Carpenter Gothic

Old farmhouse on Main Street in Greenville. With Carpenter Gothic detailing. Check out the various trims, the window muntins (pane holders), and the board-and-batten siding.



Appalachian Buildings Photo Set

Hokes Mill Covered Bridge

I've seen at least three or four covered bridges in the area.

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Public Pool

I heard a rumor there was a public swimming pool in town. And after lunch today, I went and searched it out. Indeed, there is a public swimming pool in town. It's set a little high up, in a field on a gentle hill, with some of the small houses of town fringing the field.  You can see Main Street, a couple blocks away, and nature and far, wooded hills all around.

Eastern Light

I'm realizing now, I've never lived in a home with a primarily eastern exposure before. Every other apartment I've ever lived in, and there've been at least five, has faced west or north-and-south.

It's dawning (dawning!) on me that an eastern exposure may be the very best direction for temperate climates. With hot summers and cold winters. In summer, the home is in shade by noon and throughout the hottest part of the day. In winter, the sun warms the house in the morning, the coldest hours of daylight and when the occupants are starting their day. At night, the occupants are under blankets.

Plus those of us with something like seasonal affective disorder get a strong dose of sun first thing in the morning, to start our day.

Farmhouses

Two beautiful, old farmhouses along Forge Hill Road. I'm interested in these houses' orientation, perpendicular to the road, facing town. KH suggests the purpose of this orientation was to reduce the amount of dust from the road in the home. I like it aesthetically. The viewer has the best view of the house for the entire approach to it.

The grander, stone farmhouse, with big shade trees

The more modest, timber frame farmhouse, belonging to Glen Top Farm, overlooking a lovely valley pasture

The Honeycomb Home

American founding father Thomas Jefferson reportedly adored the octagon room shape. (See my Monticello post.) Personally, I see the appeal mostly in the softening of right-angle room corners. These corners might be used instead for built-in closets or cupboards, dumb waiters or laundry chutes, or fireplaces. —Though the triangle remainder footprints wouldn't be the most practical shape for most of these applications.

In addition, four more walls in a room provide four more focal points, for windows, light, and vistas and for wall hangings. With eight focal points, a room can have the feel of a pattern, which lends a sense of calm.

Octagon houses came into vogue in the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. Proponents of the octagon house appreciated that it was comparatively cheap to heat and to build. But to me, an octagonal house creates a poor floor plan, shimmed with harsh triangle rooms.

I'd much prefer another shape for rooms and houses. It may preserve many of the benefits of the octagon room and possibly of the octagon house. It would also introduce a wonderful modularity and the opportunity for iterative design and construction. I'm sure many before me have thought of it, but I'm coming up with it now myself: the honeycomb home, consisting of hexagon rooms. I like it!

Monticello

Visited Monticello today, the home of American founding father Thomas Jefferson, near Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Virginia. I like best, about Monticello, the feeling of its being a big sandbox in which to experiment. Here Jefferson played with: food, agriculture, architecture, technology, business, lifestyle, family, and community.

I particularly enjoyed the small scale of the house. Most rooms are about a hundred square feet in size, the main floor containing eleven rooms. Reportedly, Jefferson lived in this home with up to thirty family members and received so many guests here that 28 folding chairs were arranged daily in the entrance hall.

Compare the economy of scale of this American founding father's country home, with that of those of his royal European counterparts, say, of the Palace of Versailles. Or heck, compare Monticello with today's American McMansion. The latter is about four thousand square feet, intended for one family, which today averages 2.59 people.

Monticello

View of Virginia, southwest from Monticello

Visited Monticello today, the home of American founding father Thomas Jefferson, near Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Virginia. I like best, about Monticello, the feeling of its being a big sandbox in which to experiment. Here Jefferson played with: food, agriculture, architecture, technology, business, lifestyle, family, and community.

I particularly enjoyed the small scale of the house. Most rooms are about a hundred square feet in size, the main floor containing eleven rooms. Reportedly, Jefferson lived in this home with up to thirty family members and received so many guests here that 28 folding chairs were arranged daily in the entrance hall.

Compare the economy of scale of this American founding father's country home, with that of those of his royal European counterparts, say, of the Palace of Versailles. Or heck, compare Monticello with today's American McMansion. The latter is about four thousand square feet, intended for one family, which today averages 2.59 people.

The house at Monticello

I don't much care, aesthetically speaking, for the exterior of the house at Monticello. I'm not much on the Palladian designs of Neoclassical architecture, and I particularly dislike them in the red brick of which they are so often built in the northeastern United States, especially in the vicinity of Washington, D. C.

However, interiors at Monticello are nice. I love all the windows, triple hung right down to the floors, letting beautiful vistas in from all directions. The tea room, an elongated octagon, is nicest, and there is one perfect octagon room, a bedroom, on the first floor as well. (See my related Honeycomb Home post.)

Projects

Tooled today around two of the poorest tracts in NYC, one in Bed-Stuy, two conjoined in Brownsville. I'm thinking now about how and why project housing doesn't work and what should have been and/or could be done instead.

Architectural Walking Tour

Completed Greenport's self-guided "Historic Walking Tour" early this evening. A small-town tour, mostly architectural, with some notes on local citizens. A lot of Greek Revival and Italianate buildings, also a little Federal, vernacular, Victorian, and Queen Anne.

Nicely prepared tour pamphlet available in town at Floyd Memorial Library, http://floydmemoriallibrary.northfork.net.

Reeves-Reed Arboretum

An 11 1/2-acre "suburban conservancy," exceptionally well maintained. Designed by landscape architects Calvert Vaux (1824-95), of Central Park fame, and Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869-1950). Full of specimen plantings, half arboretum, the only arboretum in Union County, and half botanical and formal gardens.

The afternoon was dim and rainy, but the clouds lay high in the sky. A stately quiet permeated the grounds, and we met not one other mammal soul within it.

Nature Walk at Duke Farms

Headed over to Duke Farms, in Hillsborough, New Jersey, for their self-guided "Walk on the Wild Side" nature walk. It cost $5 per person and is the second of two tours at Duke Farms not worth the money (the other being the $15 "Country Manor Tour"). The short walk, with little actually demonstrated and shown, should be free or cost a suggested donation.

The stone irrigation poles in the abandoned tree nursery are interesting. The highlight of the walk, though, is the stone hay barn, gutted by fire, later repurposed to a sculpture garden. The stone, outer walls remain, climbed high by trumpet vines and open to the sky. Grass covers the ground, and ornamental small trees and shrubs line the inside perimeter, punctuated by a few stone sculptures of human forms. Half the sculptures are missing or badly broken. Nonetheless, this is indeed a magic little eerie, romantic, empty, secret garden of a space.

Rambling

Met new friend KH at the Oldwick General Store (my rating, 7/10) early this evening, in Oldwick, New Jersey, for juice followed by a little countryside rambling. Showed KH the good view from high up on Vliettown Road. Also "my" abandoned house (I'm fond of it).


There was something large shifting in the closet in the master bedroom. I think it was a human being. We didn't disturb it.

Waded a short ways up the Lamington (Black) River. The sky darkened, and it rained lightly the rest of the evening. We continued rambling on, through fields, woods, and rivers.

Bethlehem

Explored Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with former resident and new friend JS. I had no idea Bethlehem was so large and historic. It's a proper little city, with public transport and everything. Centered on the Lehigh River. Stopped in at the Moravian Book Shop, which, founded in 1745, touts itself as the oldest book shop in the world. Also at Central Moravian Church. And for tea and scones at Granny McCarthy's Tea Room (my rating, 4/10).

Ambled around JS's alma mater Lehigh University - beautiful campus - and happened upon a wedding in progress at the chapel (which is as big as a large church). JS recognized the playing of the organist as that of his own old organ teacher, Mr. CM. Stopped in later and chatted with Mr. CM. Ridiculously delightful man! He played us a piece and demonstrated all the different parts of the console for me. You thought it was difficult coordinating two hands playing piano? These guys coordinate two hands and two feet! There are so many foot pedals, they form a whole other keyboard!

Typical Greenpoint

My block, a typical one in Greenpoint, New York (Brooklyn). To like Greenpoint, you have to appreciate the patchwork charm of lower middle income, three-family homes covered in aluminum or vinyl siding: they're most of the neighborhood.

For more conventional charm, there is a small historic district and a few more elegant buildings, like this eight-family tenement facing McGolrick Park.

The more substantial buildings in Greenpoint are brick, almost always yellow brick (outside the small historic district). There are no stone homes, and even most of the churches are brick.

Church on Russell Street

Greenpoint, New York (Brooklyn) is the "Neighborhood of Churches" (also "Little Poland"). This church, tucked away on Russell Street facing McGolrick Park, is one of the quieter and lesser known, but also most beautiful. Apparently it has been the Church of the Messiah, for English-speaking Lutherans, since 1899.

Old Greenpoint Factory

On Noble Street at West Street