| Architectural Description:
The property consists of a house, octagonal barn, grainery and orchards. The frame house was built c.1866 in the manner popularized by Calvert Vaux’s architectural design book Villas and Cottages. It is a typical two-story Italian Villa with attic and cellar. It’s dimensions, excluding porches, are 25’ x 42’. The rooms are arranged semiformally around a stair hall. The center three bays of the main façade are projected under a gable. The main story includes a living room, formal hall, family room, dining room, pantry, kitchen and bath. The upstairs is composed of three bedrooms, each with an adjoining room. There is a formal stairway leading upstairs from the front hall and another stairway from the pantry.
The front porch is 10’ x 16’. It has a parapet, and its members are simple and squared, compared to the finishing of the cornice, doors, window framements, etc. The railing is crudely nailed to the façade. Access to the roof of the porch is given by a door aligned with the entry in the upper story. The back porch is about eight feet square. A garage is attached to the rear of the house by a causeway roof. Of the foundation, a thirty-inch ground course of brick is exposed. It is faced with stucco laid in a rectangular pattern and articulated by expansion joints.
The exterior trim is in keeping with the keynote of the Italian Villa mode, namely the allusion to Renaissance detailing. All corners are decorated with staggered quoining of wood. Under the cornice is a deep, molded entablature, and decorated brackets. At the time the exterior was covered with composition siding, care was taken to replace the quoins. The window framements consist of lintels, brackets, and kneed frames. The double hung sash holds two lights each. There is a shallow, one-foot vestibule with molded paneling preceding the main entry. Old hinges remaining indicate that there was once an outer door or screening of some sort. The front door is divided , in the French manner, pierced by two tall lights with rounded arch heads, and decorated with elaborate molded panels.
The interior trim consists of wainscoting of tongue-in-groove battens and chair rail. The family room chimney piece has been restyled in the Craftsman tradition with Roman bricks and mantle piece supported by plain modillions.
The grainery was built c. 1855 and is a simple four-sided building with interior sections divided for grain storage. The basic structure of the building was built entirely with hand-hewn timbers, which were notched and pegged together providing strong support. The exterior is composed of batten siding.
The octagonal barn was built in 1913, as the original log barn was removed to make way for the Orenco spur of the Oregon Electric Railway track. The entire barn is made of cedar. There is neither a silo nor a central post in the barn. The uncluttered central haymow is made possible by a superb roof of radiating rafters. On the ground floor there are cattle stalls as an extension of the floor of mow. The second floor, which looks down over the central haymow, was also meant to store loose hay.
Site and Environment:
The grounds, at once disciplined and romantic, are laid out in accordance with the principal landscaping aesthetic of the day, that advanced by sometime associates Andrew Jackson Downing and Calvert Vaux. An imposing approach is created by a circular fore-court lined with weeping birches and catalpa.
An orchard, including three ancient Chestnut trees, lies to the north, the filbert orchard to the south. Interspersed throughout the grounds are fir trees, walnut, cherry spirea, Japanese maple, hawthorne, Giant Arborvitae, boxwood, Silver maple, Big-Leaf maple, Flowering Quince, Cryptomeria, rhododendrons, firethorn, Oregon grape, Buddelia, holly and laurel. The undercover of perennials and herbaceous plants includes ferns, roses, iris, sweet william, columbine, violets, peonies, etc.
In addition to the landscaping around the house, there are two orchards, located on the north and south of the main entrance containing mature filbert and English walnut plantings. There trees are about twenty feet high and provide good shade.
Description of Conditions and Alterations:
A. House- Excellent condition; altered.
Alterations in the house include the following
1. Bathroom and kitchen have been re-modeled, 1971
2. Composition roofing replaces the shakes of 100 years ago, 1975
3. Composition siding covers the original wood, 1954
4. The front porch no longer extends the length of the house, date unknown
B. Grainery – Fair condition; altered.
In the grainery a concrete floor has been poured and grain bins have been reinforced with wooden divisions and steel crossbars, c. 1948.
C. Octagon Barn – Deteriorated condition; slightly altered.
The octagon barn is missing the original cupola, otherwise it is unaltered, date unknown. |
