Narrative Description | Turn-of-the-Century Forms | Turn-of-the-Century Styles | Out-buildings | Non-Residential | Methodology

Antebellum Houses

The oldest house within the expansion area is the ca. 1793 Shirley-Armstrong House (#163). Although the one-and-a-half- story gable roof dwelling was originally finished with elements of the Federal style, it was relocated several hundred feet ca. 1920 and remodeled into the Colonial Revival style. The largest and most impressive houses of the antebellum houses is the ca. 1849 Charles-Hussey House (#103), a handsomely detailed example of the Greek Revival style. The double-pile center-hall-plan house features a monumental two-story Doric portico supported by fluted Doric pillars, and its exquisitely detailed entablature incorporating mutules, dentils, triglyphs, and guttae is a tour de force of an unrecorded craftsman; it is the most remarkable element of the Greek Revival vocabulary within the city. The entrance is surmounted by a raised central tablet that is taken from the popular designs of the Boston architect Asher Benjamin.

Narrative Description | Turn-of-the-Century Forms | Turn-of-the-Century Styles | Out-buildings | Non-Residential | Methodology