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Sunday, March 6, 2011

Hidden Plainfield: Standing Foursquare


This is a handsome foursquare with a twist.

Today's Hidden Plainfield features one of the Queen City's innumerable examples of the American Foursquare style, though with a bit of a twist.

The Foursquare style arose at the end of the 19th century in part in reaction to the overly fussy late Victorian styles.

Literally square (or nearly so), with four large rooms on each floor, hipped roofs with dormers, they maximized usable floor space in a broadly affordable style (often built from mail order designs -- and sometimes, even railroad-delivered kits).

Appearing in
concert with the intense interest in 'sanitary' conditions in homes (simplified 'sanitary' woodwork, tiled kitchens and baths, sleeping porches) at the turn of the 20th-century, whole neighborhoods of sensible, sturdy Foursquares appeared like mushrooms on the urban landscapes of American cities -- sort of the architectural equivalent of Enna Jetticks walking shoes.

Today's example is a variant, with its sunroom set to one side in the front and the absence of a verandah across the front.


Do you know where this home is?

Answer tomorrow.


-- Dan Damon [follow]

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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

On Netherwood Ave, just before the North Plainfield border?