WHEN QUEEN ANNE WAS KING

Tower at One Saint Mark's Place with stained-glass transoms.


TOWERS FOR ALL

According to A Field Guide to American Houses (Knopf, 1984), the Queen Anne style was introduced at Newport, Rhode Island in 1874. Its influence spread rapidly, and Queen Anne became one of the dominant styles of American residential architecture during the period 1880 to 1910.

Here on Staten Island, in the more well-to-do precincts of St. Pauls Avenue in Stapleton and Westervelt Avenue in St. George (then considered part of New Brighton), Queen Anne was the had-to-have exterior style.

While some of the decorative detailing of the houses at 57, 59 and 65 Westervelt Avenue has been obscured by inappropriate siding, the tower rooms and their finials survive.

59 Westervelt Avenue

57 Westervelt Avenue

This tower at 263 Hamilton Avenue (where Hamilton merges into Westervelt) indicates the importance of the Queen Anne style during the late19th and early 20th centuries in America, even in buildings as modest as this one (see below).

 







GIMME TOWER: 65 Westervelt, on the left, with its expansive circular bay, capped with a tower and truncated finial; and 263 Hamilton on the right, with its more modest, scaled-down version.

 

Comments

[Dan Icolari]

Well I'm delighted you feel ignored, passed over, left out. Actually, I have a facade shot of your house (sans tower) planned for a multi-installment piece I'm doing on St. George as an art neighborhood. But it's a photo of the Galerie St. George sign; the house is mere backdrop.

Still, because I feel a combination of honor and pride at your reaction--it means you read my blog, hey!--it will be my pleasure to include a properly reverential photo of The House At The End of Phelps Place very soon.

Thanks for the complimentary words of protest, Gary.

[Gary Brant]

Hey, where's our tower, what gives?!

Gary Brant in St. George