10/24/2015
The following is a Master's Thesis on The Langdon House, gothic-revival built in 1855 in Cincinnati, Ohio's historic Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood. Please excuse any typos, etc. as this was scanned in and I used OCR on it.
The Langdon House, built facing Eastern Avenue in the Columbia-Tusculum section of Cincinnati in 1855, is an example of Gothic Revival pattern-book architecture and was the first private residence in the city to receive historical designation under the National Registrar process.1 It reflects the influence of Andrew Jackson Downing's work on the architecture of country houses and stands as testament to the pervasive influence of John Ruskin.
At the time of application, the Miami Purchase Association actually owned the structure. In the brief papers of application prepared by then MPA director R.Daniel Reif in 1968, the building's ornamented style was referred to as "steamboat gothic.” The verge boards or bargeboards that once trimmed the second-story central gable give evident reason for that designation in period photographs. The ornamentation rose steeply under the eaves in a series of S-curves broken by an outline of darts, giving the effect of fern- forms. Unfortunately, the boards were removed when the building stood vacant, and according to current accounts of the situation, were lost in storage.
The land on which the house stands was bought in 1854 by Dr.Wesley P.Elstner from George w.Holmes, and the structure was completed in 1855. Dr.Henry Archer Langdon, who served with Sherman in the Georgia campaign, mustered out of the 79th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, in 1 865 at the age of 26 and joined Elstner in practice. The following year Elstner retired and sold his house to Langdon for about $8,000.
Langdon married Emeline Corbly in 1867. They had five children of whom all but the youngest died in an outbreak of diptheria, along with Emeline, in 1874. Langdon remarried in 1875 and died in 1876 at the age of 37 of a brain hemorrhage. The house continued to remain in the Langdon family by various means until 1956, then passed through two other owners to the MPA in 1966. The original office of the doctors, a small outbuilding in front of the main house, was removed and re stored as part of the Sharon Woods Village historical village, preserving the artifacts of a nineteenth century physician.3
The Langdon House is wood frame with vertical boards and batten siding, detailed to emphasize the height of the building. The current owners, in an attempt to follow the principles of Downing, have painted the exterior two shades of "fawn," light and darker browns.
Downing, a landscape gardener and evangelist of the American Gothic movement, wrote his work on the architecture of country houses in a language reminiscent of the movement's patriarch, John Ruskin. Rather than celebrate the victory of man over his environment, Downing urged his adherents to work with the lines and concerns of the natural. - Americans used the Gothic influence to allow themselves fanciful decorative embellishments and to assert a character removed from the conventional and mundane. The houses would be harmonious with nature and would place more emphasis on the com fort of the interior than on the facade.4
Because of its pitched roof, the Langdon House is properly in harmony with the large black walnut trees that stand before the south elevation, the eaves vaulting as the limbs of the tree, a notion of continuity with nature evident at least as far back as Leonardo 's decoration of the vaults of the Sala dalle Asse in Milan. The house was not intended to sit on its purchase of hill as the Greek Revival house did, a white temple consecrated to man 's victory and success. Early photographs indicate that the divided brick path that approaches the house from the avenue below was once planted with a thick bed of bearded iris that was more pleasing than formal, an aspect that perhaps would have metwith Downing's approval.
Such an aspect of harmony with the surroundings would have an additional psychological benefit in that it would appear, because of the settled appearance of the house in the landscape, that the residence had been long established. That effect would be the result of plantings and their benign neglect, allowing natural growth to soften the edges of the structure and give it the appearance of a more solid footing in history. Such notions were in harmony with the romantic novels and ballads of the period. Their influence was pervasive in America. Even the struggling Cincinnati painter Robert Duncanson, imbued with the romances of Sir Walter Scott, undertook a series of paintings influenced by the novels. As a mid-century cultural center, the Gothic influence came quickly to the region.5
But Downing based his work on the notion of the useful, and connected the nature of shelter with the mechanical principles of building to make the understructure of architecture. In a sense, he fuses the technical skills of what Morris had termed the "lesser arts" with the "greater art" of architecture in a typically pragmatic, quite American vision that dovetailed neatly with Morris' concerns.6
Downing considers the principles of artisanship and connects the goal of utility to the practical aspect of afford ability. He proposes a practical understanding of the intention of the structure and the costs likely to be incurred as a necessary initial step in a building project. He ties that concern to the quality of workmanship and material that should be integrated from the outset in the building of simple housing or grander structure. He considers that if walls are not perpendicular, roofs not sealed, chimney faulty, foundation infirm, gravity and atmosphere will destroy the utility of the building, violating first principles.
The Langdon House required much renovation, but that it still stood after years of neglect during a period when it was occupied as a tenement suggests adherence to first principles. The basement itself is solidly paved with brick,and seems a marvel of solidity and firmness. The stone walls of the foundation have been covered with cement, but are sound and the basement is dry.
Perhaps due to some natural effect of a fifty-foot cistern below what would at one time have been the summer kitchen, the floor had to be replaced in that section. The room it self seems to have been an integral part of the original structure. From the north or rear elevation, a door appears to hang in the siding midway toward the second floor, and would have been reached by an external stairway allowing access to the rear rooms of the house's second floor without passing through any of the common or service rooms of the first. The floors in the remainder of the house are narrow hardwood and were refreshed by sanding, according to the Keily notes on restoration. The boards are noticeably well fitted, and although there is some sloping due to settling, there is little creaking or give under foot. The Keily restoration also involved the removal of layers of wallpaper and so on, but the original lath and plaster walls are solid. Similarly, well built are the formal windows that face the avenue on the first floor. They begin at the floor to rise impressively to about nine feet, not including the molding. They slide easily in their sashes.
Care to the comfort of the resident is obvious in the Langdon House. The many windows provide an opportunity for air circulation, and at a time when the staircase was open and the central hall of the first floor was open from the front porch to the back porch, the house must have responded to breezes off the river to the south.
A sitting room and parlor give off the central hall on either side, and although access to the stairs has been made private by the installation of double. doors that fill the wide passage, and a closet blocks the hall towards the back, the front and rear porch doors are quite similar, wide, with panels of glass and transoms above. The fenestration was designed for both formality and practicality. As the front and rear parlor windows are tucked far beneath the roof overhang, because of the porches, the long high windows allow light to pe*****te the rooms so affected. The side windows are more conventional, mullioned sash windows, some six-plus-six, others, as in the library, six below with nine lights above.
The small library, now used as a dining room, is fifteen by ten feet and admits light from two walls. The far window wall on the west side is broken into three planes by the addition of a closet in the right corner of this room and the corresponding corner in the room adjacent. The Italianate house on the next lot - the Langdon property the larger of the two copious allocations - includes a room for dining similarly cut by closets for china, but in all ·four corners. The doors are rounded, concave, and the room takes on the illusion of being .oval. I designate the Langdon room as library for such rooms figure often in the pattern books and are so called, but intended to be adapted and used for the needs of the inhabitant. Perhaps in some way akin to that adaptability, the Langdon House has been made into two apartments, up and down, with at least some degree of success.
The moldings on the doors and windows are similar on the interior and exterior, pediments bordered in various degrees of detail with moldings that form a sort of ribbon pattern and drape from the pediment down the sides of door or window. such pediments in the rear hallway are unornamented, and those over the doors and windows that are detailed are only modestly so in less prominently visible areas, as the rear porch. The three columns of the rear porch, in contrast to the stylized Gothic columns of the front but in keeping with the ribbon-drape moldings, are Tuscan-like, with simple capital, shaft and base. The present fireplace in the first floor parlor duplicates the more ornate classical molding, but is clearly not original.
The rooms of the second floor are articulated much the same as those of the first, but would have been intended primarily as bedrooms. The central room sits above the first floor hallway and commands a view that at one time may have given on to the river. It extends over the sitting room as well, and is an ample 14 by 20 feet. The narrow arch evident in the window treatment, doubled and then crowned by a rounded arch above on the exterior is thematic to the room which is distinguished by a vaulted ceiling fully 1 8 feet high. A small antechamber on the east side of the room repeats that arc in something smaller than a closet, larger than a niche. That arch treatment is like wise evident on the columns that support the front porch.
At one time the residents apparently took advantage of the flat porch roof as an open gallery. Early photographs indicate a simple cross-barred railing that enclosed the area from either side of the gable to the front of the roof line. Because of the height of the lower sashed window, access would not have been difficult. The windows, as those in the parlor below, are nearly nine feet high.7
This emphasis on utility and comfort seems a primary feature of the house. That the structure breaks from the traditions of the Greek Revival includes in in the liberating development of architecture in America that has been considered the beginnings of modern architecture. The house is not best viewed, . contrary to classical architecture, from a fixed viewpoint to take advantage of manipulations of perspective. It is instead "picturesque," taking advantage of the natural surroundings. As Roger Kennedy points out in his work on the houses of Minnesota, such houses are "•••good houses to walk around, to view at different times of day and year. Inside, they have a happy, hide-and-seek quality of surprise."8 Except for the great gnarled walnut trees separating the house from the avenue, however, the Langdon House is in need of landscaping that will again soften the center-gabled massiveness of the structure.
Downing connects the useful with the beautiful in his writings on architecture. He allies the notion of the beautiful to natural instinct and sentiment, an ennobling of the heart. He allows the desire for the beautiful to coexist with the useful as an acknowledgment of sentiment which is next to the religious, the best part of our nature. As the beautiful relates to architecture, Downing refers to Ruskin and the desire for proportion, the relationship of the various parts of a structure to the whole.
Downing connects the beautiful to the mass of the building, harmonious, suitable, appropriate. Although the very real massiveness of the Langdon House seems excessive in its cur rent rather barren manifestation, it is clear from a view of the blueprints that there is a simplicity, not quite balanced, that is the source of the appeal of the house, part of its beauty. It is symmetrical, as Downing would have it: "In Architecture, it [symmetry]is the arrangement on each side of a Centre, of two parts that balance each other, and that do not make a whole without this Centre. Hence, the superior effect of a building which is a plain cube with a wing on each side, over a cube without wings. The wings raise the character of the form from uniformity to symmetry."9 Similarly, harmony is essential for the effective realization of the Downing principle. He calls for that harmony as a blending of the elements of structure and landscape, but he allows that it is only possible in "buildings of considerable extent," where there is enough variety of shape and form to allow the harmonious to come into play. Elements of the Langdon House are therefore harmonious, although the house is not such a large one. The elements of arch to pediment door, or ornamented window frame to square fenestration, the articulation of rooms variously sized placed along the central hallway allows such play. The repetition of otherwise discordant motifs constitute the desired effect. Downing feels that in domestic architecture that purpose is best achieved on the interior because of the ordering of the rooms, their shapes and decorations. Downing concludes that "•••proportion and symmetry are the proper source of beauty in a cottage of small size, and that we should look for variety and harmony only in private dwellings of a larger size, where there is opportunity for the production of these elements.10
He concerns himself with the components of the structure and bases choice of materials on a foundation of economic reason. Thus the choice of wood is appropriate to the building of a cottage. Introducing the value of board-and-batten covering employed in the Langdon House, Downing endorses its verticality because it is durable, true and strong as it relates to the underframing of the house. As a bold manner of construction, he feels it best enhances the picturesque nature of such a cottage. In passing, Downing allows that the "freestone" of Connecticut and New Jersey and the grey sandstone of Cincinnati are desirable for their mellow appearance and ease of working, but considers stone housing prone to dampness 11
In its symmetry, the Langdon House corresponds to some extent to Downing's Symmetrical Bracketed Cottage, Design III, and Design IX, Symmetrical, Bracketed Cottage with Veranda. In addition, it bears similarity to several of the farm houses and country villas, particularly in the attention to the inventions of the second story, with its vaulted central room, niche, and access to gallery.12
The Langdon House in its Downing-principled simplicity. and charm, heeds to some extent Ruskin's call for common sense in architecture. c.w.Elliott 's work on cottages pro- vides a period fantasy on the structure of Downing's frame work, likewise calling for the comfort and practicality of the interior to guide the building. Charles P.Dwyer•s work on economic cottage building reached the same market, dedicated to "The toiling millions, whose means are small, yet whose desires are great to possess a home, where industry and contentment shall be household gods, and independence al lied with happiness.13
Isaac Hobbs, in his work on villas and cottages, shows a similar interest, but goes further in offering a mélange of exteriors as though\ they were costumes to be traded with passing fashion, an imposition often made on existing structures during this period to hide the no longer desirable Greek Revival appearance, substituting Norman, Italianate and Gothic ward robes for the period, as later fashion and economy would subject the Downing villa to similar mistreatment.
The Langdon House was built in line with Downing 's call for moderation in the bargeboards and gables, and in keeping with his sensibility of floor plan which protects the "dignity and privacy" of the inhabitants.
American Gothic Revival was the result of two influences, the work of the architect and the work of the carpenters who carried out and altered the patterns of the architect to suit. Although the pattern books contained guidelines, suggestions and renderings, they usually did not provide detailed plans, and so the builder was very much a participant in the event of construction and design.
The McArdles refer to a number of examples in their work on the houses of New England. They conclude that in. its individuality of detail and workmanship, the so-called. Carpenter Gothic offers superb examples of American craftsmanship, in keeping with the tenets of Ruskin and Morris. They remark a combination of skills of the American craftsman and the beginnings of a new technology .14
The remaining cottages and villas, like the Langdon House, offer monument and testimony to the anonymous builders of a less-structured time. 16
1. The Miami Purchase Association courteously permitted me the use of their archives. The historical background pre sented in this study comes in part from that access.
2. Mark Keily, current owner of the Langdon House, has provided me with additional in-depth material including old photographs and recent blueprints of the structure. His enthusiasm and that of his wife Sandy essentially saved the Langdon House from disrepair and restored it to habitability and period charm.
3. Archives, MPA.
4. R.Kennedy, Minnesota Houses (Minneapo lis, 1967), 115.
5. G.McElroy, Robert s.Duncanson A Centennial Exhibition (Cincinnati Art Museum Catalogue,
6. A .J. Downing, The Architecture of Country Houses (New York, 1 850), 4 ff.
7. Ibid., p. 1 54, fig.64. The illustration shows a gallery for a farmhouse.
8. Kennedy , op.cit., p.119.
9. Downing, op.cit., pp.12-13.
10. Ibid., PP• 17, 19.
11. Ibid., p.67.
12. bid, pp.83, 119 and passim.
13. C.P.Dwyer, The Economic Cottage Builder (Buffalo, 1 856), title page .
14. McArdle, A de c.and D.B., Carpenter Gothic (New York, 1983), 20 ff.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Davey, Peter. Architecture of the Arts and Crafts Movement. New York, 1980. Davey provides a good background on the movement in Britain and America and an excellent biblio graphy.
Downing, Andrew Jackson. The Architecture of New York, 1 850. Downing is source or study in relation to the Gothic Revival.
Dwyer, C.P. The Economic .Cottage Builder. Buffalo, 1 856. Elliott, c.w. Cottages and Cottage Life. Cincinnati, 1 848. Hobbs, Isaac H.and Son. Hobbs's Architecture. Philadelphia, 1873.
Kennedy, Roger. Minnesota Houses. Minneapolis, 1967. The author presents a cultural survey of various styles of nineteenth century architecture in a study of particular examples.
McArdle, Alma de c.and Deirdre Bartlett. Carpenter Gothic. New York, 1983. The McArdles follow Kennedy 1 s procedure but emphasize the role of the craftsman in the building of nineteenth century houses.
McElroy, Guy. Robert s.Duncanson, A Centennial Exhibition.
Cincinnati Art museum Catalogue. Cincinnati, 1972.
