Looking Beyond the Present: 130 E. Broadway, Winchester, Kentucky

A reader once commented that my tone in discussing changes made to a particular historic house was “negative.” I respectfully disagree. The observation and analysis that I carry out as an architectural historian does not stem from an inherent pessimism. Observing and detailing the exterior of historic buildings (and occasionally interiors as well), is what I do professionally. The same ability to take apart and catalog changes wrought to a building also allows me to see beyond decades of unkind modifications or neglect, to the beauty of the original structure. Here’s an example. 

See that arch?

A few summers ago, I encountered a historic frame house, located on a corner lot in downtown Winchester. It bore the changes of decades on all sides. Window openings shortened and sash replaced. Rolled asphalt siding (a cladding many folks might know as “fake brick”) covered the exterior. There were some bad modern doors –  but all I really saw a wonderful pointed arch, supported by paired brackets, almost hidden on the gable end.  There was also a square corner tower and a flared porch roof, so I snapped a few pictures, and went on my way. It was an interesting historic house, resting on a stone foundation, and I am hard pressed to not take photos of any historic building within my vicinity.

The side elevation that caught my eye – can you see that neat gable treatment (almost like a bargeboard)?

Three years later, I saw the house again, after an unsympathetic remuddling. The arch was still there, but the brackets were gone, and the wistful charm that initially piqued my interest was virtually obliterated.

Vinyl siding hides a multitude of sins – and details.

I still don’t know much about the early days of this house, but I do know that it was built during a booming period in Winchester. In the last two decades of the 19th century, after the arrival of the Elizabethtown, Lexington, and Big Sandy Railroad (it would later become the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad), Winchester was abuzz with activity. New buildings and houses were constructed, and old houses were torn down to accommodate new, more fashionable dwellings. One area of town experiencing redevelopment during this prosperous period was East Broadway.

In a snippet featured in the March 15, 1909 edition of The Winchester News, an unknown author observed that “the old shacks that at one time occupied East Broadway have been almost entirely replaced by fine residences.”

A late 1970s view of the east elevation.

A fine residence? It well could have started off that way. At some point between 1901 and 1907, this two-story frame house with built, likely for William Taylor Fox, who was circuit clerk. In 1899, Fox purchased a house and lot from H.T. Strother for $1,450.00. It appears that the existing house was torn down and replaced with the one with the inset arch – the Sanborn maps from 1901 and 1907 show vastly different footprints.

Fox was gone in 1908, selling the house and lot for $4,000.00 (a not insignificant sum!) to Eliza I. Jones and her children. The house stayed in the Jones family until Eliza’s death in 1919. It changed hands a few more times before it was bought by Mrs. Madge Lewis for $7,500 in 1923.

Section of the 1907 Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the house.

The recessed arch that first caught my eye shows up on a house plan in The Radford American Homes, a volume published in 1903 consisting of plans for “100 low and medium priced houses.” There are many differences between the plan and the example I am sharing, but the design motif is similar – and the plan illustration has the advantage of unadulterated charm.

Radford Home’s Design No. 131, published 1903.

Now can you imagine what this house might have looked like 100 years ago? And in your mind, remove the vinyl siding, take off the rolled asphalt siding, and instead envision wood shingles – or a combination of weatherboards on the first floor, and shingles in the gables.

By 1930, the house had ceased being solely a single family dwelling. Time were tough, and Madge Lewis, a widow, was renting out rooms in her house. The Shelton family, consisting of Amon (a salesman for a baking company), his wife Viola, and their daughter Opal (her full name was Opaldell, I believe), paid $15 a month to live in the house. James Frazier, a WWI veteran, and his wife and young son also lived in the house, paying $17.50 a month.

Ten years later, there were three to four units in the house, and the monthly rates had dropped.

Façade and side elevation.

The house entered service as a multi-family dwelling, a function it continues to serve today. I’m not an opponent of the shift in housing type – urban areas need flexibility, and historic buildings lend themselves well to changing needs. A single family house can be just as poorly maintained as a house divided into apartments -and the latter can be treated well and full of historic character.

What’s important is to realize that nothing is constant.  Mentally deconstructing the parts of a historic building and the visible elements of its transformations is one of the best ways to understand and appreciate the building, and to construct an image of  how it might have looked when it was new, and what happened to it along the way.