If wishes were houses...

There's a lot of interest in mail-order houses. I was doing some research on early catalogues recently for an article in a local arts newspaper. This all started when I rediscovered a facsimile edition of the 1910 Eaton's catalogue on my bookshelf, and spent an enjoyable few hours looking at merchandise that has long disappeared from our lives...automobile coats and bicycle skirts, cuspidors, mangles and two-horse harness. And houses.

I remembered a visit to several south Saskatchewan communities while we exploring 'the Big Muddy' from our base in the Coronach municipal campground few years ago. A local guide pointed out the house at the upper left - a weathered husk of a house, standing in a field of harvest-ready wheat. The house, going back into the earth, to nurture future crops? Our guide explained that this was an Eaton's mail-order house - whether local legend or not, the idea was new to me, and I was hooked.

Most sources suggest that the mail-order house, available from around 1910 to 1930, was a prairie phenomenon, necessary because of the shortage of timber for house lumber. Makes sense, looking at the countryside surrounding these little buildings. There were a number of companies: Eaton's and Aladdin were the two main ones. Lumber was shipped from B.C., and everything else needed to build a home - windows, hardware, nails, paper, optional plumbing and heating kits - arrived by boxcar from Winnipeg. Plans and material for barns, school-houses and other buildings were also available. Plans were available for those who had local access to building materials. Lots of homes in the East may have been built from the catalogue plans - that would be interesting to know.

I have come across some interesting websites in my research, created by community heritage associations or ranches. They contain all sorts of interesting images and stories. A visitor to this blog is looking for news of Eaton's houses in western Ontario - I am doing the same in eastern Ontario. Let me know what you know about mail-order homes!

The photo of the faded little yellow house with the red roof was taken near Sceptre, Saskatchewan, on a tour to find the Great Sand Hills. The little school-house photo is from a historic tour we took in South Saskatchewan, out of Coronach. My heart tells me they came in a kit from one of the mail-order companies. More houses with stories to tell.

Every winner has scars

Robert N.C. Nix said "every winner has scars." I'll admit to not knowing who Mr. Nix is, but I will agree that heritage buildings who have survived alterations, near demolitions and changes all around them are winners in my eyes. And they bear scars from their battle to survive.

I read the term 'roof scars' somewhere - wish I could recall where, so I could attibute this very apt term to its creator. Roof scars - traces of a previous roof line visible on a wall , showing up as discoloration, differences in material, intriguing lines. The Quebec city building on the left shows changes in the roofline of the structure which once stood beside it, as it grew, and the addition of another storey to itself. The limestone parapet wall in Kingston shows a brick fireplace and flue exposed by the demolition of its neighbour...quite a shock, like an elderly lady on the sidewalk in her nightgown.

I'll admit to a tendency over time to view an old building as if it had always been that way - forgetting of course that as we age, we change. Buildings that have stood for a century or more are very unlikely to be in their original condition - additions for practical reasons (a wing, dormers, repairs after fires, concrete basements under moved buildings), changes in fashion (producing add-ons and combinations of styles - harmonious or otherwise), inaccuracies due to lack of information (you could call it the Knossos effect), limited skill or resources (removal of Regency treillage, the vinyl siding compromise), myths about features of early buildings (a pet peeve of Miss MacRae), loss of associated heritage landscape (my favourite Glanmore property), and lots of other factors combine to make appreciation of old buildings an intriguing puzzle.

For many years my response to old buildings has been an emotional one - how lovely, how unusual, what about this building intrigues me so, what makes my heart ache? A global holistic approach. Now that my architectural knowledge is increasing, I am more analytical, and my appreciation of detail increases with my ability to name and describe it and place it in history.

Now I begin to see the need to become a detective! All good.

...on my way to the Forum*

In my last post I mused about Greek Revival architectural style and how North America adopted it so readily for civic buildings. It was just what communities needed to enhance their image, affirm their their progress from log and frame settlements to successful villages, towns and cities, and create a dignified home for their institutions of peace and good government.

These photos illustrate the civic pride and aspirations of three communities of different size - with different resources. Upper left: Kingston City Hall (1833-34), Lower left: Napanee Town Hall (c. 1855), Right: Bath Town Hall (1861). Can't you just hear the public debate, the enthusiasm in the newspaper, the approval from the pulpit, the arguments in the tavern, the comments of the sidewalk superintendents?

Can you say, "dignified"?

* Point taken - forum was a Roman idea, but we were on our way there when we stopped for the flowering of Greek culture, right? I liked the quote...from the Stephen Sondheim musical I seem to recall.

Go on, impress me

Now where in the world are we?

Well, Nashville of course!

Who wouldn't associate this exact replica of the Parthenon with Music City?

But association is exactly what this is about.

This replica of the Parthenon was built in Nashville for the 1895 world's fair. Nashville had high aspirations - it wanted to lose its frontier wild west image and become an Athens of the west, a centre of culture and commerce. Like all of the other structures produced to wow the visitors, this building was meant to be temporary and to be demolished later, but there great resistance which resulted in its being rebuilt as permanent structure in 1920. And so it stands in a lovely park - on a hill - on the Nashville bus tour route.

But this Parthenon wasn't the real thing. Many government buildings of the nineteenth century in the United States and Canada adopted the Classical Revival (or Greek Revival) style, "applying Greek plans and proportions to civic buildings" (Shannon Kyles). The reasoning is the image and the association. In the nineteenth century, as new nations were defining themselves, the Greek culture was being carefully studied. Archeological study produced studies and plan books based on the sublime geometry of the Classical orders, and architecture was never the same.

The builders of the fledgling American republic harnessed their architectural wagon to the Greek revival star - with its associations fitting their ambitions. The style evokes the nobility and enlightenment of the Greek culture and the democratic ideals of the Greek republic. Its use in civic buildings communicated those lofty ideals - and order, authority and stability. Interestingly, New York state, an area of expansion at that time, also adopted many Greek place names (and Greek Revival style in civic and domestic building) for the same reasons. That's why we shop in Syracuse and tour Greek Revival cobblestone houses in towns like Greece and Cato, N.Y.

Interestingly, this replica of the Parthenon is not accurate. It purports to be the only full-size replica in existence, and well it may be. But today the actual Parthenon at the Acropolis in Rome is quite plain and a bit worn (well it was built by 432 BC). And we all remember Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, who 'rescued' all the sculpture from the frieze and pediments to their new home in the British Museum in the nineteenth century. Such was the absolute chauvinistic audacity of the British Empire at its peak! It must be terrible to see that amazing work stripped of its context, removed from this hilltop in the bright Greek sun that has bathed its ancient culture for so long, and displayed like natural history museum butterflies pinned to velvet.

Ah, well. Must get on with my reading. The Architectural Conservancy newsletter has lots of new stories about demolitions of Ontario historic buildings. Hope they're saving the marble mantels.

Gothic Survival

I'm not sure, but maybe it was significant that the sun disappeared and a massive cloud bank overtook the town of Picton this afternoon, just as I arrived to take a photo of this house. I haven't looked closely at the house in years - I used to think it was a castle when I was a little girl. The name of the house, "Grove Place" or the Downes house (I recall it as the Falconer house), has come up recently, as Picton recovers from the 'surprise' demolition of its 1875 Methodist Episcopal church, and begins to flex its heritage muscles. I notice that the house is up for lease; once at the leafy edge of town, it's now dead centre, surrounded by a commercial plaza, a bank and a magnetic local coffee shop. I expect it will succumb to development, unless the community rallies quickly to develop the commercial and tourism potential of an historic and quite lovely - though desperately needy - Gothic Revival style home.

According to my tattered 1984 edition of The Settler's Dream (reprinted recently to address increasing interest as a new crew of heritage nuts discovers the houses I grew up with...and in), the house was already losing ground (literally) 27 years ago when the "delightful grounds" were sold off for parking lots. The date of its construction is c.1858, and Cruikshank's litany of Gothic influences bears repeating - the porch gives a nod to Tudor styling with its buttresses and labelled doorway, the gable bargeboard suggests Elizabethan style, the oriel window recalls the Jacobean, and the complex chimney style is vaguely Tudor.

A fairy tale castle to a little farm kid. I hope fairy tales do come true and someone comes to wake this sleeping beauty.

Barns of Hastings County

Recently I met a person who loves barns. I must admit to a certain pull myself, having grown up on a farm and owning hundreds of sensory memories of a proud old multi-generational barn on a working farm. I sense as much as recall a cathedral like space with dust motes from the hay floating in beams of sun shooting through the cracks between weathered boards, the massive creaking presence of draft horses in ancient stalls, the spring arrival of wobbly wet pink-nosed calves, the warm winter breath of dozens of contented cows, all the mysteries of things growing, work accomplished, the passage of the seasons marked by tasks of animal husbandry, field work, harvest. Oh my, I'm there this morning.

There was a much-panned movie a number of years ago - The Bridges of Madison County. I don't recall the story but I remember the film did a good job of creating a sense of loss (a bit soppy and maudlin, true, but the visceral sense that something is going and it hurts). I feel that way about barns. As I drive around Hastings (or any) County I see countless skeletal barns going back to the soil, themselves harvested for barn wood or whatever is left of value. So much earnest planning, such toil in the construction, immeasurable work accomplished for several generations, now irrelevant. Beautiful in their grief.

I draw comfort from this one thing, in my country drives - Hastings County has a fine and viable farming community still, and there are wonderfully well-kept and prosperous barns on those very same nostalgic drives. So I take some comfort in knowing that this way of life will continue in some form for some folks, because, as they say on the highway sign "If you ate today, (you) thank a farmer."

Strawberry Fields Forever

We all think we know what Gothic Revival style looks like - central pointy gable with a finial and/or pendulum and barge-boarding right? Lancet windows. Merrill Inn in Picton. Seymour House in Madoc. Much as I love those details, I like these two buildings because they display some of the other less common features brought into c19 Ontario from the English Gothic or medieval era - hood mouldings and carved label stops, trellis work buttresses, and oriel windows - so Romantic!! One home is symmetrical, the other delightfully irregular in profile.

The house on the left is one of my favourites in Belleville. According to the Hastings County Historical Society book Belleville's Heritage (1978) , the house was built in the 1850's for Adam Henry Wallbridge and passed on to family members. The house is stucco over stone, a lovely backdrop for the stately porch with its delicate sham buttresses. The oriel window with its cresting is so regal. This house has presence ....in a neighbourhood of fine homes in outstanding condition, it has a certain something that sets it apart.

The building on the right is Elizabeth Cottage in Kingston. It is very difficult to photograph. A wide property snug against an unattractive neighbour, it is best appreciated (unfortunately) from the middle of a very busy and very slushy street (the day I visited recently). Outfitted with plaques as befits its stature and story, the home is definitely feeling its age - it's a retirement home with space to let, according to yet another sign around the corner. The right side was built about 1841-43 by Edward Horsey, who went on to become the architect of the Provincial Penitentiary and Frontenac County Court House (according to Margaret Angus, in The Old Stones of Kingston). The left side was a separate, later, cottage, joined elegantly to the original. Only the modern sun-room interloper between the sham buttresses spoils the Gothic whimsy. The unmarried grand-daughters of the original owner established the home as a residence for retired gentlewomen (conjures up the duchesses in "reduced circumstances" of English novels.)

After several generations of stern Georgian family homes rising in the wilderness, the Gothic revival must have been an exotic change. Championed by John Ruskin and his contemporaries, Gothic revival style sought to honour the work of craftsmen, and the spirit of Gothic churches. In some ways, we still feel that tingle of the eccentric, the theatrical, the spirit of the age when we stop to appreciate a Gothic Revival home or church.

According to my prof Shannon Kyles, Strawberry Hill, built in 1750 by Horace Walpole, was the first house to be called Gothic Revival. Situated in the London borough of Richmond, the house has just completed a 9 million pound restoration by the Strawberry Hill Trust and is being reopened this April. I would love to visit but may have to satisfy myself with return visits to www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk. Or to my favourite house on Bridge Street.