The Georgian Central Plan House persists until after Confederation.
In the past four or so posts I have been discussing the appearance of Georgian architecture – specifically the central plan house – on the Island, and how styles in the capital Charlottetown differed from those outside the sphere of influence of the Plaw/Smith Greek Revival style.
In some detail, again and again, I described how Plaw’s pilaster and eave bracket on his 1811 Courthouse invented a new Greek Revival style that, in Charlottetown at least, completely eclipsed that which was popular on the Mainland and in New England. I touched briefly on other styles that appeared in town and across the harbour, and in isolated Springhill where we saw a carpenter interpretation of a Corinthian profile on Haslam’s Inn.
In this post I want to finish my remarks on the two storey central plan house, taking up again with the Plaw/Smith style, but merging into what else was seen on buildings from Smith’s moving away after the completion of Province House to the disappearance of the Georgian style at the end of the 1860s when the Italianate style appeared in Charlottetown.
It is appropriate to take up this narrative with yet another Smith house, this time a simple five-bay two storey house built my Isaac’s brother Henry Smith in 1827 at what is now 100 Prince Street.
100 Prince Street, Henry Smith – 1827
In this small detail taken from a larger watercolour of the new Methodist church and the length of Prince Street, you see the temple-like chapel on the right, a hipped roof house on the corner of Richmond, which was Isaac Smith’s home, and beyond, almost joined together like row housing, two five-bay town houses. The nearest one was built by Isaac’s brother Henry in 1827. It is always good to be able to see a building in its original context.
Robert Harris, Detail from a watercolour of Prince Street showing the two Methodist chapels and the street to the North. C. 1864-64. CCAG.
The house still dominates that section of the street, and its bright colour makes it stand out from the others in that section of the block.
Today all that is left of the exterior design and appearance of the house are the wide corner boards, no longer topped by flat brackets or modillions. The small pane windows have been replaced by a combination of later windows and the shingling is the wide-spaced shake that is still popular here and there. The porch is modern but in good taste. The house is still noble and gives the passer by a feel for what once was ubiquitous in the old city.
Not far from both these houses in the southeastern part of town is an imposing house that seems to take up a lot of space on the block. That is the Brecken house.
John Brecken house, 185 King Street – 1833
The Brecken family were Loyalists who arrived on the Island in the late Eighteenth Century. They were people of means who quickly developed their extensive land grants and became heavily involved in business, shipbuilding and politics (Rogers,pp. 175-176).
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/brecken_frederick_de_st_croix_13E.html
In 1832 John Brecken’s grandson, also named John, obtained three adjacent town lots in the middle of the block bordered on the north and south by Dorchester and King Streets, and on the east and west by Hillsborough and Prince Streets. There he built a very fine central plan house, completed in 1833. The original exterior details, which I am sure would have been like other Smith Greek Revival houses in town, disappeared probably in the 1870s when the house was renovated in the new popular Italianate style when brackets were installed in the eaves. The wide corner boards and eaves modillion would have disappeared to accommodate this new style.
The general effect of the house in its heyday however can still be appreciated in this post card dated 1907, ironically the year the house passed out of the family. The house has a magnificent presence, made more intense by the shutters, an English practice for night security and air circulation during the day. Like blinds, the shutters prevented the sun’s rays from fading the silk upholstery of the furniture.
Postcard, dated 1907. Source unknown.
The porch could be original with its door topped by a wide transom window and flanked by sidelights. The steps leading up to it give it monumentality.
Today the house still stands in is original location. The flanking lots have been sold but the house still occupies a full town lot, with its huge garden and entrance facing King Street and its service entrance on Dorchester Street. A most elegant Palladian window on the stair landing has now become a fire door, leading to an incredibly dense three storey fire escape made of wide boards. The curve of its top section is scarcely visible.
While the porch is still standing its elegant entrance has been replaced by a simple door. The small paned windows have modern sashes, but the Italianate eave brackets still survive.
It is worthwhile studying this detail from the 1863 Lake map of the city of Charlottetown to see how the land was employed in the early years of the Nineteenth Century. The Breckens were important, socially elevated people, and they wore their wealth on their sleeve, as it were. They thought nothing of using up most of the lot space as an ornamental garden with a long walk to the door of the house. For them, there were many other places to grow vegetables. As you walk across the garden, now a lawn, you can still feel the anticipation today even though the house has become a tenement, divided into a large number of rooms.
Baker/Lake Map 1863 – Detail of Charlottetown inset.
This practice of using up a whole town lot for a single residence in time disappeared, for obvious financial and practical reasons. It is difficult to find lots used for a single structure, but just one street over, such a lot survives completely filled by a vast building that was once a livery stable. One wonders how the manure of so many horses was disposed of. In the 1980-90 period it was an interesting antique shop with a shy owner who made you feel like a trespasser.
You can still appreciate the effect of the Brecken garden today by observing it from the street, trespassing and walking through to Dorchester Street, or, as I did, climb the fire escape of the house where I once lived enjoying the wonderful aura of grace and space that is still there to delight us.
View from fire escape at 162 Dorchester Street. Photo R. Porter.
Amazingly, without straying more than a few hundred feet it is possible to see another of these central plan houses connected to Isaac Smith.
The Methodists were very active in Charlottetown from the late Eighteenth Century and their centre of activity was the block bounded, at its upper end, by Prince, Richmond and Sydney Streets. There, in 1835 Isaac had designed a very elegant Greek Revival chapel what kept having to be enlarged due to the growth in the congregation and the various religious and education activities in which the Methodists were involved. There was no Mission House for the pastor and his family and so land to the east of their lot was bought and Isaac Smith became part of a supervising committee to erect the necessary building.
The 1838 Methodist Mission House, now at 215- 217 Richmond Street.
The new Mission House was built behind the wooden chapel, and was still in use when the brick Tudor Revival chapel was built in 1863. In a rare photograph taken from the roof of Province House we can see the five-bay house at the rear, to the left of the new chapel.
Detail of ac. 1865 photo taken from the roof of Province House. LAC
The Methodists were very socially conscious to the point of being competitive with their religious neighbours. It is probable that the 1862 brick chapel was inspired, in part, by the similar one built by the Catholics in Tignish three years before. In Charlottetown in 1872 the new and extremely ambitious Bishop, Peter McIntyre, began to build an Italianate Palazzo on Great George Street, next to his mediocre wooden cathedral, that was only completed in 1875. In 1873, in the middle of all this, the Methodists built their own new Mission House on Prince Street, next to the church. It too was an Italian palazzo but built of brick. The old Smith manse was no longer needed so in 1875 it was quickly moved across the street to the site it now occupies as 215-217 Richmond Street.
Like all these central plan Georgian houses it is imposing in its simplicity. The house that we see today was modified on the outside, perhaps around 1910, when the Colonial Revival period – another style! – hit Charlottetown. The corner boards and modillions were removed and a projecting belt course, with an upper curved surface, typical of the new style, was added at that time. It is also then that the house was shingled and Twentieth Century sash window with 2 over 1 panes of glass installed.
In 2016 the interior of the house was receiving a complete renovation to create two elegant city apartments and the workmen allowed me to explore and photograph the empty rooms.
We are given a great treat when we view the interior because most of it is intact. For example, when we enter there is a simple hall with a staircase on the left, very typical of decades of Georgian practice of a simple, but very elegant turned wooden newel post resting on the bottom step. Probably because the usual practice of resting this post on a sensuous curved extension of this step might have put prurient ideas into the heads of the minister and his family, it was left out, and this bit of grace is missed in the abrupt termination of the stairs.
The upstairs hall is clean and airy with a wonderful space lit by the centre window that could become a small room in itself, most probably for sewing. In its original position it would have received west light and have overlooked the churchyard, so looking out the window would have provided no temptations.
The door did not have any sidelights, unnecessary in a Methodist household, but it did have an extremely elegant transom in the Chinese Chippendale style that had been popular since the middle of the 1700s. At some point the glass was painted by that kind of alcohol-based varnish which, upon drying, produced large crystals that obscured the view outside. A little colour produced a sort of stained glass effect.
I found the fireplaces, all following the same design, very beautiful in their classical symmetry. The design consists primarily of two Tuscan Doric colonettes, turned on a lathe, and drilled through the centre – a process called checking – to prevent cracks from forming. These were applied against pilaster backings which terminated in a sort of architrave which was topped by a substantial but simple mantel shelf. In the centre of the architrave or cross board is a rectangular medallion ornament – very austere -but giving token respect to the style.
The mantels in the front formal rooms had been marbled, with yellows and reds over a dark base. This was common practice at that time when the greatest desire for the formal fireplace was to have a marble mantelpiece.
The other mantels in the house, including the ones upstairs, were all painted white, probably done later, and this was in keeping with their inferior location and in saving the price of the marbling process.
It is a house which even today gives dignity to Richmond Street, and blends in with other houses of its age, but with some quite fine later buildings found on either side of the street.
Bayfield House, 269 Queen Street – 1839
The Countess of Westmorland’s House
This house is of considerable interest not only because of its architectural merit, but also because of the celebrated people who lived in it over the years. It is given considerable attention in the books of Macnutt, and Tuck 2006, (p. 25,) and the two books by Irene Rogers (1974, 1976, pp. 89-91), and Rogers 1983, (pp. 238-41).
In the autumn of 1839 the Countess of Westmorland, who owned part of Lot 29, arrived in Charlottetown with her entourage and was the talk of the town with her eccentric ways. She had a pet greyhound, dressed in a silk coat, that followed her everywhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgiana_Fane
She travelled to Lot 29 to view her estate – Something almost never done by absentee landlords – and today three places on the Island are named after her (Rayburn p. 72), Westmoreland, Westmoreland (Crapaud) River and Lady Fane, a settlement that never materialised but is still on the map at the intersection of Route 114 with the County Line Road.
In the various references to the Countess of Westmoreland to her property and activities on the Island in 1839 there is considerable confusion about which countess is being discussed. Georgiana (in honour of the various King Georges) was a popular name. The reader is warned that this information may be changed when more reliable information becomes available.
I have been unable to locate a portrait of her as an adult (the John Hoppner portrait of Hebe is another person) but around 1806 Sir Thomas Lawrence did a portrait of her when she was only 5 years old.
Sir Thomas Lawrence, Lady Georgiana Fane,
c. 1806, The Tate, London.
In the history of art this portrait is important because it depicts a new trend in portraiture where the sitter, especially children, are portrayed as rustics in a country setting. This is connected to changing social values, the abolition of slavery in Britain and the rise of democratic ideals. It is part of the movement that would lead to working-class revolts of the 1830s and 40s.
When she arrived in Charlottetown the Countess moved into the house at 269 Queen Street, which must have been built soon before her arrival. It was in the Greek Revival style that was the rage in Charlottetown and the surrounding countryside at that time. That version of the style, particular to the region around Charlottetown, was probably invented by the builder Isaac Smith, who in turn was probably influenced by the famous architect John Plaw, who died in Charlottetown three years after Smith’s arrival from Yorkshire. These Greek Revival houses, of which Government House is one, were typically Georgian in style, with a central plan, although they could have a gable entrance as well. There were very wide panelled corner boards or pilasters topped by a modillion or flat bracket, which served as the crowning element instead of a capital. This, we believe, was copied from Plaw’s 1811 Courthouse. This drawing by David Webber illustrates this well.
The house, owned by Charlottetown lawyer Scott MacKenzie, was in need of restoration on the exterior as all the corner pilasters with their topping modillions were in bad condition or missing the top elements. The front porch, a later addition, needed to be modified slightly to make it blend in with the architecture of the house, a new fence with appropriate landscape elements installed, and a new paint scheme was required. My relationship to the house was intensified when I was retained in July-August 1990, to supervise the restoration of the architectural elements and to select appropriate colours for the house. This was the result.
The eave returns culminating with the modillion are very impressive on this house, with a pilaster width of 20 inches.
The plan of the house, with modern additions, is very typical of the Georgian central plan house. There is a modest but fine central hall leading to the kitchen and pantries and the ends of the house have huge chimney stacks in their centres, providing a potential chimney exhaust for at least four fireplaces per stack.
The house has had a number of significant owners.
After the Countess of Westmorland returned home, Admiral Henry Bayfield, who did the hydrographic survey of the Island and Northumberland Strait, bought the property and he lived there over 35 years. His wife, Fanny Wright Bayfield, was an accomplished artist in the topographic tradition, and gave lessons in painting from her home.
Here is a B&W photo of a watercolour, perhaps by Fanny Bayfield, of Euston Street intersecting with Queen Street. The house can be seen on the corner. I have never had a chance to study this artwork and don’t even know whether its from the Archives, Confederation Centre AG or the Heritage Foundation. I found it on the internet. I would say it is before 1850 because of the tower on the Kirk of Saint James is in its old form, before it was Gothicised with tall pinnacles.
The MacKenzie family has owned the property for a couple of generations, and it is greatly loved by the present owner and his family. It continues to be one of the ten most important houses in the city.
The Central Plan House spreads across the Island
The central plan house, with architectural details more in keeping with what was found on the Mainland, spread across the Island and good examples are to be found in all the major towns and villages, and even in the countryside. To conclude this post I want to present you with two examples found in the west part of the Island, where development was more intense because of the importance of the Bedeque-Malpeque and Saint Eleanor’s and Port Hill area as a centre of Loyalist settlement and the arrival of shipbuilders from Devon in England.
The Haszard House, Saint Eleanors – 1856-60
This very handsome house on the side of the highway at St. Eleanors belonged to the Haszard family. It was intentionally built close to the highway and is a large three-bay structure. Its original grounds have survived so the house looks very fine framed by ancient trees. The farm/outbuildings are a good distance from the house.
The porch or portico is very interesting and very elegant. It consists of a substantial entablature supported on each end by two Tuscan Doric pilasters which, in domestic architecture on the Island, is most unusual. You can see a green strip running down from the entablature right up against the house. Before the porch or portico was glassed in there was, as should be, a marching pilaster for the entablature to rest on. This is called a respond and can be seen on the Ionic south portico at Government House.
In the Fall Semester of 1991 one of my art history students at UPEI, Helen Weeks, wrote a very fine paper and gave a presentation on this house for Fine Arts 452 – The Art and Architecture of Prince Edward Island. This paper contains the information about the family and the house that I am unable to pass on to you because I cannot locate the paper. However I did photograph my student’s sketch plan of the house and present it here.
As you can see it is a typical central plan house, 30 by 40 feet, with the original 15 foot kitchen at the back. This plan could be taken almost as a generic plan for this kind of house on the Island. The internal arrangements rarely vary.
The Wesley Gallant House, Anglo Tignish – c. 1840-60
Just past the road to the Green at Anglo Tignish, on the east side, and obscured by a splendid grove of trees is a fine five-bay central plan house built some in around the middle of the Nineteenth Century. At some point later in the century a veranda was added. The house is in a beautiful location with a fine view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence seen through a screen of trees and fields extending to the shore.
In Meacham’s 1880 ATLAS the property is shown as belonging to Thomas Fairbairn who, along with a number of others, had business interest at what used to be a busy intersection. Fairbairn probably built the house at the time Tignish Run became an important fishing establishment in the middle of the century when the Myricks, a wealthy new England family bought the fishing rights from the Province.
In time the house was purchased by the Gallant gamily and is known locally now as Wesley Gallant’s house.
The interior is simple and there is no elaborate plaster work. However, there is an elegant front door with a fanlight and sidelights. The glass in the door is a later addition.
The fireplace has long been removed and the opening bricked up. The mantelpiece is squeezed between two doors leading to the back rooms. It has no particular style and here, 100 miles from Charlottetown, the centre of power and the source of artistic taste, the mantel is constructed in the same way as the door frames but with an architrave and mantel shelf on the top. As you move away from the centre of style and design, various details become modified or debased – a memory of the classic original form.
To me, this mantelpiece, unlike any other I have seen on the Island, and the product of half-remembered knowledge about the classical style – maybe none at all! – is greatly interesting in that it shows that distance caused the spread of information to diminish as one penetrated into the deep countryside of the Far West, as Lot 1 was called in those days.
So this ends the story of the grand, two storied central plan house, a gift from Great Britain modelled and interpreted by changing Island styles.
In the next post we will examine briefly the single storey central plan house with a pronounced entrance feature, running up into a centre dormer, providing light but also making a statement of architectural style.
PATRONS
Kind persons have provided support for the expenses incurred in producing this blog. I wish to express my deep gratitude to these individuals who have helped me cover the costs of archival scans, photographs, learned journals, books and professional services.
Marcel Carpenter
Scott Davidson
Trevor Gillingwater
Henry Kliner
Earle Lockerby
Dr. Edward and Sheila MacDonald
Robert L. Scobie
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