Get Ready, Get Set, and Start…
In three previous posts (one, two, and three), readers offered suggestions as to what color I should paint the library in the Cross House. I love this input! The room will mostly be bookshelves from floor to ceiling, so the color will be confined, in the main, to the ceiling and around the windows. I…
Continue ReadingA Lost Thing of Great Beauty
Today, on the NE corner of 12th Street and State, Emporia, is a church. The church, completed in 1948, replaced an extraordinary house, one of the finest in Emporia. The house was designed by architect Harry Jones, of Minneapolis. The house was commissioned by G. W. Newman, who owned Newman’s department store in the city….
Continue ReadingA Miracle in Harlem
Harlem, New York, was build up during the 19th-century, and its population was almost exclusively white. In the early 20th-century, Harlem became mixed races, then almost exclusively black. Harlem drastically declined in the late 20th-century, and became synonymous with decay and violence. As the resurrection in New York continues to reach extraordinary new heights, Harlem,…
Continue ReadingFavorite Houses: 919 Merchant
I had an adventure today. And not just any adventure, but an architectural adventure! Whoee! Recently, I was contacted by Bill, who was doing research on his house. Looking through old deeds, he discovered that in 1869 Harrison Cross owned his house. Harrison Cross, of course, built my Cross House in 1894. Obviously, I was…
Continue ReadingRevealing Beauty
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Continue ReadingFavorite Houses: 613 and 617 Exchange
A block from the Cross House, architect Charles W. Squires built two nearly identical houses; The Twins, as I call them. Number 613 is to the south, and 617 is to the north. 613 was was built by Squires as his home. It was later converted into an up/down duplex with a third unit in…
Continue ReadingFavorite Houses: 1214 Exchange
While driving along to visit a friend, I slammed on the brakes, backed up, parked the car, got out, and stood before a house which I instantly recognized as being by the architect Charles W. Squires. The house has very similar qualities to 628 Cottonwood, which I have a post on. The house also has…
Continue ReadingFavorite Houses: 810 Market
Because the Cross House was designed by architect Charles W. Squires, I have become a, well, Squires groupie. I am ever-alert to new Squires sightings, and have a fantasy that an app will be invented for my smart phone which will allow me to time-travel so I can meet up with Charley and have a…
Continue ReadingIntersection Magnifique
In 1894, the year the Cross House was built, the intersection of Union and Sixth in Emporia, Kansas, was Ground Zero for fine homes. On each corner were elegant structures occupied by the city’s elite. On the NW corner was the magnificent Plumb House, occupied by Caroline Plumb, the widow of US Senator,…
Continue Reading…And Putting It Back Together.
Last summer I tore off a large section of original shingles on the second-floor exterior wall of the house. This section was punky from a blocked-up drain-spout (since unblocked), and missing roof flashing above (since installed). Thinking that I would replace the shingles with alacrity, I simply tar-papered over the naked section. Then time passed….
Continue ReadingTearing The House Apart…
Originally, the 1894 Cross House had cheap pine floors on its first and second levels. This was because these floors were covered by the extraordinary luxury of wall-to-wall carpeting (27-inch wide strips hand-sewn together). Later, the pine floors were covered with plain oak floors. Sigh. Had the Cross House NOT had wall-to-wall carpeting in 1894,…
Continue ReadingPipes and Cast Iron and Burly Men, Oh My!
Today, nobody looks at a radiator with abject wonder. Nobody thinks, with an awestruck awareness: Wow! Radiators! They are so cool! So hip! So amazing! No, we think of radiators as being charmingly old-fashioned. But in 1894, when the Cross House was completed, radiators were a revolutionary advance. Since the beginning of time people used…
Continue Reading…so…maybe not THIS shade of blue? PART 2.
This blog is not even a year old. And one of the things I really LOVE about having a blog is OPC*. *OPC: Other People’s Comments. Today, I did a post about what-to-paint the 1894 library of the Cross House. I was flaberagasted that within an hour I had numerous comments. THIS IS SO COOL!…
Continue Reading…so…maybe not THIS shade of blue?
Mind you, I am SO not a matchy kind of guy. I do not need nor want a PERFECT match between the wall color and the Blue Bits in the stained-glass. But I do want a complement. As such, I am uncertain if Tiffany Blue (lust lust lust) is the right-perfect-ideal-most-fabulous color…
Continue ReadingThe Remains Of The…
The Cross House has been through a lot. A lot. It was built as a private residence, but was later a tea room, an apartment house, motel, boarding house, and numerous fraternities and sororities. Golly. To accommodate all these changes a lot of kitchens and bathrooms were added. Then removed: The above image…
Continue ReadingFeeling Kinda Blue
I have been pondering paint colors. My house was built in 1894, and we think of Victorian-era houses as being very dark. We assume this because we only have black/white images of the era. If color images existed I suspect we would be shocked at how colorful many Victorian-era homes actually were. We long assumed…
Continue ReadingThe Best-Ever Dressing Room?
This just takes my breath away. Click the image to enlarge. Just make sure you have a tissue handy, as you will drool. The room is in a townhouse in Brooklyn, NY. And the whole house is TO DIE FOR. The house is currently for sale. And it can be yours for… …$14 million….
Continue ReadingAn Ode to Porcelain. Part 3. BREAKING NEWS!
In a previous post, it was discovered (thanks to Travis) that the American Standard toilet in the marble bath of the Cross House dates from 1926. Barb also brought to my attention a contest which American Standard had in 2005 for the Oldest Toilet in America. A 1928 model won. But my model…
Continue ReadingAn Ode to Porcelain. Part 2. And an Invitation.
In my previous post on this subject, I had wondered about the age of the American Standard toilet in the marble bath of the 1894 Cross House. I knew it was old, but how old? I wrote: “Is it 1920s? Circa-1910? Or is it the original 1894 toilet?” One of the things that I really…
Continue ReadingEmergency Spindle Question!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In a previous post I detailed how I recreated the original expansive size of the main stair in the Cross House. In order to finish the work I need to order 16 new oak spindles (at $55 each). There is one problem. See the spindles above? See the sphere in the middle of each? See…
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