Architectural Styles

 
By David Booker

We now begin a new feature in Old North News, called "Architectural Styles."  In each installment of this article, we will talk briefly about one style of home in Old North Knoxville.  Where possible, we will list at least one example of the style discussed.  Please keep in mind that while we try to be accurate in our descriptions, no description can be complete.  Consider this a brief introduction, a point to get you started.  Web sites, bookstores, and the local library are excellent places to continue your search for more information on the styles discussed here.

In this installment, we will list some of the features of the Queen Anne or more correctly, the Victorian Queen Anne style.

Ever wonder how some things get their names?  For example, hot dog?  Or vacuum cleaner?  After all, does it really clean a vacuum?  How about a style of house that has nothing to do with the person it is named after?

Well, a Victorian Queen Anne home is named after an English queen who ruled form 1702 to 1714, the early 18th century.  However, the Victorian home was not "invented" until the 19th century and was actually popularized by an architect by the name of Richard Norman Shaw.  In fact, the first American example of Queen Anne style is believed to be the Watts-Sherman house in Newport, Rhode Island, built in 1874, the last quarter of the 19th century.  To further add to the confusion, there is a classic Queen Anne style home, dating form the 18th century, but we are not likely to find any examples of it in Old North Knoxville, we we won't dwell on that.

The expanding railroads of the 1880s, a growing middle-class population fueling the growth of cities and towns, architectural pattern books, and pre-cut architectural details made this style more readily available across the U.S.  Because of these developments, the Queen Anne style contains a wide range of architectural elements.

Some of these architectural elements include:

  • Large porches with turned wood columns that can include trim of intricately sawn wood,
  • Floor plans that tended to be irregular, but many with a central hallway based on the Elizabethan great hall concept,
  • High-pitched roofs that can be covered with colored slated shingles, or even terra cotta tiles,
  • Angled prowl over the main portion of the house evocative of towers - some more elaborate examples have towers as part of their construction,
  • Gable ends with wood shingles in ornamental diamond, fish scale, or square pattern,
  • Leaded or stained glass windows, including large central-pane windows surrounded by small square stained glass windows,
  • Sidelights and transom windows,
  • Ornate attic vents, and
  • Unusually large windows in the living room or master bedroom.

This style was popular from the late 19th century into the early 20th century.  Examples of this style exist at 124 Scott and the house on the corner of East Scott and Cornelia.

The Parks home on east Scott is an excellent example of the Victorian Queen Anne style.

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