home architecture design

Following doorway to the David Syme Dwelling is the J.H. Rogers Property, a peculiar mix of Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival variations. It has the clear turret of a Queen Anne house although also having well known Romanesque arches. The dwelling was developed in 1890 for Rogers, a respected dry items merchant who settled in Sycamore in 1858.

Throughout from the J.H. Rogers Household is the c. 1900 Floyd E. Brower Residence. Brower was a Sycamore attorney who bought the home and undertook in depth reworking through the property. Brower practiced law in Sycamore for far more than 50 many years.

There are a pair of American Craftsman model houses in the Sycamore Historic District as very well. Significantly of the form identified as “American Foursquare”, which was a popular early 20th century type (and derivation of Wright’s Prairie design) created well known by pattern books distributed by such mail order suppliers as Sears.

The Foursquare House demonstrates a fantastic melding of Prairie and Craftsman variations. The wide overhanging eaves, Roman brick (wiki by me) do the job and large porch are all Prairie elements.

The 1917 Wally Thurow Property is another superb instance of the Foursquare style in Sycamore that is nearly equivalent to the patterns distributed by well-liked mail buy houses of the working day. I like this property primarily mainly because it has a much more “hidden” entrance than the household at 413 Somonauk difficult to discover entrances are trademark on substantial-model examples of Prairie architecture. If you glimpse towards the middle of the next ground in the graphic earlier mentioned, you will see some amazing stained glass work.

Thurow is credited with founding the Sycamore Pumpkin Competition, a popular pageant certainly, at the residence in 1956. For several yrs he shown pumpkins on his garden, until eventually the Lions Club began growing on his plan in 1962. Thurow is recognized as “Mr. Pumpkin”.

Coming complete circle we are back to a (flimsy?) relationship to the guy who started off this put up, J.H. Rogers. East of Somonauk Avenue , in the 500 block of Most important Street is what a poster in downtown Sycamore calls the J.H. Rogers/Bettis Residence, but a plaque in entrance of the dwelling phone calls the John Gathercoal Household. Whatsoever its named the house was at first crafted in 1863, but not at the Primary Avenue place.

The Bettis Home is only 1 part of a greater total. It began daily life at the web-site of the J.H. Rogers Property, over on Somonauk Avenue but in 1887 it was moved to its current place. At that time, the residence that now stands subsequent door to the Bettis Household was break up off from it. That residence is now known as the Charles A. Bishop Property or the William Phelps Dwelling. The Bishop Residence was crafted in 1854 producing the Bettis Home an 1863 addition to that residence when it was in its first site. I could obtain no other connection to Rogers other than the residence was as soon as on the web page of the present J.H. Rogers House. Perhaps he owned it at some issue in its history.

Charles Bishop was a popular Sycamore lawyer who came to the city from New Brunswick in 1878. He sooner or later held posts as circuit and county decide.

On-line Assets

*J.H. Rogers Residence: 1970s picture

*413 S. Somonauk St.: 1970s photograph

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