it will be a show stopper when it's done. Would love to see more pics - both before and after restoration. woodwright
The exterior is really ornate, I'll post some photos of the details in a new post, see "My Italianate in Salem part 2". The exterior has been altered on the right side of the building where a beautiful bay window was removed and the ugly 8ft wide addition was put on in 1947. The front room was used as a doctor's office, so walls have been removed. We are missing a lot of the detail that was on the original house exterior, as you will see in the historic photo. But the brackets are very ornate, the architrave and the wreaths under the eaves. Also the iron work, which I am trying to locate the foundry...anyone out there have any ideas? I think Baltimore area being that I located same iron on a building in downtown Annapolis.
Beautiful house.
If pursuing a Baltimore connection, you might try the Baltimore Architecture Foundation which has published a book (or two?) on local architectural ironwork: http://baltimorearchitecture.org/publications/ I looked at the photos before reading through your description, and the ironwork in the historic image, particularly the heavy rinceau scroll balustrade, called to mind immediately Baltimore's Mt. Vernon Square area.
The Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House (now the Hackerman House as part of the Walters Art Museum) on Mt. Vernon Square was designed a decade earlier by John Rudolph Niernsee of Niernsee & Neilson Architects. The house is more Greek Revival/Italianate, but has similar wreaths in the bracketed cornice that make an interesting comparison (though, as you suggest, Minard LeFevre had a hand in their showing up in other places.) http://mdhsimage.mdhs.org/Library/Images/Mellon%20Images/Z24access/z24-00081.jpg Both it and Evergreen House, another Italianate now a museum of Johns Hopkins University, have exceptional 1850s interior plasterwork if you visit the area.
If pursuing a Baltimore connection, you might try the Baltimore Architecture Foundation which has published a book (or two?) on local architectural ironwork: http://baltimorearchitecture.org/publications/ I looked at the photos before reading through your description, and the ironwork in the historic image, particularly the heavy rinceau scroll balustrade, called to mind immediately Baltimore's Mt. Vernon Square area.
The Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House (now the Hackerman House as part of the Walters Art Museum) on Mt. Vernon Square was designed a decade earlier by John Rudolph Niernsee of Niernsee & Neilson Architects. The house is more Greek Revival/Italianate, but has similar wreaths in the bracketed cornice that make an interesting comparison (though, as you suggest, Minard LeFevre had a hand in their showing up in other places.) http://mdhsimage.mdhs.org/Library/Images/Mellon%20Images/Z24access/z24-00081.jpg Both it and Evergreen House, another Italianate now a museum of Johns Hopkins University, have exceptional 1850s interior plasterwork if you visit the area.
Thanks 1836...that gets me way ahead in the research. I know the embryo balconies and fence work came from Wood and Perot in Phila, PA, so the window ornament is now my focus. Can't wait to check out the plaster in those other houses. A plasterer that we have worked with suggested Charleston having a similar cornice. I'll constantly be digging, but this tip is a great new start!
There are two houses in Charleston with spectacular plaster work of the 1850s.
The Aiken-Rhett House was built c.1817 and expanded and redecorated in the 1830s and 1850s. The 1850s plasterwork is different than the examples you posted, though very much in the same taste. The later period plaster cornices are compound and layered, with pierced and openwork set in front of recessed and gilded cove mouldings. In Southern Gothic fashion, various principal rooms in the house were closed up upon the deaths of key family members, shuttered and locked, the furniture and wallpaper left in place to curl in the Charleston humidity for a century or therabouts. The decorative scheme in the large second floor bedroom that was sealed as a post mortem memorial may be of particular interest because it the effect and colorways are similar to one of the examples you posted. The house is owned and operated as an historic house museum by Historic Charleston: http://www.historiccharleston.org/experience/arh/
At 21 King Street, the privately owned Patrick O'Donnell House is a vast and spectacular Italianate take on the Charleston single house. It has similar compound, and some examples of openwork cornices. It has been much bought and sold and extensively redecorated in recent years but in the late 1980s the openwork cornices were repainted per the original scheme with light openwork friezes atop gilded cove moulds. I got a good look at the cornices at the time of that restoration and there was evidence of a good deal of polychromy (recreated with an excess of vigor and intensity perhaps, as it was quickly muted or undone by subsequent owners.) If you hanker for a second Italianate for your collection, it's for sale, again: http://www.charlestonrealestate.net/listing.asp?PropNum=922
The Aiken-Rhett House was built c.1817 and expanded and redecorated in the 1830s and 1850s. The 1850s plasterwork is different than the examples you posted, though very much in the same taste. The later period plaster cornices are compound and layered, with pierced and openwork set in front of recessed and gilded cove mouldings. In Southern Gothic fashion, various principal rooms in the house were closed up upon the deaths of key family members, shuttered and locked, the furniture and wallpaper left in place to curl in the Charleston humidity for a century or therabouts. The decorative scheme in the large second floor bedroom that was sealed as a post mortem memorial may be of particular interest because it the effect and colorways are similar to one of the examples you posted. The house is owned and operated as an historic house museum by Historic Charleston: http://www.historiccharleston.org/experience/arh/
At 21 King Street, the privately owned Patrick O'Donnell House is a vast and spectacular Italianate take on the Charleston single house. It has similar compound, and some examples of openwork cornices. It has been much bought and sold and extensively redecorated in recent years but in the late 1980s the openwork cornices were repainted per the original scheme with light openwork friezes atop gilded cove moulds. I got a good look at the cornices at the time of that restoration and there was evidence of a good deal of polychromy (recreated with an excess of vigor and intensity perhaps, as it was quickly muted or undone by subsequent owners.) If you hanker for a second Italianate for your collection, it's for sale, again: http://www.charlestonrealestate.net/listing.asp?PropNum=922
Thanks for the Charleston info. I am sidetracked in Washington D.C. research right now, having found a newspaper mention from 1904 that says "the interior decorations of which were made by the artist who decorated the halls of Congress". Should be an interesting search. Crossing fingers to finally get to the bottom of this rumor that has been verbally passed by the older residents of the town.
If you are able to come up with any names, they could be verified easily against the fairly voluminous and detailed records of The Office of the Architect of the Capitol (http://www.aoc.gov/ -- though access to the records may have to be through the National Archives, etc.) There are lists of artisan names, by year, with details of their work and pay on various projects in the Capitol or within the Capitol complex of buildings.