William D. Low House
Encyclopedia
An icon of American architecture, the William G. Low House was a seaside cottage at 3 Low Lane in Bristol, Rhode Island
. Designed in 1886-87 by architect Charles Follen McKim of the New York City firm, McKim, Mead & White, the house — with its single, exaggerated, 140-foot-long gable — embodied the tenets of Shingle Style architecture
. These included horizontality, simplified massing and geometry, minimal ornamentation, and the blending of interior and exterior spaces.
The architectural historian Vincent Scully
saw it as "at once a climax and a kind of conclusion" for McKim, since its "prototypal form ... was almost immediately to be abandoned for the more conventionally conceived columns and pediments of McKim, Mead, and White's later buildings."
Just prior to its 1962 demolition, the house was documented with measured drawings and photographs by the Historic American Buildings Survey
.
"Although little known in its own time, the Low House has come to represent the high mark of the Shingle Style."
Bristol, Rhode Island
Bristol is a town in and the historic county seat of Bristol County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 22,954 at the 2010 census. Bristol, a deepwater seaport, is named after Bristol, England....
. Designed in 1886-87 by architect Charles Follen McKim of the New York City firm, McKim, Mead & White, the house — with its single, exaggerated, 140-foot-long gable — embodied the tenets of Shingle Style architecture
Shingle Style architecture
The Shingle style is an American architectural style made popular by the rise of the New England school of architecture, which eschewed the highly ornamented patterns of the Eastlake style in Queen Anne architecture....
. These included horizontality, simplified massing and geometry, minimal ornamentation, and the blending of interior and exterior spaces.
The architectural historian Vincent Scully
Vincent Scully
Vincent Joseph Scully, Jr. is Sterling Professor Emeritus of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject...
saw it as "at once a climax and a kind of conclusion" for McKim, since its "prototypal form ... was almost immediately to be abandoned for the more conventionally conceived columns and pediments of McKim, Mead, and White's later buildings."
Just prior to its 1962 demolition, the house was documented with measured drawings and photographs by the Historic American Buildings Survey
Historic American Buildings Survey
The Historic American Buildings Survey , Historic American Engineering Record , and Historic American Landscapes Survey are programs of the National Park Service established for the purpose of documenting historic places. Records consists of measured drawings, archival photographs, and written...
.
"Although little known in its own time, the Low House has come to represent the high mark of the Shingle Style."
External links
- William G. Low House, 3 Low Lane, Bristol, Bristol County, RI: 8 photos, exterior and interior, from 1962; 1 data page and supplemental material, at Historic American Building Survey
- Low House at Historic American Buildings Survey
- Low House floor plans from Great Buildings Online