Brady and Levesque Funeral Home
You are here
Curtis-Houghton House (Brady and Levesque Funeral Home)
1800; 86 S. Main St., City of St. Albans
This St. Albans landmark represents an early preservation victory in Vermont. Built for John Curtis, it is one of Franklin County's grand first-generation houses with Georgian plans, low-hipped roofs, and twin interior chimneys. It also has details related to the work of William Sprats, including the rectangular transom over the front door with curved muntinwork, here delineating an inset fan. Its sophisticated facade featured matchboard siding, stringcourses, and a Palladian window with horizontally reeded pilasters and carved rosettes. The elegant door surround consists of thin fluted pilasters and a simple entablature and sidelights with staggered muntins. In 1828, Abel Houghton purchased the house, redoing the interiors around 1840. Local artisan Henry Bridges added elaborate door surrounds and cornices to earlier Federal details that included attenuated colonettes and pilasters, arches, reeding, rope moldings, and rosettes. The north veranda was an addition of 1915, and the Palladian-styled porch over the front door is from the 1980s.
In 1972 the house narrowly escaped demolition as a result of protests by the local historical community and the close reading of a fortuitous restriction in local zoning ordinances. Some of its details have since been concealed by siding, but the essential house has survived.
Writing Credits
×
Data
-
Location: St. Albans, VermontRegional Overviews:Types:Materials:
What's Nearby
Citation
Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson, "Curtis-Houghton House (Brady and Levesque Funeral Home)", [St. Albans, Vermont], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VT-01-FR35.
Print Source
Buildings of Vermont, Glenn M. Andres and Curtis B. Johnson. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 212-213.
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.