Someone once asked me how I find all of the historic buildings I share via this blog and social media. The easy answer is that wherever I am, I find the middle of town – the courthouse square and historic district – and explore out from that point. The best way is to walk, but sometimes I only have 10 to 15 minutes, in which case I’ll drive the streets radiating from the center of town, to “see what I can see.” A few summers ago, one of my finds was this great two-story frame T-plan house in Barbourville, Kentucky – with a dreamy porch!
Façade of the T-plan on South Main Street.
A T-plan is a term used in Kentucky to describe the type or footprint of a historic house (other states use different terminology, like the “gable and wing” in North Carolina). A T-plan refers to a dwelling that in plan (if you were to look down on it from above) looks like the letter “T” set on its side, with the cross bar of the T being a gable fronted wing.
This late 19th century dwelling is not part of the Barbourville Commercial District (the town is the county seat), which was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, so I don’t have ready access to background information on the building (another drawback to a quick drive-by – no chance to speak with neighbors or visit the local public library – both wonderful sources of historic knowledge!).
Barbourville, as seen on a 1952 USGS topographic map.
But since I am an architectural historian – this is what I can determine from just looking at the house. First of all, based on the exterior ornamentation and window size and shape, it dates from the last quarter of the 19th century, or even into the first decade of the 20th century. Those long narrow windows are characteristic of the Italianate style, which first appeared in the United States in the 1830s and the 1840s and persisted in Kentucky past 1900.
The porch adds so much to what would otherwise be a fairly plain facade.
Farm journals and pattern books disseminated the style, the advent of balloon framing helped popularize it, and the growth of rail lines also helped spread it after the Civil War. Other styles, such as Queen Anne, were combined with the Italianate to create a vernacular form seen all across Kentucky.
The technique of balloon framing made the construction of houses with asymmetrical forms much more feasible than had the rigidity inherent in heavy timber frame construction. Local builders utilized national pattern books, tailoring a house to the owner’s specific tastes and pocketbook, and ornamenting traditional house forms with machine-produced architectural elements, like brackets and spindles.
This components that make up this porch could be ordered from the 1895 catalogue of the Foster-Munger Company of Chicago, Illinois, wholesale manufacturers of doors, glazed sash, blinds, and mouldings.
A straightforward T-plan house, like this one, were transformed by stock ornamentation, either ordered through a catalog or pattern book or bought at a local lumber yard, which “fancied” up the exterior of a dwelling. The original owner of this house not only had a house plan that was comfortable and familiar, but the house’s exterior was the very latest in fashion!
