Summit Avenue Tour Over-View

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We started out our tour of Summit Avenue at the James J. Hill house. Then we just started walking down the street and got brief background on the houses as we passed by. 

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When we walked by the Stewart Driscoll House, the one with all the vines, the current owner of the house let our tour group take a look inside. It had a very elegant interior.  

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As we kept walking by the other houses, I continued to take pictures of the houses that stuck out at me or that I just enjoyed. Some of the houses we saw had recognizable features that we talked about in class such as bay windows, dormers, gambrel roof, a portico, and more. We could also identify the housing styles on summit avenue. We saw a lot of Queen Anne, some Greek and Colonial Revival, and a few Tudors. Over-all, I thought the tour of Summit Avenue was very interesting and the houses we got to see were very unique, beautiful, and hold a lot of history in them.

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Cass Gilbert vs. Clarence Johnston

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Cass Gilbert

From 1884-1892 Gilbert designed buildings such as hospitals, depots, and other buildings for the Northern Pacific railway as well as designs for houses, warehouses, retail stores, churches, and office buildings. Many of Gilbert's imaginative designs interpreted details from European buildings and used popular styles from the era. Some styles he incorporated were Romanesque, American Colonial shingle style, Gothic Revival, and Beaux-Arts idiom from Paris.  In 1894, Cass Gilbert won the competition to design the Minnesota State Capital. He used Beaux-Arts fusion of High Renaissance Art and Baroque architecture and the dome represented Saint Peters Basilica in Rome. 

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Clarence Johnston

Clarence Johnston is the most abundant architect in Minnesota. He is most known for his mansions in St. Paul but he also designed dozens of academic buildings, churches, prisons, and hospitals. In his long tenure as state architect and in commissions for institutional clients, he designed for multitudes. Johnston’s works have touched the full spectrum of Minnesotans and continue to do so in the twenty-first century. 

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The "Dollhouse"

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As I was looking through the Summit Avenue book, one house that really caught my eye was the William W. Howard House, or more commonly referred to as "the dollhouse" by neighbors and viewers. This home was built on Laurel Avenue in 1884 for only $3,000. Howard was a clerk for the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba railway and lived in the house with his wife, Ella. 

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What I found the most interesting about this house was the woman who bought the house in 2008, Roddie Turner. She is a gifted designer, stylist, and cook so this dollhouse-like house seemed to be a perfect fit for her creative style to be able to make her own. With her last child graduating high school soon, she wanted a fresh new house she could call her own. She said she had never lived alone before since she got married very young so she was excited for this new step in life. 

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I absolutely love the way she decorated and designed the inside of this house. It has a very elegant and girly feel to it. A lot of the rooms are very light colored with natural light as well so you can't help feel happy when you look at it. Being a designer and a stylist, she has a unique and creative taste of interior design that I adore. The house also has a cute garden on the side that has beautiful white flowers and a vintage looking picnic table. All of the small details Roddie Turner decorated the garden and interior with bring in the vintage elegance of the 1884 William H. Howard dollhouse and mixes it with her own creative, modern take on design.

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James J. Hill House

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In 1891, the largest and most expensive house in Minnesota was finally completed. The James J. Hill House contains 36,500 square feet spread out among 5 floors. Peabody, Stearns, and Furber were the architects of the house but Hill oversaw all of the whole construction and accepted nothing but the best. James J. Hill was a very rich man who worked on the railroad and his railroad was the backbone of white American Settlement. When asked about the secret to his success, his reply was, "Work, hard work, intelligent work, and then work some more." Some of the highlights of the house include 13 bathrooms, 22 fireplaces, an 88 foot reception hall, elaborate mahogany woodwork, and a 3 story pipe organ. The total cost of construction, furnishings, and landscape ended up being $931,275 or would be about $22 million dollars today. This house is still admired to this day and the architecture still awes the visitors.

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Roof Styles and House Characteristics

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A lot of the time, people will look at a house and say that it is "pretty", "tall", "elegant", or something along those lines. However, they don't know how to explain why these houses are the way they are. There are many elements and details to a house that make it unique compared to its neighbor. Here are some ways to classify roofing styles and housing characteristics. 

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Shed Roof: Many people know this one as a "lean-to roof". It is a one-slope simple roof.

Gable Roof: This is your typical neighborhood roof that has two slopes coming to a triangular point.

Saltbox Roof: This one is similar to the gable where two slopes come to a point but here, one side is longer than the other.

Gambrel Roof: You would typically see this style on a barn. There are two angles of slope on both sides.

Hipped Roof: All four sides of this roof meet in the middle to form a peak.

Mansard Roof: Similar to the Hipped roof, all four sides meet in the middle but this one has two slopes like the Gambrel.

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Bay Window: A set of windows that sit away from the wall of the house providing more light.

Casement Window: Windows that swing open away from the house.

Clapboard: Overlapped boards to cover the outside of the house.

Dormer: An upstairs window that comes out from the roof.

Eaves: The area of roof that comes out beyond the wall.

Fanlight: A semicircle window above a door.

Palladian Window: A three part window with a larger arched top window in the center and two rectangular windows on the sides.

Pediment: Triangular crowns used over doors or windows.

Portico: A large porch usually with columns or pillars.

Rafter: Roof beam that are visible.

Sidelights: Windows on the sides of doors.

Turret: A small tower on the side of a building.

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I think it is very helpful to know the characteristics of a house and roof because it makes explaining the house much easier. It is also very important for an interior designer to know these things so the outside of the house can reflect what is on the inside and have a nice flow of the whole house.

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Housing Cycles

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All the talk this week in Interior Design was about housing and the needs it requires to qualify it as a good fitting home for yourself. The physical needs a house needs to satisfy are protection, food, sleep, storage, and shelter and the psychological needs are love & belonging, privacy, fun/relaxation, identity, and creativity. Each one of these needs is going to be different for each person and what stage they are at in their life. A life cycle is simply changing and developing over time. Life cycle is important to know when purchasing a house because you need to know what needs to satisfy at this time in your life. When you are young and just beginning to look at your fist home, you don't have a very big budget so you might have to sacrifice some of the "wants" and just focus on the needs. When you age, you can start moving around and adding those wants into your housing choices.

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My budget for my first home was about $185,000 and I was looking into the Winona area because I might attend Winona State University for college and I will be 22 at the time of purchasing this home. The house I found is a two bedroom, two bathroom house with a beautiful porch in the front where you can oversee Lake Winona at the price of $174,900. This house is good for me at this age because since it does have two bedrooms, I can share it with someone and split the cost or just have a whole lot of space for myself. It is quite a bit cheaper than my budget so that gives me extra spending money on either renovating the ugly cabinets in the kitchen or just buying some new furniture. It is very important to me to be in an area that can provide me to be close with nature so being so near the lake is great. This house satisfies many of my housing needs at the age 22.

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At the age of 33, I supposedly get married to a man with a salary of $120,000. This brought my housing budget to $840,000. I wasn't really looking in a specific area since I have no idea where I will be with my life at this age. I found a great house in Edina for $839,000 that has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. At this age, there is a good chance that I will have kids to fill all these rooms with. I am very attracted to this house because it looks very new and modern and has a creek in the back which brings me back to nature. This house fits my housing needs at the age of 33.

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Finally, when I turn 42, I will hopefully be in the home I will live in for the rest of my life. At this age, my housing budget is up to $980,000. Again, I wasn't looking in a specific area but one requirement I searched for was for it to be lake side. I found a house in Eden Prairie for $975,000 that has 4 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms and on Red Rock Lake. These bedrooms are important because when I'm 42, I will be having kids at home. I love how this house looks very clean and modern but at the same time, it still has it's cozy and homey feel to it. The best part is definitely being able to live on the lake. 

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When purchasing a house, it is extremely important to think about the housing needs you must satisfy that suit you. Your housing needs change over time and you must keep moving forward to satisfy them when needed. 

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