Northern and Southern Early American Vernacular Building Construction: A Study of Styles
Erika Marks Brauner
Monday, April 07, 2008
Introduction
It is clear that the early Colonists had their work cut out for them when they landed in the New World. Between the unfamiliar terrain and the often-inhospitable climates, it was all the early settlers could do to raise the most simple of structures in the formative stages of their settlements. But in time and thanks to the influx of building techniques that came to this country with its many transplants, distinct styles of vernacular architecture began to take shape up and down the Atlantic coast, in buildings both generic and unique. What’s more, in some cases, there is documentation to aid in our understanding of the rationale for these building techniques, from the builders and architects themselves.
This discussion will explore two areas of architectural significance, the Northern regions of New England and New York, and the Southern regions of New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi, investigate what may have influenced the architectural planning of their communities and, finally, explore an example of a vernacular structure within each of them.
The Northeast and Timber-Frame Construction: The Case of the Connected Farm Buildings
For the early settlers of New England, wood was a favored building material. Having little access to lime—the vital component in mortar—brick construction was not widely used, and the earliest structures erected on the soil of the settler’s New World were of mostly timber-frame construction, based on the building technologies brought along from England. But the sensibilities of timber-framing were found all over the world, so that once the influx of settlers began to increase, so did the New World’s architectural influences, and within time a melting pot of timber-framing techniques were being implemented, spotting the landscape with structures both complex and crude.
In his book, Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn, Thomas C. Hubka investigates the evolution of a common building trend in nineteenth-century New England known as connected farm buildings, wherein structural units were joined together over time, connecting the main house to the barn by way of several building units, including the kitchen (Fig. 1). Hubka’s study also explores the construction techniques of this popular structural alignment. Of particular interest is the design of the traditional barn, the final grand piece in the connected building puzzle:
The structural framing for all nineteenth- and twentieth-century New England barns was a heavy timber, mortise-and-tenon system. Most barns were constructed from both hewn and sawn timbers, but generally hewn timbers were gradually replaced by sawn ones during the nineteenth century. Therefore, an early nineteenth-century English barn might be constructed of all hewn structural members except perhaps the small sawn braces, and a later nineteenth-century one might be framed with all sawn members except the longest plates or sills…The major-rafter, minor-purlin roof framing system of the old English barn of eastern New England was commonly maintained in the nineteenth-century New England barn… (Hubka 56).
Hubka also makes an interesting comparison between the structural designs of the buildings within this connected framework:
Despite the gradual evolution in construction technique, most farm architecture can be classified into two distinct groups based upon the structural systems of the house and barn, specifically the direction of the principal structural members in the wall. In houses the dominant direction of the structural members is vertical and requires horizontal sheathing. In barns it is horizontal and requires vertical sheathing (Fig. 2). For the pre-1830 heavy timber, mortise-and-tenon house framing system, vertical wall posts, including the four major corner posts and smaller vertical posts or studs, were mortised into the upper plate and lower sill. These smaller studs were spaced to accommodate doors and windows or placed uniformly along blank walls. Siding was then applied horizontally and covered by clapboards or shingles (Hubka 142).
The trend of the connected farm buildings is one example of the innovation that evolves within the vernacular framework of a particular region. Another example can be found in a Shaker building in New York State: the Church Family Meeting House at Mt. Lebanon.
The Innovations of Shaker Architecture: The Meeting House at Mt. Lebanon, NY
Brought to America in 1775 by Ann Lee of Manchester, England, the Shaker movement quickly found its place upon the changing landscape of the New World. Built on a spiritual foundation of emulating the life of Christ, its architecture was designed to reflect and foster its tenets. Shaker buildings were compiled into communal Villages and although their building styles and aesthetics are often renowned for their simplicity (a philosophy mandated by their beliefs), their architecture was often a study in complex design innovations.
One such example is the remarkable timber-framed Meeting House at Mt. Lebanon, NY, built in 1824. Capped by a barrel, or rainbow, roof, designed to shed snow, it was built of 3 foot by 6 foot roof purlins tenoned into 4, 2 ½ in. by 10 in. curved laminated principal rafters, and boasted a segmental arched plaster ceiling. It was this intricate framing that allowed the Meeting Room inside, 63 three feet by 78 feet, to be bereft of interior supports, since there was need for maximum open floor space for worship (Lassiter 66).
To further understand the complex construction of this building, one need only study the HABS drawings done of the structure in 1929. Details of the roof construction reveal an intricate system of trusses that serve to relieve the load placed on the supporting posts below, allowing for the expanse of open floor space in the Meeting Room. Further details highlight additional construction techniques, such as the 11 in. by 5 in. prince posts that were used to secure the principal rafter tie beam and ceiling rafter together. It is this extensive detailing in the HABS drawing that proves that the Meeting House is an excellent example of how a vernacular building construction can be evolved to suit a region’s evolving needs.
The South—Cypress and Brick Construction
Having explored some of the building trends in the architecture of the Northeast, it is now time to turn the discussion to the South and investigate the trends that grew out of a different culture and, as well, a different climate. As in New England, New Orleans and its surrounding areas inspired equally innovative building techniques. From the Creole cottages in the French Quarter, to the bargeboard construction of the outlying parish residences, to the grand mansions of the cotton planters, all are equally unique and important examples of vernacular architecture of the region. And while the North had limited use for brick, New Orleans and its surrounds, built with both brick and wood, doing what they could to combat the often-destructive impact of a moist climate on a building’s fabric, but all the while taking their building cues from their own immediate architectural landscapes.
Vertical Board Construction: The Estevez House of St. Bernard Parish, LA
Unlike the residences of the Northeast, the Southern states had less need for fortified walls to keep out winters chill. As Thomas C. Hubka revealed, the trend in New England residential architecture in the 19th century was generally that of vertical structural members and horizontal sheathing. In the case of the Estevez House, a residence built at the turn of the 20th century in St. Bernard Parish, LA, that trend is partially correct. However, thanks in part to the subsequent exposure of neglect and disrepair, the building now reveals its skeleton in places, serving to educate of a past vernacular style of construction. It is a style that, though crude upon first glance, ultimately reveals, like all vernacular architecture, the conditions that shaped its evolution.
As one can plainly see, the structural strength of the Estevez House lies in the inner layer of its vertical boards and not essentially in its joinery. In an almost architectural tapestry, the walls garner their strength and support not from a series of studs tied to plates and beams, but rather from the sealing layer of vertical boards that run around the exterior like a preliminary skin, strengthened yet further by a subsequent layer of horizontal sheathing.
Like most homes of this region, its sills are elevated from the moist ground on brick piers—another key element in the building technology of the area. Its interior offers further insight into the building methodology; a central fireplace once stood to provide additional warmth, but also as structural support.
Longwood Manor; Natchez, Mississippi
Just outside of downtown Natchez, stands an architectural treasure known as Longwood, the once-time home and eternal project of a builder named Haller Nutt. Longwood is indeed a curious site, for it possesses the unique misfortune (or fortune, as this discussion will profess) of having been so grand and ambitious a building project that its builder was unable to see its interior build-out to completion. Today, Longwood stands as a testament to a bold architectural design and innovative construction techniques. A tour of its upper floors reveals some fascinating construction elements, such as the wooden segmental arches above the doorways (Fig. 4) and the intricate framing members and joinery of its onion dome (Fig. 5).
Additionally, Mr. Nutt and his supporting architect, Samuel Sloan, left behind an extensive dialog in letters, outlining the process of building Longwood, and it is in these writings that many building decisions are revealed, aiding in our understanding of the building process they arrived at almost one hundred and fifty years ago.
The Dream of Longwood is Born
When Haller Nutt set out to choose a design to house his growing family in the 1850’s, he found what he was looking for in a book of house plans entitled, The Model Architect, Volume II. Its author was a prominent architect from Philadelphia named Samuel Sloan and one of the included plans was that of an Oriental Villa, described in great detail, including the following passage:
The design is octagonal and the elevation of each side is alike. The second story recedes from the first, and the whole is surmounted by a magnificent Persian dome. The cornice of each floor is a parapet whose angles are flanked with turrets, from which spring the minarets, the peculiar feature of this style. The walls are intended to be of cut stone, or brick roughcast. The piers and entrance steps should be of stone. The columns, arches, and ornamented friezes of the verandahs are of iron, and the floors laid with tiles upon iron joists. The parapets, minarets, turrets, and dome are all of wood, and should be well painted and sanded (McAdams 26).
Haller Nutt was decided that this was the perfect plan for his new residence and quickly employed Samuel Sloan to be the architect of his grand dream house. According to letters sent back and forth between the two men, most early discussion revolved around the planning of materials and labor. Building specifications were discussed soon after, and provide some insight into the construction that was to come:
From Sloan to Nutt:
Carpenter Work:All the joists will be straightened and solidly bedded in the walls on the whole surface of their bearings and each tier exceeding twelve feet in lengths will have a course of lattice bridging through the center. The studding in partitions will be set edgewise for greater strength and securely fastened to the floor and ceiling. The rafters will all be 3” x 5” placed two feet apart, supported at the bottom on a raising plate secured to the ceiling joists and at the top on the division walls and boarded over for metal covering…The framing of the dome will be in accordance with the drawings and secured where necessary with one-inch iron bolts and the necessary straps. All trimmers for stairs and fire-places will be double, pinned together and well-framed and keyed (McAdams 43).
Interestingly, there was discussion of how the impact of moisture in the soil might be reduced:
The exterior walls will be built with a space between the inner and outer sections as shown by the ground plans—and to obviate the effects of capillary attraction a course of slate will be laid in the wall extending through its entire thickness at the height of a few inches above the ground (McAdams 20).
There was even evidence of one of the many innovations in the construction in one letter from Sloan to Nutt:
So far as making the frames, blinds, and sash brackets and hinges etc., you mentioned the difficulty in the blinds opening up onto the balconies. That would be troublesome to some extent and a little complicated, to avoid that I have made them all sliding into the walls.
The same letter makes mention of material specifications:
The lumber required by joists will be of the following sizes:
150 pieces 19 feet long x 3 x 12;
200 pieces 22 feet long 3 x 12; 180 pieces 12 feet long 3 x 12;
100 pieces 22 feet long 3 x 10; 50 pieces 25 feet long 3 x 12.
In letter that followed there was discussion of the particulars of the plaster lathing:The lath for plastering should be cut early as to be seasoned and should be of heartwood free from sap as the sap stains the plastering and leaks badly. The lath should be four feet long cut an exact length as we place all our timbers etc. exact for that length. Doing so, it avoids much trouble to the plasterers. They should be 1 ½ in. wide by 3/8 of an inch thick and it will require about 20,000 ft. Please cut them of soft wood. (McAdams 21, 22).
By 1861, Nutt was clearly on his way to commencing construction of the great onion dome and a letter to Sloan makes mention of a model generated to facilitate the successful building of the structure:
I meant I thought it would have been a good plan to have made a small model for Cupulo and Dome with all timbers, frames, attic floor—say 3 to 4 ft. long—so it could be taken to pieces, each piece numbered and not only used for my building but other work of the same sort and whatever improvement could be made at any time also make in the model (McAdams 63).
The dome was indeed to be finished, its finial stretching 24 feet high. But when the Civil War was declared, all workmen fled from Nutt’s unfinished structure, leaving him to attempt the build-out on his own. He was able to complete the basement level, in which he and his family lived until his death in 1864. In 1891, bids were sent to his widow upon her desire to finish what her husband had started but the completion was never undertaken.
Conclusion: What to do with what we know
The examples highlighted in this discussion are, of course, a few of many in the course of building design and construction that cover the vernacular landscape. But the exercise of studying these various styles of structure is an important one. Ultimately, it is only through an understanding of the construction of these buildings, in essence what made them stand up initially, that we can be certain how to keep them from falling down. By definition, vernacular architecture is always evolving, changing with the tastes and influences and needs of the people that it houses. But by understanding its construction, one can do two very important things: 1) retain a sense of the history of architectural design and construction, and 2) understand how that construction can be conserved for the future.
