This photo was shot almost four years ago, so, who knows, maybe the outdoor museum “powers that be” here have re-thought their interpretation/restoration/use of an 18th century log building in the 21st century…or maybe not.
For the uninformed: no, window air conditioner units were not around in the late 1700s.
in Morristown. At least, my guess is that it functioned as a spring house. Maybe you have a better idea about the function of this outbuilding.
Looking at the image again, maybe there isn’t any water on the property. At least, it doesn’t look like there’s any water leading into or out of the little outbuilding. Anyway, I love it first of all because it’s a Greek Revival outbuilding. The entablature, the cornice returns, six over six window, it all says Greek Revival to me. Anything could be built in Greek Revival style when it was all the rage from 1815 until about 1865: from the Second Bank of the US to a spring house in rural southeastern Ohio. It was truly an architectural style of equality.
But I also like it because of the tree and the uniqueness of it all. And, like any good preservationist, I cringe to see this, because plants & trees & such growing out of buildings represent the ultimate in owner disinterest, a belief in regular maintenance, etc).
Given the constraints of 940×198 pixels, I didn’t think it would be soooo difficult to come up with a good header image…but there were a lot of images I liked that I had to pass on, because the essence of the image doesn’t come through in the space.
There was the Adena image from the spring of 2008 (Adena being the home of Thomas Worthington, located just outside of Chillicothe, and one of precious few remaining Latrobe designed residences left in the US)…
not considering myself too artistic I was especially proud of the composition, the gnarled, twisted branches of the tree framing the mansion quite well. However, shrunken to 198 pixels, the sense of connection between the tree and the house, as both relate to the image, is lost.
Then there’s this image from Morristown, Belmont County, of a great Italianate residence…
I’ve always had a covetous eye on this home and sometimes fantasized about buying it, fixing it up, and living in it. It’s on a lovely rolling lot, with water (I think…on the lot, that is, I’m pretty sure the house also boasts running water) and at least one historic outbuilding (a spring house on the aforementioned water with a tree growing out of it). Unfortunately, cropped to 198 pixels in height, too much of the home’s architectural detail and elegance is lost. So, no to the Morristown house.
I ended up settling (ugh, settling…probably not the correct word) on this streetscape of worker housing located in Haydenville, a tiny village built up around a masonry block business just north of Athens.
I do like the Haydenville homes because of what they represent. They are National Register-listed resources, and reinforce the notion that places worthy of our attention and preservation aren’t just the residences of former presidents, the monuments of Washington DC, or the works of singular architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright. Understanding our history, who we are today, and the roots we’ve created and nurtured, relies just as much as what we learn from the Haydenville homes, as what we can learn from Adena or Monticell0.
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