Long abandoned, this c. 1905 Folk Victorian farmhouse has unusually nice detailing for its geographic location, even if those details aren’t all stylistically consistent! Though re-sided in the mid-twentieth century, enough of the siding has fallen off to reveal the original siding and details which had long been obscured. Though the front porch has collapsed, turned Queen Anne porch posts remain in the debris. Gable ornaments and attic window sash with borders of small panes also suggest a Queen Anne influence. The symmetrical gabled roof, however, does not. Exterior window casings (beneath the replacement siding) were done in the then-newly-fashionable Craftsman-style while a south-facing bay window is elaborated with Italianate style brackets!
The house is deceptively large; there are two bedrooms on the first floor and another five on the second. The dining room is large. The house appeared to have had numerous updates made in the late 1950’s or early 60’s and not much after that. An interior alteration to the bay window is quite odd! The interior is still impressive in spite of its deteriorated condition.
The interior woodwork is typical of the late Victorian era and much of it retains original finishes – some of them grained. Some of the wooodwork appears to have never had any kind of finish at all. A few rooms upstairs appear to retain their original wall colors and painted stencils! Jim and I toured the house today with permission of the owner; it was an adventure we won’t be forgetting soon. Let’s take a look!
Though neglected and decaying, the house still maintains an imposing presence on the land.
Mid-century replacement siding – banded in three varieties – no doubt attempted to give horizontality to a house that clearly wants to be more vertical! Note the second floor window casings; the 45 degree angles at each side are a nod to the then-newly fashionable Craftsman aesthetic.
A bay window peeks from behind a tree.
The Italianate detailing of the bay window clings to the past. I can’t help but wonder what is under that multi-colored asphalt siding which attempts to mimic stone.
The soffits appear to have been painted dark green originally.
Detail of front gable end. The Craftsman style casings are more plainly visible on these three windows. The remains of a gable ornament cling to the eaves.
Detail of “cottage” window with a lace pattern in the top light.
The front door. Note that the diagonal pattern of the two lower panels are both angled in the same direction; the back door is identical but the panels mirror each other. I think someone at the factory goofed on this one!
The front door from the vestibule / hall / closet.
The open closet opposite the front door. A small room is to the left; the living room to the right. Woodwork in this entry has a grained finish intended to mimic mahogany.
Inside the small front room The mahogany graining on the door is more visible here.
The living room with cottage window and a piano that no one wanted to move.
Detail of piano, door and hardware.
Double doors lead from the living room into a spacious dining room.
The dining room. Note the newer window at right.
The window (and its curtains!) appears to date to around 1960. Hey! What happened to the bay window we saw outside? Let’s open the window and take a look…
Here it is! Someone built a freakin’ wall in front of this incredible bay window and stuck a modern window in the wall to borrow light!
The baseboard was stolen to use on the other side of the new wall
From the dining room one can go to the kitchen or through the door at left which leads to an enclosed staircase to the second floor.
The kitchen harbors an enviable Kenmore range with glass doors.
Beautiful original fixtures in the bath!
The raised panels of the doors to this bedroom closet have a type of detailing I’ve never seen before! Has anyone else seen anything like this?
The other main floor bedroom.
Dining Room corner block detail.
Living Room corner block detail.
Woodwork here appears to have never been varnished!
A heater at the top of the stairs served to warm the second floor. Note the simple and unvarnished balustrade.
The newel has had its corners chamfered in a modest effort at refinement. The newel is reinforced with an iron bracket attached to the floor.
The wall paint and stenciling appear to be original. Woodwork appears to have received some stain, but no varnish. The hole in the wall allows for stove pipe to safely pass through a combustible wall.
The pink ceiling also appears to be an original finish. A wire, presumably for a TV antenna, snakes up to the attic.
More original stenciling!
Daylight filters into the same bedroom through the rapidly-deteriorating roof.
Mid-century Outer Space-themed bedroom wallpaper is both fun and at odds with the rest of the house! Time to head back downstairs…
A formica dinette collapses on what’s left of the kitchen floor.
The back door – identical to the one on the front except for the orientation of the two bottom panels. Let’s go outside and take a quick look at some of the outbuildings…
The barn, too, is showing the effects of neglect.
This former barn received a shed addition in the past which today shows signs of wind damage.
The chicken coop has blown over onto its side.
A concrete structure of uncertain purpose has a handsome shingled gable end.
Detailed of weathered shingles. That’s it… thanks for coming along!
Poor house! Makes me sad to think all the work put into it and ends up like that. The small details, someone was proud of their home.
Even sadder is the fact that old houses continue to be abandoned in rural areas – especially in my neck of the
woodsprairie where the population continues to decline. Thank you for caring!Thanks for the tour! That house needs some love asap. I agree with Kelly, a lot of care and attention went into that place. That being said, I think I might make off with the pink deco armchair in the living room. A little fresh fabric. . .I love those big old deep armchairs.
Hmmmmm… rescuing the chair is indeed a possibility; thanks for the suggestion! The owner has asked us to salvage the woodwork as the house will be demolished soon. I’ll post about our salvage salvage mission in the near future…
On of my favorite things is a chair I got for $10 dollars out of an architectural salvage store. A nice big art deco beauty, not unlike that chair. Of course, then it needed re-upholstering. . . the saving grace on mine was that 50 cents fell out, so I got a substantial discount on my purchase price! It is sad to see these houses fall apart. I am glad you guys are going to do some salvage work – better than nothing by a long shot.
Oh thank goodness! I was hoping those doors and windows might be repurposed. And that astronaut wallpaper is AWESOME.
That modification on the bay window is absolutely hilarious.. I wonder if it was to improve the thermal performance? It definitely made the dining room a dismal space with the reduced light. I might have at least turned the amputated bay window into a small greenhouse.
Hilarious indeed! I think you are probably correct; thermal performance seems to be the most likely explanation for such a bizarre alteration. It undoubtedly made a bright and cheerful room dark and gloomy. Today I decided to liberate the bay window from its sheetrock barrier! Even though the house is to be demolished, I wanted to experience the room as it was intended to be – to let it reclaim a small bit of dignity before the inevitable. I will post about the “unveiling” soon!
As I was scrolling down through the pictures, each one brought a new sense of delight. What fun it must have been to have had the opportunity to explore an untouched space like this. I am always impressed that even modest homes had so many small design elements considered. Such as the wheat motif on the cornerback for the dining room and the more floral one for the living room. I absolutely love the yellow tub and interestingly enough, I am planning to do a very similar beadboard wainscot in our future master bath (in keeping with the fact that our house is 165 yo).
And then I saw the atomic wallpaper and thought wow! Somebody really loved there little boy and wanted them to have the best they could provide.
It is indeed unfortunate that so many of these homes have been left to wither and crumble, it is also amazing how quickly an area of a home can deteriorate while other areas remain almost untouched as if only needing a good cleaning.
Thank you so much for giving us urbanites a peek into how things were out on the prairie.
It was fun to go through the house! We have started salvaging woodwork, which is both sad and fun. The process is yielding some clues about the construction of the house, such as the location of the lumber yard which supplied the woodwork. We plan to find a remuddled house somewhere which needs interesting woodwork, and reinstall it there so that it can be enjoyed again. I had similar thoughts about the wallpaper; I’ll try to save some. I’m glad that the less refined, vernacular, houses in the center of the country are of interest to people; there aren’t many sophisticated buildings around here. I will be posting more about our salvage work and the bay window!
Wow. Wow! WOW!
What amazed me is that this long-abandoned house is so intact inside. Not only has it not been stripped by vandals but the porous roof has not done nearly as much damage as I would have expected.
I feel an overwhelming desire to SAVE THE HOUSE!
Must! Save! House!
Sigh.
I’m fairly certain that the only reason this house hadn’t been stripped or vandalized while sitting empty for well over a decade is because of its remote, hard-to-get-to location. Unfortunately the fate of the house has been sealed and will be torn down. But the recently-salvaged materials will live on…