Further hints at our house’s true age
Greetings All !
Today is a cold day, a day where a wintry mix of rain, sleet, and… rarely… snow… fall slowly all day long.
At times like this, it’s nice to stay holed up in the house. But I will say that when the temperature drops in the 20’s and below, this house gets cold. As I sit here in the living room, I can feel the cold creeping in through the north wall. And the kitchen is far worse! I don’t think they used ANY insulation in the kitchen’s external walls! If only I had know that (and if only we’d had the money to fix that) before the painters started fixing the exterior siding in that area!
Oh well. On to other things.
In early December, I had emailed a local preservation professional, somebody who deals with the history of old houses daily. This person was recommended to us by a friend. I will not reveal this person’s name at this time, because I wish to reveal some comments they made during our discussion of our home… and I haven’t asked this person for permission to do so (yet).
After pointing this professional to photos of our house on this website, and after answering a few of this person’s questions, they said something quite close to the following:
“Your house is an American Foursquare dwelling with Colonial Revival style treatments. Evidence of the foursquare Colonial Revival is seen in the full-width one-story porch and symmetrical fenestration. Such houses have gable-front or pyramidal hip roofs, typical with dormers on the side elevations. Other Colonial Revival features in your home include the roof line columns, corner pilasters on teh second story, and the fanlight detailing over the vent in the front gable. Also, the center gable pedimental porch entrance, the wide, one-over-one pane window sashes, the pedimented square bay window with wide frieze and cornice, and the exaggerated stone key stone window arches/lentils on the first story and basement windows.
The tri-partite first story bay window, shingles on the front gable, and the horizontal wood band below reflect Queen Anne and Shingle style influences — an indication of late nineteenth century design. The roughly dressed sotne walls and porch supports were very common cladding treatments in a geographic area with a substrata of Bethany limestone that was harvested locally. The use of brick or stone on the first story and shingles or lap siding on the second of foursquare houses in the Kansas City area is known locally as the ’Shirtwaist’ style.”
When I asked about the Colonial Revival period (as I hadn’t heard of this before…or at least I thought it was something from, perhaps, the 19th century)… this person said:
“The Colonial Revival style roughly dates from 1880 to 1955 and reflects an eclectic period in American residential architecture. The term refers to the rebirth of interest in the styles of early Englis and Dutch houses on the Atlantic Seaboard during the colonial period of U.S. history. Houses built in the late 19th century were interpretations of the earlier colonial style, while those built from about 1915 to 1930 were more exact copies of those earlier adaptations.”
When I asked about a possible build-date estimate, this person said:
“It could date from the 1890s… I would estimate after 1895. Certain elements look like details documented in Independence as early as 1903.”
And then, this surprise:
“The exterior fo your house is in wonderful condition as far as architectural integrity is concerned, and given the probably lack of a historic district in your immediate area, I would be inclined to believe that it could be successfully nominated to the National Register under one or more criteria.”
This was encouraging news! I suspected that the house’s odd angular-shaped limestone pieced vaneer was unusual. I haven’t seen anything like it anywhere else. It seems the majority of such vaneers on other homes are square / block-ish. So, perhaps we’ll be able to try for the National Registry!
But before we can do that, I need to spend at least a day at the Kansas City Library downtown, doing further research to narrow down just when our home was built.
Thanks for stopping by the site!
-= Dave =-