Although houses from the Victorian period are popular with large numbers of people now, there was a time in America when styles like the Queen Anne were loathed. Noted architectural historian Clay Lancaster, with his slightly acerbic wit, noted that the architecture of the period and its “escape to exotic modes indicates unrest, and it created the Victorian city made up of frustration symbols.”*
Granted, there was a great deal to escape from in the decades following the Civil War – and perhaps fanciful turrets, innumerable shingles, and excessive ornamentation provided architects and homeowners with an escape from reality. I certainly felt like I had escaped this plane of existence when I drove by (and then braked, and then reversed) the circa 1892 Queen Anne dwelling built by the Westview Building Company.
A frothy concoction of the highest order! (My words, not Clay Lancaster’s.)
The 2.5 story frame dwelling is…unique. A canted central tower anchors the middle of the house, while to either side are wings shaped like horseshoes. L.D. Bayley, who worked for the Westview Building Company and is listed as an architect (a self-identifying profession at the time) in Louisville city directories, is believed to have designed the house, as well as have lived in it for a few years.
One of the horseshoe-shaped side bays.
The house sits on a brick foundation,and is clad in a combination of weatherboards and shingles, with all manner of twists and turns.
From the September 22, 1895 edition of The Courier-Journal.
In the Sunday, September 22, 1895 edition of The Courier-Journal, a promotional story entitled “Pushing Parkland” ran, taking up the entire length of page 17, and occupying two columns. Parkland, prior to its annexation by the city of Louisville in 1894, was an independent town – you can read more about that in this post about another house in the area.
Parkland was described as “one of the prettiest and most successful of Louisville’s suburbs” and Virginia Avenue was still the “most fashionable thoroughfare.”
Detail of the entryway.
The first floor of the canted central bay, containing the half-glass, half-panel entry door, is brick, with arched window openings to either side. A vaulted hood on brackets extends out over the door. There is an inset balcony with Doric columns on third floor of this bay, tucked in under a turreted roof.
A side and facade view.
This balcony is echoed in the attic dormers to either side (and on a lower level). The first floor windows on the horseshoe wings have flared (and shingled) hood molds that extend down from the sill of the upper story window. And everything is painted in a color palette of muted pink and yellow…This is one house I don’t think I could ever comprehend without a well-drawn interior plan!
The Westview Building Company rented this house out for a few years after its construction, but it was sold to another investor in 1894. In 1905 it became an owner-occupied house when attorney Samuel Lederman bought the property, and lived there until 1923. It appears to be divided into multiple apartments now.
Virginia Avenue (and most of West Louisville) has experienced many ups and downs since it was proclaimed one of Louisville’s most fashionable thoroughfares in the late 19th century. Fortunately, many of the stylish houses that once brought the area acclaim remain, and tell their stories through a shingled facade, a broad porch, or a curious design.
*Victorian Houses: A Treasury of Lesser-Known Examples by Edmund V. Gillon Jr. and Clay Lancaster. Dover Publications, New York, 1973. Plate 97.
Your ‘frothy concoction’ caption led my imagination straight to “This looks to me like an ice cream sundae!”
In the 1950s my family lived first on the west side where distilleries spiced the breeze beyond Parkland’s streets, then in the newly developed suburb around Hikes Point to the east.
I toured this house in the 1980s. If memory serves me, it was an early tax credit project. David Rateau owned it. The interior rooms were situated at very odd angles and it was very disorienting to walk through. She’s a beauty! Want me to ask David about it? 28th and Virginia?
That would be awesome! Thank you!