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WHITE PINE

^E'RIES OP

(Arcbitectural oVLonograpljs

Coloniale>irehlteeture

in.

VERMONT

*l/\rittf IniroductoryText by-
George S Chappell

George F. Lindsay, Chairman

White Pine Bureau

saint paul, minnesota

SSSM

MMBS

THE GENERAL STRONG HOUSE. VERGENNES, VERMONT.

T&WHITE PINE, SLRIES^

ARCHITECTURAL MONOGRAPHS

A BI-MONTLY PUBLIGKTION vSUGGC5TING TE
ARCmXCTURAL USLS (J WHITL PINE A^D ITS
ANLABLITY TODAi' AS A STRUCTURAL W5X)

Vol. IV

DECEMBER, 1918

No. 6

COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE IN VERMONT

Bf GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

Again we are fortunate in having in Mr, Chappell another close student of the domestic architecture of the Colonists. After
graduating from Vale, Mr. Clutppell continued his studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts until 1902. Since then he has been prac-
tising architecture in New York, for a time in partnership with Charles Ewing and at present independently. — Editor's Note.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KENNETH CLARK

CURIOUS and interesting indeed is the
invariable accuracy with which the
architecture of a particular locality
mutely spells its history. Not less engaging is
this historic aspect when its lesson lies not on
the surface but deeply buried in the meshes of
circumstance which must first be explored before
arriving at glimmerings of the truth. Such is
the case with the fair Green Mountain State.
The architectural history of Vermont is yet to
be written. It exists, doubtless, not only in the
noble houses which have been preserved, but
likewise in the town records of many a valley
village, — records, praise be, which are gradually
being crystallized into useful collections by the
beneficent agencies of various societies of por-
tentous and dignified titles, such as the "Society
for the Preservation of New England Antiqui-
ties." But, as yet, the historians have said little
specifically of the charming towns west of Con-
necticut which, by leaps and bounds, are attain-
ing a national pre-eminence as foci of rest and
recreation for thousands of brain-fagged ur-
banites.

Other sections of What we may properly call
our Colonial country have had, each, their
scribes. The coast towns, without exception,
accessible by main railway lines and the more
alluring water routes, have long stood as mile-
stones on the itinerary of the zealous draughts-
man, the prying historian and, last but by no
means least, the man behind the camera. Who,
among the architectural profession or in the
splendid brotherhood of kindred souls to whom
our old houses are precious, vital things, can

look back with aught but keenest pleasure to the
occasional visit of that rare character, Frank
Cousins, whose valuable records of Salem, Ports-
mouth, Newburyport and Marblehead were
invariably illumined by his quaint anecdotes
and observations? The very accent of the man
went with the pictures, and his point of view
and method of what I can only tactfully term
"distribution" were in wonderfully refreshing
contrast to the cock-sure briskness of many a
brick merchant, refrigerator vendor or miscella-
neous patent-pusher who, in normal times, form
an unending line at the outer portals of an ofllce.

"Are these pictures for sale, Mr. Cousins?"
1 asked him, at our first meeting.

His reply was preceded by a look of gentle
surprise and reproach which I shall never forget.

"No, Mr. Chappell . . . no, — they are not
for sale. I am merely showing them to you. 1
will leave them here. I know you will enjoy
them, and I give them to you. You will note
that they are numbered. Keep what you find
most interesting, — later, perhaps, if you wish
to make me a present, you may mail me a check.
What a lovely mantel that is in the Peabody
house! I had to bribe Mrs. Peabody with two
baskets of Northern Spies before she would let
me photograph it," etc.

In Dutch Colonial, Long Island and New
York, along the Georgian River James, in
Charleston and Savannah, — up and down the
coast have ranged the recorders of our historic
past, — but of Vermont we find nothing. It is,
then, with a peculiar elation that I have under-
taken this little monograph, with something of

THE WHITE PINE MONOGRAPH SERIES

THE OLD CONSTITUTION HOUSE, WINDSOR, VERMONT.

HOUSE AT MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT.

COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE IN VERMONT

the feeling of a humble explorer, a traveller into
"green fields and pastures new" in our frag-
mentary world of architectural letters.

The mass impression, the total result, is per-
haps the most trustworthy gauge of value by
which to standardize an appreciation. In many
cases this is extremely difficult. New England
Colonial architecture, in the general sense of the
term, runs a wide gamut of expression from the
early 17th century survivals — in many ways the
most absorbingly interesting of our relics — to
the late 18th century period whose delicate life

colonies, waged for years a most desperate
struggle for her political existence. Planted be-
tween the great and vague grants of the Colonies
of New York and New Hampshire, the green hills
and valleys between the Connecticut and the
Hudson were a veritable no-man's-land, con-
stantly in dispute, constantly changing hands ac-
cording to who drew the last map or last had the
ear of the King's Council, and, consequently, con-
stantly neglected. While thriving towns were
being built in the defined areas of Massachusetts
and Connecticut, the wildernesses of the interior

THE GENERAL STRUNG IIULSi:. \ LRGLNMib, \ hK.MUN 1.

was finally crushed out by the heavy hand of the
Greek revival. Each type and phase must be
considered and appraised separately, for they
are distinct links in the chain.

In Vermont, however, we find a striking
homogeneity of architectural expression, an al-
most unvarying type which makes it possible
to judge the value of this little known contribu-
tion by a single standard.

This brings me, by a very devious route, I
must confess, to the thought expressed in my
initial paragraph, namely, that this very homo-
geneity must perforce have its reason in the
actual history of the State. Nor is this reason
far to seek or hard to find. We forget, perhaps,
that Vermont, more than any of our original

were left to the Indians and the animals. It
was not until 1724 that the first white settlement
in the present State of Vermont was founded at
Fort Dummer, south of Brattleboro. The real
tide of emigration did not set in until 1760, be-
tween which period and the outbreak of the
Revolution a bitter controversy was waged be-
tween the hardy pioneers who had pushed into
the forests, and the more calculating governors
of the coastal communities who saw in such ex-
ploration only an enlargement of their own
boundaries. So acute did this quarrel become
that Governor Tryon of New York formally
placed a bounty of £150 on the head of no
less a person than Ethan Allen, who, later, at
Ticonderoga, blazed his way to a glory which

THE WHITE PINE MONOGRAPH SERIES

has sufficiently dimmed the luster of his former
powerful antagonist.

Throughout the entire Revolutionary War.
Vermont fought nobly as an independent, un-
official group of settlers, and it was not until
1791 that she was finally formally admitted into
the Union,— a belated recognition which, in the
light of her splendid history and services, we
should not hesitate nowadays to term "a raw
deal."

Be that as it may, here is the plain explana-
tion of Vermont's singleness of style in her early
architecture. Of the very earliest, the 17th

dwellings, the period of the sturdy Georgian
detail of Deerfield and Longmeadow, was still
too early for the fluctuating, battledore-and-
shuttlecock existence of the struggling colony.
Vermont came into full architectural being just
after the transition in styles had been effected
which parallels interestingly what has happened
recently in New York City and, in lesser degree,
throughout the entire United States. In a word,
the first Adam craze was on, — perhaps not the
very first, but leaving the great original out
of the discussion, the first architectural Adam
was certainly the great popular style of the

HOUSE AT WINDSOR, VERMONT.

century and early 18th century type, there is
practically none. It was not until the State was
recognized and established that its staunch citi-
zens began to build the dignified homes which
we find in the lovely villages of Rutland, Wind-
sor, Middlebury, and Vergennes.

The architectural derivation is as clear as the
historical reasons for it. One has but to turn
the pages of Asher Benjamin's delightful
"Country Builders' Assistant, fully explaining
the Best Methods for striking Regular and
Quirked Mouldings" to see the hand of time
pointing with no uncertain finger at the skilful
carpenter of Greenfield whose name is writ
large over the entire State of Vermont.

The period subsequent to our first stark

new State. It was between 1773 and 1798 that
Robert and James Adam published the splendid
series of engravings of their undying monuments
to a phase of English architecture which stands
for the utmost delicacy and refinement of Britain
as clearly as Louis Seize indicates the culture of
France. This was the fount from which Asher
Benjamin drew his inspiration. His vessel was
no royal tankard, but the water it held was pure.
Far from being a servile copyist, he translated
the proportions of cornice and column from
terms of stone to wood with a niceness of judg-
ment and delicacy of appreciation of the mate-
rial he was working in that has earned him an
undying and enviable place in the architectural
history of America.

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THE WHITE PINE MONOGRAPH SERIES

Strange, how history
repeats herself! The
Ritz hotels, the Stattler
hotels, the many new
apartment houses on
Park Avenue, in New
York, — everywhere we
are rushing to Adam.
It is a fad, a phase, a
transitory enthusiasm,
but it will leave charm-
ing results behind it. If
I were asked to coin a
modern expression for
the early architecture of
Vermont, 1 should say
they did "wooden Ritz"
— and 1 think 1 should
be understood.

It is a sophisticated
art, but an art still sound
and vigorous. Canons
of judgment in these
matters are peculiarly
personal, and my indi-
vidual rating of our na-
tional periods gives first
place to the earlier, more naive structures in
which the broader elements of mass and propor-
tion, fenestration and austere profile seem to fail

Cornice Detail.

THE WAINWRIGHT HOUSE,

MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT.

into a harmony that is
inevitable and was, prob-
ably, unconscious. Ver-
mont is not without her
examples of this chaste
style, as in the old Con-
stitution House in Wind-
sor, illustrated on page 4,
built in 1777, and hap-
pily restored with a rev-
erent regard to the an-
cient law of severity.

More characteristic by
far, however, are such
bits of pure Adam detail
as the charming door of
the Sherman Evarts
House, also in Windsor,
illustrated on page 12,
or the ingenious inter-
laced frieze on one of the
stately residences of
Middlebury, known as
the Wainwright House,
which strikingly illus-
trates the addition to a
classic background of a motive which could be
properly executed in wood, and wood alone.
Less fortunate, but of singular interest in illus-

HOUSE AT CASTLETON, VERMONT.

COLONIAL ARCHITECTURE IN VERMONT

trating a subtle approach
to the decadence of over-
refinement, is the curious
porch of the Meecham-
Ainsworth House in
Castleton, illustrated on
page 13, where we see
the ingenuity of the skil-
ful workman combining
three types of arches, the
semicircle, the elliptical
and the stilted, in a single
motif. Far more than
the usual refinement in
design and proportion
are found in the Genera!
Strong House at Ver-
gennes. Frontispiece and
page 5. Here General
Strong lived while he
and Macdonough were
building the fleet which
won the Battle of Lake
Champlain.

In general, we may say
of the Colonial architec-
ture of Vermont that it
was a true and dignified expression of the eco-
nomic conditions of its period, nor can we ask
more of any generation, in its studious devel-

Cornice
THE SHERMAN
WINDSOR,

opment of classic orna-
ment and general excel-
lence of taste it goes far
to rebut the quaint as-
sumption of J. Norman,
an earlier precursor of
Asher Benjamin, who
prefaces his hand-book
with the encouraging
statement that architec-
ture should be univer-
sally practiced, as it is
"so easy as to be ac-
quired in leisure times,
when the Business of the
Da>' is over, by way of
Diversion."

1 herewith formally
pin upon Mr. Norman's
breast a medal, proclaim-
ing him to be the great
originator of that vast
army of home-builders
who firmly believe that
they planned their own
houses and that the ar-
chitect merely drew some
white lines on blue paper putting on some figures
and arranged the staircase so that it did not end
in the living-room fireplace.

Detail.
EVARTS HOUSE,
VERMONT.

THE SHERMAN EVARTS HOUSE, WINDSOR, VERMONT.

THE WHITE PINE MONOGRAPH SERIES

ENTRANCE DETAILS.

HOUSE AT MIDDLEBURY,
VERMONT.

THE SHERMAN EVARTS HOUSE,
WINDSOR, VERMONT.

ENTRANCE DETAILS.
THE JOHONNOT HOUSE. WINDSOR, VERMONT. HOUSE AT CASTLETON, VERMONT.

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THE FULLER 1 UN HUUSE, WINDSOR, VERMONT. Entrance Detail.

WHITE PINE-AND WHERE TO USE IT

SPECIFICATION CLAUSES FOR A HOUSE OF THE HIGHEST GRADE

WHERE QUALITY IS FIRST AND COST A

SECONDARY CONSIDERATION

Prepared by LOUIS ROBERT HOLSKE

specification IVriter for McKim, Mead &■ IVhite, /Irchitects

In the introductory article to "White Pine — and Where to Use It," it was stated that a short cut was needed to help the architect to
incorporate the information contained in the White Pine Standard Grading Rules Book into his specifications. It is hoped that
the data presented in this article is in such form as to be not only of value, but also of practical use. — Editor's Note.

THOUGH there is no universal form of
specification for a given building, each
architect having his own method of in-
dicating the requirements as to material and
workmanship, the White Pine Bureau offers the
following Specification for White Pine, which
may be incorporated into any form in current
use. In working it out it has been borne in mind
that to be of use to architects it must be as con-
cise as possible. Clause A will be common to
the specifications for the three classes of house.
Ihe application has been divided into three
clauses, B, C, and D, for structural, exterior and
interior uses respectively. C and D could
readily be united in the interest of greater
brevity. This, however, would be affected by
the classification adopted by the architect in
writing his specification. Some architects clas-
sify everything in woodwork under Carpentry,
others divide it into Rough Carpentry, Exterior
Finish and Interior Finish, etc.

The fact has often been emphasized that
"blanket clauses" are ambiguous and that their
interpretation invariably adds appreciably to
the cost of the structure. In spite of the fact
that there are comparatively few instances
where it is necessary to use absolutely Clear
White Pine, architects often make the mistake
of specifying "Clear White Pine" for all uses,
where in many cases a lower grade would be
more suitable and considerably less expensive.
The client would have as satisfactory and as
durable a house; the architect would gain pres-
tige through creating a house which combines
maximum quality with proper cost. Clear
White Pine for sash, doors and blinds, however,
does not come in this category, as sash, doors
and blinds are products of factories and are cut
from White Pine stock which yields the required
amount of clear wood, although the nomen-
clature of the grade from which it is cut is not

"Clear." This grade is known as "White Pine
Factory Lumber" and is essentially for cutting-
up purposes, or other shop uses where sections ot
clear lumber are required.

There are three fundamental sets of White
Pine Standard Grading Rules, one or more of
which is familiar to all White Pine wholesale
and retail lumber dealers throughout the United
States. The architect should determine which
of these three is applicable in the territory of
the contemplated building before writing his
specification. Any contractor or local retail
lumber dealer should be able to give him this
information. The architect can then specify
the grades under whichever of the three sets
applies. It may be found that White Pine is
sometimes sold by lumber dealers under local
names, although the dealer has purchased the
lumber from the manufacturers under one of the
three standard sets of grades. Every dealer must
therefore know the grades as called for in the
accompanying Specification, and there is no ex-
cuse for any confusion or misinterpretation.

While White Pine is the wood par excellence
for all construction uses, there may be, perhaps,
a question as to the advisability of specifying it
for general framing purposes. Clause B of the
model Specification states the grades which
should be used if it is decided to build of White
Pine throughout. There are other structural
woods, lower in cost and almost equal to White
Pine, for sills, posts, girders, etc., but for studding
and framing for doors and windows it is par-
ticularly recommended. There is no shrinkage
nor swelling, no warping nor twisting, in White
Pine, and a door or window hung in a White
Pine frame will not stick or bind, nor will the
plaster crack. In these cases the slight extra
first cost is more than offset by the future sav-
ing in repairs.

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List of Members oj'

THE NORTHERN PINE MANUFACTURERS' ASSOCIATION OF

MINNESOTA, WISCONSIN AND MICHIGAN

W. T. Bailey Lumber Company Virginia, Minn.

Cloquet Lumber Company Cloquet, Minn.

Crookston Lumber Company Bemidji, Minn.

DuLUTH Log Company Duluth, Minn.

International Lumber Company International Falls, Minn.

Johnson-Wentworth Company Cloquet, Minn.

The J. Neils Lumber Company Cass Lake, Minn.

Nichols-Chisholm Lumber Company Frazee, Minn.

Northland Pine Company Minneapolis, Minn.

The Northern Lumber Company Cloquet, Minn.

Pine Tree Manufacturing Company Little Falls, Minn.

Rust-Owen Lumber Company Drummond, Wis.

St. Croix Lumber & Mfg. Company Winton, Minn.

Shevlin-Clarke Company, Ltd Fort Frances, Ont.

J. S. Stearns Lumber Company Odanah, Wis.

The 1. Stephenson Company Wells, Mich.

The Virginia & Rainy Lake Company Virginia, Minn.

List of Members of
THE ASSOCIATED WHITE PINE MANUFACTURERS OF IDAHO

Blackwell Lumber Company Coeur d' Alene, Idaho

Bonners Ferry Lumber Company Bonners Ferry, Idaho

Dover Lumber Company Dover, Idaho

Humbird Lumber Company Sandpoint, Idaho

McGoLDRiCK Lumber Company Spokane, Wash.

Milwaukee Land Company St. Joe, Idaho

Panhandle Lumber Company Spirit Lake, Idaho

PoTLATCH Lumber Company Potlatch, Idaho

Roselake Lumber Company Roselake, Idaho

Edward Rutledge Timber Company Coeur d' Alene, Idaho.

Any information desired regarding H^hite Pine ■will be furnished
by any member of either jlssociation or by the

WHITE PINE BUREAU

Merchants Bank Building, Saint Paul, Minnesota

Representing
The Northern Pine Manufacturers' Association of Minnesota, Wisconfin
and Michigan and The Associated White Pine Manufacturers of Idaho

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Sal LIBRARY -U.C. BERKELEY

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Full text of "An architectural monograph on colonial architecture in Vermont"

See other formats