Tip of the Hat

 

This little fellow is in some trouble. The machine parked against his west wall is disconcerting; the blasted tree seems full of foreboding. The chimneys have succumbed to the freeze/thaw cycle, exposed as they are atop the little hat roof.

This is an unusual house. I've passed it many times on Highway 2 west of Brighton. Last spring I felt a sense of urgency to record its image and its lineage.

I wonder if it's still there today?

Anthony Adamson illustrated the evolution of the Ontario cottage plan in the seminal book on Ontario architecture The Ancestral Roof (1963)*. It was a fruitful collaboration. I love what author Marion Macrea wrote on the frontispiece: "by Marion Macrae in constant consultation with, and sometimes in spite of Anthony Adamson, who wrote the first word and the last word and made the drawings."

Northumberland County - a house with a beanie

The Ontario cottage, a single or one-and-a-bit storey  house with a hip roof has long been with us. Gussied up with verandahs and treillage, it's called a Regency cottage. Adaptable, the Ontario cottage could be accessorized with different types of chimneys, porches, verandahs, doorways.

This odd little square house is particularly tall, to allow for headroom upstairs I expect. I wonder if earlier dormers, or a belvedere or some such handy way to get air and light to the upper floor were removed when a new roof was installed? It has a nice door-case with half-sidelights and a transom, symmetrically placed sash windows, and looks to be white stucco.

Adamson's drawings depict a house quite similar to this one, with wider eaves overhangs. He calls it "a house with a hat" and writes that  the style is quite common in Durham and Northumberland counties. His drawing portrays a c.1838 example on King Street in Cobourg. That one (hope to drop by and make its acquaintance one day) has a 'nun's coif dormer'.

There may be lots of houses with hats in Northumberland, but this is the first little guy I ever noticed. Maybe not big enough for a hat...maybe a beanie?


*Readers will recognize my tribute to this wonderful book in the choice of a name for the blog.