1854. 906 N. 3rd Ave.
Snowdoun was built for James Whitfield two years after he completed his term as governor. Its modified cruciform plan renders it too similar to the “Anglo Grecian Villa” in plates 31–34 of William H. Ranlett’s 1849 book of house designs, The Architect, not to have been modeled on it. At Snowdoun’s core lies an octagon inside a square from which generously sized rooms project in four directions. Four fluted octagonal columns support a two-story entrance porch set in the reentrant angle at the house’s northwest corner. (Ranlett’s porch is only one story.) Above the central octagon, a gable-roofed unit is an 1866 replacement for an original flat roof with an octagonal cupola, which followed Ranlett’s design.