I don't always carry my camera with me, but today was my lucky day. I was cutting through town, a small city maybe, and ran across this house. It is a very decorated Victorian with a few other style additions to boot. I really like these house, especially when they are in good shape. These kind of houses are scattered around the city, but most are less decorated or they are wood structures. The dates of the times that they were built really are spread out over fifty years or more. Actually one like this would get built on a block and the less fortunate would build around them with their stick houses.
Houses like this inspire me to decorate my house but I don't begin to have an impressive structure, mine is a farm house, stick built house, so it would be unnatural to overdecorate it. My house has a fancy bay window. As when settlers settled in the United States they missed the European architecture so much that they would treat themselves to one very decorated bay window. Many times that window was also on the one room of importance, called the parlor. Common folks kept one room shut off and used it only for their company and they could look out of a very fancy window.
This house is complicated as it has a lot of Italante decoration on it and other types of Victorian influence. Decoration on the entry porch is more Italian decoration. The decorations over the windows probably were made of wood even though in Europe it was made from stone.
I am not a expert on this but I do know that there were standard plans for builders to follow to duplicate a classic style. I am sure whoever had this house built was a businessman in the town, and they probably searched pattern books to find the house that they wanted. The door on the left could have been a servants entrance, but that would have been in back. Some houses were built with the door like that and was a casket door, to bring the dead family member home for viewing. As you can see that room has a bay window on it. A door to the parlor would not be used for daily use so I bet it was for special use only.
As a little teaser, I had an encounter with a buggy and two horses while I was cutting through town to get to my parents house. That is another story for another day. Thanks for reading....
5 comments:
I love to look at old victorian homes too! I always try to imagine what the family was like that lived in the house back in the day. However, I'm not sure I would want to live in one. I think they are a little too formal for my taste. I wouldn't know where to begin to decorate one.
"I don't always carry my camera with me, but today was my lucky day" Lucky for you, lucky for us. Great pictures which give me a real feel for the place.
Beautiful structures, definitely worth photographing.
There are houses where I live that I would love to capture on film but I'm always afraid the owners will object. I often see them when driving but then I'm in a traffic queue and it would be more than my life's worth to hold up the other drivers.
Very interesting post today.
I noticed when I moved to Iowa a little over 11 years ago, that a lot of the people in this area have a fancy front door, no matter how bad the rest of the house looked, and some looked like the house was falling down around them. When I mentioned this to a native, she said, I never noticed that before, but you are right. I don't notice those kind of things anymore, like the song says: "I've grown accustom to your face....."
There are two kinds of houses that will forever steal my heart: Victorians and log homes. So different, but both so wonderful!!
We lived in an old Victorian for 14 years...my husband stripped all the woodwork, including the floors...boy the work! But so worth it...!!! But renovations are so expensive..it got to be too much for us. Loved this one that you found...very elegant!
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