Blueprints!
I am blessed to have copies of the original drawings to the Cross House.
The set is incomplete.
The drawings are also As Intended rather than As Built, and there are numerous discrepancies between the two.
All the images enlarge if you click on them. Then enlarge again.
Save a few details, there are no drawings of the carriage house. BIG sigh.
No. 1. WEST (main) ELEVATION. (Courtesy Mouse Family archives.)
No. 2. NORTH ELEVATION.
No. 3. SOUTH ELEVATION.
No. 4. BASEMENT. The top is south. This is true for all subsequent floor plans.
No. 5. MAIN FLOOR.
No. 6. SECOND FLOOR.
No. 7. THIRD FLOOR. This is mostly one huge room. Quite incredible.
No. 8. I can only guess what some of the missing drawings depict.
No. 9.
No. 10. MAIN STAIR DETAILS. The lower landing is shown here as a L-shape. It was built as a U-shape.
No. 11. DETAILS.
No. 12. DETAILS.
No. 13. DETAILS.
No. 14. DETAILS.
No. 15. DETAILS.
No. 16. DETAILS.
How I love looking at these. I am sure you know how lucky you are to have such drawings. I would nearly kill for one early photograph of my home. I have been looking for 10+ years but to no avail. I am not one to give up but I wonder when I should say enough is enough in my endless search for something seemingly easy to find after enough time. Hope to come down there and see your beauty one day!
May blessings rain down upon your head for saving both properties. For much too long, the wonderful homes built in past years have been destroyed in the name of progress. You are my hero for saving these homes. Thank you!
Wow, thanks for sharing all of these in one place! It’s unfortunate about the missing ones, but perhaps they’ll turn up among your many connections sometime.
As an engineer, I often struggle with missing drawings for existing structures. Even commercial and industrial building owners don’t realize the value of good, complete as-built drawings. One sheet of paper can easily save tens of thousands of dollars in survey, site investigation, and non-destructive testing.
You spoke of restoring the laundry chute and dumbwaiter.
Is there any other evidence of 1890’s technology that you are going to restore?
i.e. call buzzers, doorbells, whistle tubes, telephone wiring?
I ask because I have a 1900 late victorian 4-square built when electricity was first introduced, I have gas lines throughout the house for the now disabled gas lighting system.
I found ghost outlines for where the call bells and doorbells were, plus telephone runs both inside and outside the house… ugh!
I was considering restoring all of these original “Bells and Whistles” but was going to stop when it came to the telephone wiring.
Cellular has made hardwired phones obsolete and now, I understand why these older technologies were abandoned so quickly.
I even want to remove all the cable TV runs that aren’t being used but then I caught myself again!
Why not restore this technology as well?
Clean up the rats’ nests in the basement for telephone, doorbell, and cable/ satellite TV.
Replace the bad with a good state of the art wiring and connections, but keep it neat and professional.
(I am also running a hardwired network to our two offices and home theater room which does double time as a guestroom, outfitted like an apartment for a boarder.
I can’t do a full-on restoration of the house, so much is gone, but for what survives, I can still keep it interesting and functional.
Thoughts?
I will also be restoring the speaking tubes, and what appears to be the original remote bell for the telephone closet.
Regarding old wiring and old telephone wires and old cable wires, I am tearing all this out. As well as old plumbing pipes. I am leaving the old gas lighting pipes.
The entire house is being rewired, and replumbed with PEX tubes.
It’s a little late to post this, but my best guess based on late 1800’s blueprint sets is that No. 8 and 9 used to depict cross (no pun intended) sections of the house, one from front to back and the other side to side. They likely would have shown floor thicknesses, ceiling heights, and wall/door molding elevations.
fun
Hi Ross, just found this page.
What a house! Congratulations!
Hope to visit one year, all bests from Oslo,
Robert
Robert!!!!!!!!!
I was thinking about you a month ago!
And I hope all is well with you! Yes, PLEASE come visit!
BIG hugs,
Ross
I just watched a YouTube special on your journey to bring this beauty back to life. I wish I lived closer.
I’m 54 and just took on my 3rd old home. I share your passion.
Hi. I came across your blog looking up Victorian interior renovations. Yes, I’m in the “stay-at-home” environment we all are in at the present moment. So, while I have this time at home, I found your blog. And, Yes. I LOVE the Victorian period! I used to research it when I would take “breaks” while I was a student at The University of Michigan. I watched your video on YouTube conducted by Ms.Finkelstein for CIRCA.
I absolutely loved everything you said about your experience and expertise with this field with regard to your approach to restoration!!. While not a grand Victorian, I’ve restored my grandmother’s 1940s home to a level that even she wouldn’t believe.
I live in a suburb of Detroit. During this crisis, I have been researching Detroit’s famed Brush Park neighborhood of the 1870s through to the early 1900s.(lookup Alfred St & the George jerome home–Some absolutely stunning mansions that used to be here!) Just a fun fact, did u know that THE Boeing family (of aircraft fame) home was here in Detroit? And the son who started the aircraft company played as a child in the yard of the home here. (Also amazing! and, sadly,gone) I totally agree with your sentiments as to why these close-to-downtown mansions began to fade-the automobile. Yup, blame Henry Ford! lol. As well as the Victorian penchant for the next bigger and better thing! Same thing happened here in Detroit! Within 30 years, the Brush Park neighborhood was already in decline.
I have loved Victorian homes since I was in high school in the mid/late 80s. (Im 49) I also wanted to applaud you for DOING it RIGHT! I love your thought process about it! Kudos! Bravo! I can’t wait to see the progress! And what more fabulous things you uncover! Loved the bits of original wallpaper!
And loved your peacock wallpaper! Fantastic! Eagerly anticipating your future pictures and posts!!
Hi, David!
Very nice to meet you!
I was born in Detroit, and have done a number of Detroit posts, and a number about Brush Park.
All are in this sub-section of my blog. Each post about the city will have Detroit in the title.
Was this designed by Frank Squires? He was an architect out of Topeka. I have been told that over the years but I don’t see note of it.
Thank you!
Hi, Christine!
The Cross House was designed by Charles W. Squires. He lived a block away.
I’m very late to this thread, but while looking at your efforts to paint the Great South Wall and the main façades, I wonder if the way to react to the water trap details under the center window on the main façade and on the main gable of the South wall, COULD be to mimic them with paint?
For all I know, you’ve already chosen to do something with shingling instead.