Tag: Greek Revival

The Sunday porch: Belvidere, Illinois

Cindy at enclos*ureLeave a comment

2 Palmer Hse., 1937, HABS, Library of CongressThe Palmer House, Belvidere, Illinois, 1937, by Joseph Hill for an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

1 Palmer Hse., 1937, HABS, Library of Congress

The HABS described the stone portion of the home — built in 1851 — as “severe Greek Revival” and then noted that the front porch was “ornamented with jig-saw wood pat[t]erns which distinguish the building.”

The house is still standing, although the porch has been rebuilt (at half size) as an enclosed porch.

You can see more Sunday porches here.

Another May

Cindy at enclos*ure2 Comments

Poem on window pane (detail), HABS, Library of Congress

Another May new buds new flowers
Ah why has happiness no second spring

Scratched into a sitting room window pane of Borough House, which was built between 1758 and 1821 in Sumter County, South Carolina.

The words (with slight variations) are from “Sonnet II” by Charlotte Smith  — whose poems were praised by her contemporaries Wordsworth and Coleridge.

I have not been able to find out who might have put them on the window.

Borough House, S.C., HABS, Library of CongressBorough House is architecturally noteworthy because it is partly constructed with rammed earth — an unusual building material in the United States.  (There is more about the house here.) It still stands today, in private ownership.

(I believe that the window with the poem is one of the two left of the front door.)

The photos here are part of an Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), May 1985, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.