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.

MONTEAGLE SUNDAY SCHOOL ASSEMBLY

MONTEAGLE, TENNESSEE

 

Back in the Goodle Days, we used to drive slow. We'd sleep with the windows open and we'd spend a good deal of time on our front porches. We knew all our neighbors and hung out with them, even to the extent of watching each other's kids, having neighborhood cookouts, and attending concerts in the park with them.

Then came TeeVee and we retreated into our rooms.

Not so at the Monteagle Assembly. Here, the neighborhood still comes together.

 

Located about forty miles northwest of Chattanooga Tennessee, the town of Monteagle is aptly named, as it sits atop Monteagle Mountain almost a thousand feet higher than the river below. This is the top of the Cumberland Plateau, a table land of flat sandstone capping the very porous limestone below; this geological relationship causes water to flow off the sandstone to create extremely vertical cave systems below. But it is what is on top of the mountain that tweaks the architectural eye.

The Assembly is a Chautauqua, a planned community popular in the late 1880s and early 1900s, particularly in New York state. These communities were an offshoot of the independent adult education movement that came from newly discovered 'leisure time' never available before the Industrial Revolution. Sure, slum children were chained to tables fourteen hours a day, but a certain layer of society could gather at these retreats to get away from being near all that.

Chatauquas were also a return to closer community living, which was being threatened by the same Industrial Revolution that gave them that leisure time. They were a summertime retreat from the crowded cities, and, usually located on forested mountain tops, the architecture of the individual homes often opened them to the cool evenings the cities lacked. Thus the expansive porches.

And because of their Adirondack roots, Chatauqua architecture tends towards the massive timbers and thick walls of those homes that came from the colder climes of Northern New York. Big porches, trees for columns, and colored lights that might or might not have discouraged the local Adirondack mosquitoes, often as big as small Cessna aircraft.

These offered not only a community gathering place removed from the hustle of the cities, but a learning experience as well. Courses in theology (the first Chatauquas were begun by the Methodists), philosophy, history, semantics, and other liberal arts were offered to the small residential congregations (for that's pretty much what they were). But they grew and blossomed as most good works do.

Soon the classes turned towards art and more classical studies such as drama, and before long, plays were being performed, gallery walks bloomed, and people started to think about what else they could teach and learn. The Chatauquas became a hotbed of progressive thinking that was shared, absorbed, and brought back to the teeming cities. Then the real work began to make a better society for everyone.

And this is where we stand today.

Monteagle Assembly is one of the few Chatauquas in the south, and the fact that Al Capone built a house just outside its borders tells you that it must be in a fine location indeed. Hard to find even if you know the area, The Assembly is purposefully kept away from the public eye. The residents are a mix of a few year-round denizens and the Summer Folk that come for a few weeks or months from their homes elsewhere.

But make no mistake; being a member of a Chatauqua is a serious commitment.

There are stringent architectural guidelines controlling just what you can and cannot do to your property (they are almost all historic, as is the entire Assembly), there is an expectation of your interaction with the community (they'd rather you didn't just participate in but INITIATED programs), and you don't own the land upon which your house sits. You RENT the land even if you own the house.

It's a serious commitment, but from what I've seen, it's a great commitment.

 

There is a community dining room.

 

 

There are great swaths of greensward (can I say that?) where the water runs off the mountain. Kids play there without supervision, as they should be able to everywhere. But this place is safe.

 

 

There is a community performance hall for big shows.

 

There are small bandstands for more intimate performances.

 

 

These are often on the edge of the fine parks in the center of the community.

 

There are beautiful, well-kept homes with much more lawn than suburbia would dictate anyone could normally use.

 

          And some with virtually no lawn at all.

 

There are older homes with quaint names like "Camelot."

 

 

Even the newer homes (there are very few of these) are designed to blend nicely with the older buildings.

 

 

There is a fine bed and breakfast called The Edgeworth Inn that is the only lodging within the community, and you will be treated very well indeed. Be prepared for fog.

 

 I told you to be prepared for fog.

 

 

 There is a fine university just down the road in the sort-of town of Sewanee. Called The University of the South, it is worth a trip of its own.

 

 

There are no stores inside the Assembly. The entire thing is surrounded by a tall chain-link fence that has been overgrown with trees and bushes. The community isn't easy to find even if you are looking for it. It took me years to find, and I was there annually.

 

There is a fine restaurant just outside the Assembly. One of Al Capone's summer retreats, High Point will treat you to a wonderful meal, great service, and cozy atmosphere. Reservations are recommended.

 

 

It is a gated community, and when in full session, there is a guard at the gate. That doesn't mean you can't come in.

 

 

There are quaint, curved streets with hand-laid stone gutters. The streets are gravel and asphalt, and are well maintained.

 

 

The speed limit is 14 miles an hour. The locals will bother you if you exceed it. First they will frown, then they will point. Then the local constabulary will visit with you about slowing down.

 

 

But you should do it anyway. There is so much to see and appreciate.

 

 

 

 

CHURCHES IN MT. CARMEL SOUTH CAROLINA

Mt. Carmel, though mostly abandoned, has a number of well-preserved churches, and though I'm sure they are of different denominations, I won't be mentioning them here. Suffice it to say they are all Christian churches.

 

The first is a tall Classical Revival church with arched windows on the side and peaked windows on the front. It is quite heaven-oriented, what with its tall ceiling and skyward-stretching lines. The glass is highly convoluted, making me believe the church may be older than the town proper, which was fully populated in the late 1880s. This structure has some elements that hint at the mid 1800s.

 

This next church has several details I like, but it is apparent that it hasn't been used as a church in some time (like the others were). At the right of the picture is an attached steel shed that is presently used to store large equipment, but some elements jump out to tweak the observer right on the nose. The chimney on the left side of the building is a simple single stack that likely vented a wood or possibly a coal stove situated about three quarters of the way from the back to the front of the church. That way the preacher and the first few aisles of the congregation could keep somewhat warm in the winter months (to hell with those in the back). I especially like the doors at the front with their Palladian transom and arched panels, but it's the exquisite trim mouldings that really make the door stand out. Some pieces are missing, but their depth, contour and stand-out ZZZZAAPP! just takes the eye and holds it. It did to both of mine, in fact.

 

I also like the huge hasp and the ancient padlock that proves how long this church has been unoccupied (uncongressed?).
 

 

The thing must be petrified with paint. In addition, the shutters on the windows seem superfluous. They face north, so they aren't there to protect the interior from the sun, and their hinges are of many different sizes, making me wonder just how often they were used. But a lot of work went into their fabrication, so they weren't an afterthought.

 

Finally, I present the Church on the Green. Mt. Carmel has a huge multi-triangular green that has probably seen some picnics and parades in its life, but is just a crossroads now. What I wouldn't give to run a metal detector there. At its west end stands this church. I present it to you now.

 

The lines are turn-of-the-century late Victorian, but it has several Vestiges that scream out to me. The corners and door treatments are right out of the Classical school, with Doric pilasters and triangular pediments yelling out for Greece to come and claim them. Just what is behind the side doors in the entry vestibule, I don't know, and I should, as one of the doors was open. I probably looked inside but was so overwhelmed that I don't remember. Closets, I think.

I especially like the gingerbread in the arch; several pieces are broken, but a lot of work went into fabricating and placing it there. It also seems to buck the austerity the rest of the building exudes, as if to say that there is more to this place than just rules and angles of approach. There is a touch of curvilinear jocularity.

 

Just don't tell the preacher.

My favorite features of the building are on the roof.

One IS the roof.

 

 

The roofing is composed of terne metal that likely took weeks to install. Each flat panel was crimped carefully into the run below it to create a waterproof surface, and each side overlapped the raised 'v' of the other piece which made an interlocking surface, and these were crimped as well. This is before the soldering of any edges, of course. If you consider that "terne" is a basic sheet steel that is hot-dipped into molten zinc, then crimped into place, you might get the idea that this stuff stands up pretty well to the weather and the years. You'd be right. Just look at how little paint still adheres to this roof. Yet it doesn't leak.

But I said "features" which means there is more than one.

The ladder is not one I would care to climb. Permanently installed to (I guess) access the now-missing chimney (a ridge patch to the right shows where it was), which would occasionally spring a leak, this has likely remained unclimbed for many decades.

Good thing.

OLD STORE, MT.CARMEL SOUTH CAROLINA

 

Mt. Carmel is one of those towns that most people pass at fifty miles an hour, and thirty seconds later someone says, "Did you see that town?"

If the State Patrol was there, you'll know JUST where you wuz.

The speed limit is less than thirty, so slow down a bit and you might see something from a hundred years ago.

Get out and wander about and you will have entered a time warp.

The entire town is still there, from the furniture store to the ruins of the bank to the Grande Dames of the Antebellum. There are at least three churches, and none of them has seen a service for many years, possibly decades. Most of the buildings are uninhabited.

But they are also preserved. With their grounds often intact.

The layout of the entire town is almost just as it was at the turn of the nineteenth century.

SOMEBODY'S looking after it. Apparently a bunch of somebodies.

I'll be featuring this little burg in my next few installments. I already featured a few choice chimneys from there back a while ago.

So if you're ever tooling along the Savannah River in McCormick County, slow down and look around, because Mt. Carmel disappears awfully fast.

Saints preserve us and say it ain't so.

 

I was immediately drawn to the shutters. Likely hand-planed from local longleaf pine, they are fast and solid. The design is austere, but a faint pride of workmanship seems to flow from them. It was only faint because there was more work to do.

 

But the doors grabbed me and held me the way certain Vestiges do.

 

They have seen many successions of locks and handles, as evidenced by the round escutcheon (now empty of spindle and knobs) and by several holes that hint at a long-gone mortise lock. A closer exam of the latest padlock and hasp, partway up the meeting stile, shows that this door isn't even locked in the proper sense; the hasp is only attached to the door without the T-astragal and the screws are missing from the static door. If either of these doors were ever static, being in a store. In fact, the only thing keeping the doors together is the short hank of clothesline looped through one of the holes in each door and tied together in front.

The same lighthanded but striking workmanship can be seen in the lower panels of the doors that can be seen in the shutters; probably the same craftsman. But it is the upper panels that really catch my eye.

There are surface-mounted planks covering what was once possibly glass but more likely screen (which can be seen on the left panel sticking out behind the wood). The tops of these planks are fastened to the door with small tongues of steel shoved through loops of the same metal fastened to the upper rail.

 

It looks like these were not created when the store was closed up, but were likely put in place every night while it was in operation.

What I REALLY like about the panels is that they appear to be made of extremely wide wood. Still very thin (around a quarter inch), but wide as the Savannah. The cracks in them are curved and follow the grain of the wood, proving they are not laminated from smaller pieces.

The small sign at the right says "KINDLY USE THE TRASH CAN."

I like the word "kindly." I think it should be used more often.

I can almost hear the friendly arguments of the benchsitters outside while the sudden sound of the flyswatter slaps the front counter inside.

The screen door slams.

 

WOOD TRANSOM DOORS

ANDERSON SOUTH CAROLINA

Anderson, South Carolina is a beautiful upstate city with one of those rare gems of small-town America; a Carnegie Library.

Andrew Carnegie donated a slew of these opulent structures to lucky communities throughout the country in the later years of his life, and their architecture is varied and rich.

What caught my eye about this particular building was the front doors. They seemed overly tall for the building....

But upon closer examination, I saw the transom doors, separate entities of their larger twins below. I didn't get a chance to see them from the inside, so I have no idea if there are actual glass transoms behind them.

 

They are the only wood transom doors I've ever seen.

 

 

BAY WINDOWS, CENTRAL AVENUE HISTORIC DISTRICT, HOT SPRINGS ARKANSAS

 

One of my pet peeves in the preservation business is seeing boarded-up windows that seem to scream "NOBODY CARES HOW THIS BULDING LOOKS!"

I can't tell you how many second story windows above active storefronts have been outfitted thusly when all it takes is a little imagination to disguise the fact that the second story is empty. Unpainted cinder block looks even worse.

                                     Cinder-blocked windows, Morrilton Arkansas

 

 

This set of beautiful bay windows can be seen across the street from the Arlington Hotel on Central Avenue in Hot Springs. They look perfectly functional until you see that the glass has been painted to hide the empty interior. Where window sashes are entirely missing, plywood can be installed and painted with one color representing the wood sash and another, usually gray or black, as the glass.

I am, of course, only guessing that the upstairs is empty. Many of the upper stories along this street are empty lofts, but who knows what folks might be doing up there?



STRANGE DORMER AND CHIMNEY

2200 BLOCK OF LOUISIANA STREET, LITTLE ROCK

 

The question is "WHY?"

Did the dormer come first, then they decided to put a much-needed extra chimney in the very place the dormer was built?

Or did the chimney come first and when they added a dormer in front, they decided it looked lopsided and built one around the chimney to help balance the house.

Either way, I doubt anyone can see much out that window.

STONE FENCES, NORTH STONINGTON CONNECTICUT

Running along many rural roads of New England, stone fences are a ubiquitous part of the architectural landscape. Most folks, including ancient locals, refer to these as 'walls,' but they are quite wrong in their terminology.

A wall is built to keep things out; a fence keeps them in.

And though these fences do both, they were originally built to keep livestock from wandering onto the neighboring farm, where they might be claimed. Ben Franklin said "Good fences make good neighbors." It was these to which he was referring.

New England is underlain with granite, schist, gneiss, marble, slate, and all manner of hard rocks that seem to surface every year in plowed fields. The farmer of yesteryear (it's true today as well) knew that before the ground thawed but the field was snow-free enough to locate the stones, he and his hands would begin the yearly task of removing those that surfaced during the freeze/thaw cycle of winter. They loaded them on wide, heavy, low sleds and used the ice-slick ground to transport them with a minimum of friction and effort to the borders of those fields.

It was a hell of a lot easier to drag those sleds to the edge of the field than to a single point elsewhere, so the borders of those fields were demarcated with runs of stone, killing two birds with one stone (well, lots of them, actually). Unknown to most alive today, those fences were often topped with split wood rails to keep anything from jumping them. All wood has since rotted away, but the stones remain as a testament to past farmers' efforts to keep their fields clear.

Some are haphazard, laid with the clearing of the field in mind. Some are carefully constructed from selected sizes and contours to create an artistic, efficient design to please the eye.

 

And if you look carefully, you'll sometimes find fine veins of large crystals running through them. Known as 'pegmatite,' this is where gas bubbles in the molten granite allowed for larger crystal growth into the voids created by the gas. It cooled quicker, causing the crystals to grow in size.

 

Occasionally, road work or neglect or erosion brings these walls down.

Then professional fence builders (masons to you and me, but a special breed of them) are called in.

No stone sleds are needed today; track hoes outfitted with lobster claws make the job much easier.

                 David Higginbotham and his excellent helper rebuilding an ancient stone fence

 

 It is a matter of both physics and personal choice as to how to rebuild them, and common knowledge has the largest on the bottom, the medium sizes getting smaller towards the top, and the longest used as capstones to prevent as much erosion as possible. Then smaller pieces are used as chinking in the voids between the larger stones.