NINETEENTH CENTURY HOUSE

 

MT. CARMEL SOUTH CAROLINA

 

I use the title "Nineteenth Century House" because I have a bit of a problem with the age of this structure. As mentioned elsewhere in this blog, Mt. Carmel is supposed to date from the later part of the nineteenth century, but this house has several features that hark back to the Federal era (1803-1845 or thereabouts), so I have hard time dating it.

Mt Carmel's heyday was in the late 19th century, but that doesn't mean their architecture can't be from an earlier period.

And truth be told, the house has several iconic architectural features from the late 1800s, such as the hip roof on a 2-story vertically-aligned structure and a small dormer in the middle of the roof facing the street. And even the hip roof deal is twenty years in the future. From that point, things get a bit muddier.

The symmetry of the window placement can be attributed to Georgian, Federal, or Colonial Revival styles. But there are some giveaways that take my opinions back a few years.

The exterior window treatments, especially at the tops of said windows, are as Classical as can be.

The front door, though as Victorian as can be (what with the multicolored square glass surrounding an oblong clear glass panel, and who is this "Canby" everybody's talking about, nevermind the tippo of the old hat to Norton Juster), seems a bit later than the Federal-style transom and sidelights. These were the signature feature of a Federal-era entry, but that style did persist into the late Victorian era. The door is pure Late Victorian.
 

So how old is it? According to the locals, it's from the late nineteenth century.

That's good enough for me.

I do like the fact that the shutters on the second floor have been closed, hopefully to preserve the windows or the finishes inside.

It really is a grand house, and if I owned it, the porch would be my living room.

The Ionic column capital, though, seems to be trying to ascend to Corinthian.
 

Or so it seems to me.