A house of symmetry, columns and dentil moulding in Lawrence
The 7th and 8th grade students at the Kane School are studying American history by learning about their own neighborhood. This house, just down the street from the school, is perfect for this. It shows the energy and confidence of the country and Lawrence, creating a new world, finding new ways.
This Colonial Revival house was built in 1900 for Jeremiah McCarthy, a liquor dealer. His renter at No. 54 was William Walsh, a librarian.
It is a wonderful house. There are so many details in this facade. Luckily they are anchored by the symmetry and the bulk of the main house. When it was built Americans had discovered their past and Colonial architecture. Here are colonial ideas of symmetry, columns with simple capitals and dentil moulding. (The simple little square blocks reminded someone of teeth, hence the name, dentils.)
But look how these colonial motifs are put together. The symmetrical front bay, attached to the center of the square house is more important visually than the house. The bay has angled windows on the first and second floors and then breaks through the roof line on the third to become a square gable with columns on the corners, and a triangle with a sunburst at the top. There are dentils everywhere and never just one column where there is space for two. Add the stained glass, the bay to the south, the varied windows, and the porches, and you have a house much more connected to exuberant Victorian life than the simple forms used at the time of the American Revolution.
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