It’s supposed to rain all weekend, but I hope not, because I want to go play tourist all over town, looking at Italianate things. The folks over on Twitter gave me some great stuff to look at in addition to what’s in the comments on the last post.
Check out the Merritt Plantation house on Humphreys St. I wonder if the Allen house had a porch like that or if they had a balustrade. It looks like it was a balustrade by the time the house was torn down.
There are a couple of houses here on 5th Avenue North that look like they might be useful to look at.
And another person sent me a link to a chapter from the Architecture and Interior Design from the 19th Century: An Integrated History, Volume 2 about Italianate design. check out the blueprints for the Morse-Libby House in Portland, Maine (I thought for a second this was Stephen King’s house, but a Google search says “no.”) It’s not quite like the Allen house–the porch and the fact that that music room sticks out way in front of the vestibule. But it has some interesting similarities–the vestibule, for instance. I’m guessing the Allen house had such a Persian Room (whatever that is) or at least a small sitting area there above the vestibule. I also think it’s likely that there was a long parlor on the left side of the Allen house that was fairly narrow. It’s hard for me to guess exactly about the set-up of the right side of the house. We know there was a dining room, because that’s where the seances were held and I’m guessing, if we can take the stories about the Thing seriously, that the dining room must have been right to the right as you came into the main hall (otherwise it would have been difficult for the person who was chased by the Thing to spring up from the table and out the front door, pausing only to grab his hat.
Here’s my guess, and I’d like to hear your speculation (if that’s your thing). Enlarging the Allen photo to look at the chimneys, does it not look like the chimney on the right is less-ornate and further back? I’m willing to argue that that’s the kitchen chimney–that the kitchen was in the house, adjacent to the dining room.
I think something like this:
Filed under: About Town, Writers and Writing
That’s an odd detail…pausing to grab his hat. Why would you, if you were sure you were being pursued by a monstrous spirit perhaps of demonic origins, grab your hat?
Either it speaks to the ingrained cultural habits or something’s a little fishy there.
I wondered if it was supposed to be some kind of humorous class marker–like even in the middle of being terrified, he was still a gentleman?
Or perhaps to indicate that it really wasn’t all that terrifying after all? Throwing a bone to the naysayers?
Anyhow, odd.
It’s hard to know. It’s a second-hand account–that hot dude whose name escapes me…Hamlin something… remembering a letter Itta Reno sent him years before he’s telling the story. He could have made up that detail.
Sure would be interesting to see that original letter.
Forgive me if I am being dim, but the floor plan of the house to do not show, kitchen or servants pantry. I assume that these are located in the basement?????
David, I saw plenty of in-basement kitchens in fairly wealthy homes when i was in Massachusetts, and I could be off on my timing here, but by the time the Italianate style came into fashion, I think everyone who could afford to participate in that fashion fully (which also meant affording servants) had their kitchens in a separate building out back because of the fire hazard. In the late 1800s, once stoves became more elaborate and safer (and once people had gas running to the house), kitchens moved back into the main house.
That’s why I feel pretty confident that the Allens would have had their kitchen in the house–urban building in the 1880s–but am not surprised it’s absent in the Morse-Libby house plans.
Thank you, you answered something for me that I have often pondered on. That is the use of wood as a primary building material in some parts of the US and fire hazard.
Incidentally I am following you via a feed reader which means viewing in a restricted space on the screen – I missed the bit where you speculated that the kitchen was in-house, adjacent to the dining room.
Here in the UK kitchens, servant’s hall, pantries etc were, in the main, located in the basement and accessed from the rear of the house. Food was often so cold by the time it reached the table that it was inedible, hence the introduction of ‘Dumb Waiters’. The fact that kitchen over there were sometimes outside of the main house, surprises me. David