Spring Villa is a historic Carpenter Gothic

Carpenter Gothic

Carpenter Gothic, also sometimes called Carpenter's Gothic, and Rural Gothic, is a North American architectural style-designation for an application of Gothic Revival architectural detailing and picturesque massing applied to wooden structures built by house-carpenters...

 plantation

Plantation

A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...

 house on the outskirts of Opelika

Opelika, Alabama

Opelika is a city in and the county seat of Lee County in the east central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. According to 2010 Census, the population of Opelika was 26,477...

, Alabama

Alabama

Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

. Inspired by designs published by Andrew Jackson Downing

Andrew Jackson Downing

Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...

, the house is one of only about twenty remaining residential examples of Gothic Revival architecture

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 remaining in the state. It was built by William Penn Yonge in 1850 next to a 30 acres (12.1 ha) spring-fed lake, from which it takes its name.

The house was acquired by the city of Opelika in 1927 and now forms the nucleus of its 325 acres (131.5 ha) Spring Villa Park. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on January 3, 1978, due to its architectural significance.

Architecture

The -story wood-frame building has a front elevation with three bays

Bay (architecture)

A bay is a unit of form in architecture. This unit is defined as the zone between the outer edges of an engaged column, pilaster, or post; or within a window frame, doorframe, or vertical 'bas relief' wall form.-Defining elements:...

. The ridge-line of the roof is parallel to the front facade. Each side of the main structure is gable

Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...

d and flanked by stucco

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

ed chimneys. The upper story makes extensive use of steeply pitched cross-gables. Each window on the upper floor is fronted by an individual sawnwork balcony

Balcony

Balcony , a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade.-Types:The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a...

. These originally incorporated latticework rather than the current simple baluster

Baluster

A baluster is a moulded shaft, square or of lathe-turned form, one of various forms of spindle in woodwork, made of stone or wood and sometimes of metal, standing on a unifying footing, and supporting the coping of a parapet or the handrail of a staircase. Multiplied in this way, they form a...

s. Each gable is trimmed with bargeboard

Bargeboard

Bargeboard is a board fastened to the projecting gables of a roof to give them strength and to mask, hide and protect the otherwise exposed end of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof to which they were attached...

s and crowned with a diamond-shaped pinnacle

Pinnacle

A pinnacle is an architectural ornament originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire...

.

The semi-detached, centrally placed rear ell

Ell (architecture)

In architecture, an ell is a wing of a building that lies perpendicular to the length of the main portion.In connected farm architecture, the ell is often extended to attach the main house to another building, usually a barn. It takes its name from the shape of the letter L.-External links:*...

, also one-and-a-half stories, has a four-bay facade on each long side and replicates features seen on the main facade. It was added to the building in 1934 by the Civil Works Administration

Civil Works Administration

The Civil Works Administration was established by the New Deal during the Great Depression to create manual labor jobs for millions of unemployed. The jobs were merely temporary, for the duration of the hard winter. Harry L. Hopkins was put in charge of the organization. President Franklin D...

, during conversion of the house into a clubhouse for the city.