Carole Rifkind, A Field Guide to American Architecture, 1980
This house sits on the flood plain of St. Vrain Creek and it did suffer some damage in the September 2013 flood, but it is standing and I am trying to replace some of the worse pieces of siding.
I say "trying to replace" because the mill that is supplying the beveled siding screwed up my order twice: the first time I got rough sawn siding; the second time I got "colonial" siding which is thicker than beveled siding. All this put me three weeks behind schedule.
The mill re-milled the colonial siding and I received the proper siding last week, me and my colleague started replacing pieces on the east elevation. We discovered that this elevation was sided last because at one point it had a fireplace chimney that extended to the roof, the logs and chinking still have paint on them.
This is a double pen log house, the logs were joined with steeple notches. From the construction techniques used and what little I know about the family that first lived in it, my educated guess is that it was built between 1867-1872.
It would be nice to do some tree ring dating to find out when the logs used in the construction were cut.
The dormers are sided, we tore off some particle board siding that someone put up quite some time ago, all looks better!
I found a door that matches one of the entrance doors that you see in a 1917 photo of the building, there are several more windows that could use some maintenance work. A group of volunteers are scheduled to prime and paint this building late September, can't wait to see that!
More siding is on the way, I hope I get what I ordered.
Interesting project. Out of curiosity are there much houses in Colorado older than this?
ReplyDeleteYes, there are. The oldest (1860) are in the older mining towns, Central City, Blackhawk, Georgetown, however these aren't "true" Greek Revival houses, they just have bits and pieces of the style. See Eric Stoeher's book for info on that.
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