James Monroe Bailey House

Little is known about this fanciful Queen Anne house’s construction, and an architectural pattern book probably provided inspiration for its design. Perfectly suited to its corner site, the two-story frame building has two perpendicular gabled wings linked by a two-story angled verandah, which is surmounted by an octagonal cupola. The turned porch supports, grouped in triplets, along with curved brackets, lacy spindlework brackets, and balustrades, and the delicacy of the cupola create a surprising airiness for such a large structure. The most interesting interior feature is a circular stairway rising from the front hall. The major exterior alteration occurred in 1973 when the original one-story rear wing was replaced with a two-story addition. The Bailey House and its original outbuildings, including stables, chicken coops, a well house, and a smokehouse, and ornamental and vegetable gardens, once occupied an entire city block. James Monroe Bailey, a Georgia native who moved to Bradley County in 1860, was serving in the Confederate Fifth Arkansas Regiment when he was wounded and taken prisoner, ironically, in Georgia. In a change of postwar fortune, he returned to Warren and became a successful entrepreneur, operating a drugstore on the south side of the courthouse square that was within walking distance of his picturesque dwelling.