-
(Photograph by Curtis B. Johnson, C. B. Johnson Photography)
After the Civil War, William and Laura Brown, prospering on their two-hundred-acre farm, built a new brick house. The one-and-a-half-story, side-hall-with-ell plan was a form popular in the islands and lower Lamoille River Valley. Although modest in size, in its detailing the house compares well with many fine Italianate and Gothic Revival houses across the lake in St. Albans. Its picturesque, gently pitched gable with deep eaves harkens back to A. J. Downing's The Architecture of Country Houses (1850), which distinguishes it from most of its neoclassical contemporaries. The porch that wraps from the front to the side ell, with its octagonal columns and scroll-sawn valance, adds a Gothic touch to the overall Italianate styling such as paired eave brackets on the porch and the eaves, and cast-iron peaked entablatures above the windows and main entrance.