Just one more
Victorian house. This one is perhaps the most fantastic of all. I'll add that I"ve never been inside any of them, so don't know if they're nearly as grand - many Victorians were chopped up into smaller spaces, or had dark small rooms to begin with.
posted by Jenny at 10:28 PM
4 Comments:
tres belle maison et architecture. ma maison preferée restant celle du post 'Amenia'.
very beautiful house and architecture. my preferred house remaining that of the post “Amenia”.
WOw that's a fantastic house! I am new to your blog but will most certainly be back. awesome!
eve nelson new zealand
These houses are really amazing. But it seems overwhelming to even think of owning something that big, and being responsible for all the upkeep. I can barely manage my studio apartment!
Ann Linden, the historian of AMenia, sent me this long and wonderful note:
This is a classic "Queen Anne" victorian house. The interior has great pressed wood and plaster detail. Note that the exterior is painted 5 colors...The rooms are not "small and dark". The staircase just inside the front door goes to the second floor. The third floor attic is like an enormous room...not an attic.
I don't know for whom it was built.
The house belonged to Etta Rockwell who, years ago, started Strawberry Fair (still going today) on her lawn then moved to the church lawn.
She moved to Amenia with her mother. They came from Queens....Etta told me that the wallpaper in the house was a small pattern, brown, and that there were old green window shades inside. It was very depressing. Etta painted all the woodwork white and put in bright wallpaper to liven the place up. Etta loved her garden, painted landscapes and still -life flowers. Her mom died and Etta went on to live to the age of 90 more or less. I first knew her in her 80's.
She loved that house. She was a very outspoken pillar of the Presbyterian Church across the street.
She belonged to the Amenia Women's Club and loved to have the meetings at her house so she could cook lots of cakes, cookies, fancy jello salads and I don't know what. She sang in various choruses and liked to swim.
The house belonged to the DelTufo family after Etta died, and I think it has changed hands again.
Regarding all the houses:
There is lots of history to go with each one...the one important fact about all of them is that they were built after the NY Central Harlem Valley Railroad came through in 1850. There were some going industries in Amenia including iron and condensed milk(Borden in Wassaic) accounting for the size and detail on the houses
They were not "mansions", just homes of successful business people of the 19th century. By Victorian standards, these are not large houses. Some of them (the three you show in the photos) are painted
historic colors of the period...chosen to hide the train smoke and dirt from the iron industry, and chosen to satisfy the victorian love of ostentation.
The rooms are not necessarily small or dark....depends on the room, depends on the house.
Next time you are in Amenia, go into the first house North of Four Brothers same side. It is in what they call the "Tuscan villa" style with a tower. The building belongs to Darlene Reimer, who restored it from a pathetic state. It is white now, probably not the color it was originally...but it is wonderful inside...Her architctural office is on the first floor, a real estate agent on the second. You will see that it is very much the size of our contemporary houses...not a mansion.
More than you ever wanted to know...can't help it, I love to talk
Ann Linden
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