Design No. 1509 was a popular plan for the Radford Architectural Company of Chicago judging by the number of surviving examples I’ve seen. The most recent I’ve found is surprisingly intact and appears to be loved by its owners. While this one in Oakley, Kansas, was built as shown in the plan book, many others were built with the plan reversed. Aside from a difference in porch columns, the house below is virtually identical to the 1909 catalog rendering. Personally, I think it is one of Radford’s better designs; many are a bit awkward!
The floor plan of design No. 1509 as it appeared in the 1909 edition of Radford’s Modern Homes. Image courtesy of archive.org.
The catalog illustration shows the house with square columns and a sedate balustrade. Image courtesy of archive.org.
As built, this example features more elaborate Ionic columns perched atop paneled pedestals. The balustrade is also a bit fancier in that it is comprised of turned – rather than square – balusters.
The side elevation is further elaborated with a modest gable ornament which is not seen in the catalog description nor found on the front gable.
either Radford owned stock in a door company or was paranoid about his ability to get in or out of every room in the house. the right porch has a door and the left porch has 2 but he overcame his obsession by having no doors at the rear.
also, if you make that middle room next to the parlor a bedroom or a library, you have to walk through it to get to the little bedroom. looks like the floor plan needed more thought but maybe they weren’t built as drawn.
I have been inside a different No. 1509 and the floor plan had indeed been modified to include a small hallway in roughly the same area shown here as the kitchen sink and bedroom closet. The bedroom was accessed from this hall rather than the library. The sink was located beneath the back window. The owners of this other house were using the library as an extension of their living room – like a double parlor. There was also a powder room squeezed in there somehow. The house had a very nice feel to it inside – especially the upstairs bedrooms which had lots of interesting sloped ceilings and the kinds of quirky spaces that make a house feel cozy. Multiple outside doors were more common a century or more ago than they are today… we once had a greater connection to the outside – AND less need for security!
And air flow is really important pre-AC. We just moved to an unairconditioned space. . .it gives me a new appreciation for air flow!
Good point… with air conditioning everywhere, operable windows are not even something you can count on in many (newer) buildings! I hope your ventilation situation will improve soon!
I own this design in Mandan, North Dakota. My version is a little different. Ours is taller by about three feet on the second floor giving more wall space and less roof line in the bedrooms. I have pictures I’d love to share and I’d love to see more pictures of this design you may have
Thanks, Joel! I’ll email you. If your house is taller, it was either customized or built from the plans of one of Radford’s competitors (these guys stole from each other with great regularity!).