Other parts of this story: Part 1: Elements of Queen Anne houses | Part 3: A first-person account of restoring a Queen Anne.
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-- Photo: The Paint Quality Institute, "Prettiest Painted Places in America" contest. |
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The elaborate and fanciful Queen Anne style was popular in this country from 1880 to 1910. The style is characterized by an asymmetrical shape, towers, dormers, bay windows, and corbelled chimneys, irregular roof lines and rich ornamentation, including decorative wrap-around porches.
Queen Anne houses were often frame construction, but the elaborate home of Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute in Macon, Alabama was built of brick. "The Oaks" provided tangible evidence of Washington's success. The Queen Anne style red brick house, with steam heating and electricity, was the first of its kind in Macon County.
The Washingtons visited Europe the year construction began. The friezes in the parlor and library depict highlights of their trip. The house had a parlor, library, dining room, den, kitchen, family and guest rooms, breakfast room, five bathrooms, and veranda. The Oaks sat on three acres of gardens, orchards, and pastures.
It was a place of employment and an on-the-job training site for students. African-American educators, businessmen, and farmers were entertained there. Professional staff visited frequently. Faculty members often called on Sunday afternoons but Washington often "cloistered himself in his office on Sunday afternoons, while his wife Margaret was entertaining young faculty members in the parlor."
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(Click on any picture for a larger view.) |
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-- NPS Photos, Eric Long. |
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-- Sagamore Hill photos: Department of Historic Furnishings, NPS |
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The parlor was an important place in the house. The Washingtons entertained visitors to the school, faculty and students here. A pair of sliding doors separated the parlor from the library. Guests were entertained in the parlor where they were sometimes treated to music played by daughter Portia.
At night, after a full day's work, Washington returned to his home office. He often worked in his office until late in the evening. Emmett Scott, Washington's secretary, had a desk in the den. Politicians, journalists, and school trustees met with Washington in his den.
The dining room, like the other rooms in The Oaks, were intended to impress students but not overwhelm them. On a sideboard in the Dining Room was a bowl from which Principal Washington used to take a piece of hard candy.
The following pictures, from the Historic American Buildings Survey, are of 321 East Bolton Street, in Savannah, Georgia, an 1899 house described as the one remaining example in the city's Victorian district of an elaborate Queen Anne.
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(Click on any photo for a larger view.) | |
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| <- Part 1: Elements of Queen Anne style houses | |||
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