| Historic Name: |
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Common Name: |
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| Style: |
Colonial - Dutch Colonial |
Neighborhood: |
Wallingford |
| Built By: |
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Year Built: |
1924 |
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| Significance |
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This house was erected in 1924 by the owner, Lydia Salmila, whose address is listed on the permit application as 1902 N. 36th Street (the application was apparently completed by the owner’s agent, Henry Hanson). The designer of the structure is not listed.
A later owner, Charles Latta (who acquired the property in 1937 according to the Assessor’s record), added a chicken house to the site in 1942-43. This structure, if still extant, is not visible from the street.
The house is significant as an intact and well-maintained example of Dutch colonial design built during the height of the North End’s second building boom.
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| Appearance |
| This is a two-story, clapboard clad frame residence on a concrete foundation over a full basement. The side-gabled gambrel type roof, the enclosed soffits, the symmetrical organization of the façades and the entry door and projecting pediment centered in the street-facing east elevation of the main, two-story portion of the structure are all typical elements of the Dutch colonial style.
Most of the windows of the structure are double-hung units configured in a manner more often associated with the fenestration of craftsman bungalows. The upper sash of most of the units is divided into six unequal lights; a muntin bar runs horizontally across the sash a few inches below its top edge and two vertical muntins extend from top to bottom of the sash an equal distance from the two sides. The lower sash is undivided but, in most instances, somewhat larger than the upper sash.
The front door enters the structure in the center of the elevation at the main level. It is flanked by two tall sidelights. The concrete porch and entry stair are placed on the same axis and a large projecting pediment protects the porch. The eaves of the pediment do not align with the eaves of the gambrel roof; instead, the pediment eaves abut the face of the frieze at the body of the house. As a result the pediment appears to interrupt the eave of the gambrel roof. Each of the cornice returns at the face of the pediment appears to be supported by a pair of massive timber brackets. The soffit of the pediment is a “basket” vault that appears to spring from the ends of the cornice returns. The entry stair and porch rails did not appear to be original when this structure was surveyed in 2004 and have been modified again since then. The present rails are much more sympathetic to the design of the structure than those they replaced.
A group of three windows is more or less centered in the section of wall to either side of the entry. Each group consists of a wide double-hung unit flanked by two narrower units. A long, clapboard-clad, shed-roofed dormer is centered in the east-facing slope of the roof. The projecting cornice of the dormer returns to the face of the roof at each end. A squat pair of double-hung windows is centered in the face of the dormer over the entry pediment. At each end of the dormer’s east elevation is a taller pair of double-hung windows. Unlike the windows at the main level, the heads of the dormer units abut a molding that runs along the base of the dormer soffit. All of the units at the east elevation of the main house are configured in the typical manner described above. At the north end of the basement level, a rectangular unit lights the basement.
A pent stretches across the end wall at the north elevation of the main structure, extending the line of the fascia and gutter around to the rear (west) elevation. Two double-hung windows configured in the same manner as those at the east façade are situated approximately at the third points of the gable with their sills at the top of the pent. A smaller double-hung unit with equal and undivided upper and lower sash is situated nearer the westernmost of the two larger units. Below the pent, near the northeast corner of the main floor, two of the more typical double-hung units are paired; near the northwest corner a much smaller, but similarly configured double-hung unit is located. Two rectangular windows provide light to the basement, one toward each end of the wall.
The eave of the pent at the south elevation is continuous with the eave of a single story, hipped roof appendage, probably a sunroom, which is centered in the south wall of the main house. Two double hung windows are paired in the middle of the east elevation of this structure and a group of five double-hung units are ganged together in the middle of the south elevation. Although the west elevation is not visible from the street, it probably resembles the east elevation in its organization and fenestration. All of these windows utilize the sash and muntin configuration typical of the units at the main house. A chimney is centered in the south elevation of the main house above the appendage, and single fixed sash windows, lighting the south end of the upper floor and featuring the muntin configuration found in the upper sash at most of the other wall openings, are symmetrically placed to either side of the chimney. These fixed windows replace larger double-hung units similar to those at the north end of the structure.
The basement garage, entered through an overhead door at the south end of the basement level street elevation is an original component of the design, although an overhead door appears to have replaced the original swinging (and partially glazed) style and rail doors.
The entry stairs have been modified and the original masonry sidewalls, with their gently curving caps, appear to have been removed. As noted above, a new porch rail has been added, and two double-hung windows at the south end of the gambrel have been replaced (although this latter change appears to have occurred relatively early in the life of the structure). No other significant modifications are apparent. |
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