Architectural Styles - Mobile homes (Spanish Fort, Vincent: neighborhoods, high school, to live in)

[LionT]

I moved here from Texas and I am impressed by the beautiful homes here.

There seem to be a variety of architectural styles - creole/french, ranch, american, colonial, etc.. I am no expert, but I would like to learn more about the archirectural styles of the homes here. Anyone care to give a brief tutorial?

By the way, what is a Federal home?

Thanks!

[downtowndoll]

Originally Posted by LionT

I moved here from Texas and I am impressed by the beautiful homes here.

There seem to be a variety of architectural styles - creole/french, ranch, american, colonial, etc.. I am no expert, but I would like to learn more about the archirectural styles of the homes here. Anyone care to give a brief tutorial?

By the way, what is a Federal home?

Thanks!

I'm not an expert either, but .......here's what I know.

A Federal home is going to be basically Georgian style; it's from the time period after the US government was formed.

We really don't have any homes here older than 1822; unfortunately, due to several fires or Urban Renewal ( which means tearing down wonderful homes to put up some ugly building to replace it or maybe putting in a parking lot). We had a great many from 1780's -1813 around the Civic center that were torn down because they were slums. What a shame.... whoever did that should be ashamed of themselves. Today we have guidelines we must follow, although a few try to get by doing wrong things. It's not difficult to follow the guidelines; Mobile Historic Development Commission will help homeowners for free. They can't help if people don't ask; a lot of people do incorrect stuff that ruins a house because they don't want to pay for a $15 Certificate of Appropriateness. Don't even get me started....

We have a good bit of 1850's-1860's homes- sometimes you will see them being called Federal but they are really Italianate. These are the ones with the great cast iron porches. Museum of Mobile is an Italianate style, look for brackets along the roofline. Since Mobile was the last port to be captured by the Union, we had nice homes being constructed well into the last part of the Civil War. A good example is the DAR-Richards house museum in the De Tonti Square Historic District, a residential area just north of Dauphin Street.

Creole homes have always been popular and the type is still being constructed today. They are believed to be a French influence. They are found all along the Gulf Coast. Waveland & Bay St. Louis, MS had many that were wiped out by Katrina. There are some great examples on Lafayette Street between Dauphin & Government Streets. The Carlen House on Murphy High School's campus used to be open for tours but isn't any longer. My favorite in Mobile is Bishop Portier's house that faces Cathedral Square downtown. It may be 1828 but think it is early 1830's,not sure. The dormers are exquisite and the inside staircase features carved arrows for spindles.

We have a GREAT deal of homes from the early 1900's- Colonial Revival or Four Square style. This style developed because Americans were remembering and admiring the Colonial times and tried to reproduce the style to some degree in their homes. Of course, they aren't just like colonial homes because they would throw their own style into it. These are found on streets like Monterey St., most of the Oakleigh Garden District, particularly South Georgia Avenue. The Oakleigh Historic Complex (museum) has a creole home(1850 working class home) & the large mansion is a raised cottage in the Greek Revival style (1833).

Then of course, there are the Bungalows of midtown Mobile, about 1915- 1930. Very liveable, the forerunner of today's open floor plan with far more charm, lots of built-ins , etc. Good examples are found on North Reed Street & Fearnway.

Many ranch style homes in Spring Hill area with many approaching almost 50 years. Some have a variety of styles: oriental or chalet.

There's also some Spanish Mission style in Mobile: Murphy High School is beautiful example and the Government Street Methodist Church is gorgeous!

Bay City Tours does a nice little tour of the historic districts (most) you might enjoy. They leave from Fort Conde' at 10:30 a.m.; you have to reserve with them.

[PortCity]

Intersting info Downtowndoll !! The most impressive part of Mobile to me when it comes to houses is the Fort Cond Village D. T with the red brickstreets and all I beleieve the houses in that part of Mobile are older than 1822. That is the oldest and original standing neighborhood in Mobile and oldest neighborhood in Alabama period. The houses in Fort Conde village I beleieve are Creaole Cottages as well.


There is a Georgia Cottage on Springhill Avenue going west bound it is pushed back but is beutyful !!! A must see.

[Keeper]

Excellent post Downtowndoll...lThat is the one thing I love about Mobile, the old houses. They are almost magical. I remember the creole houses that were on Gov't near Broad st. Unfortunately they were not in the best of shape back in the 60s and are long gone now.

I remember the house that was haunted as told back in the 60s. It was vacant at one time and IIRC a couple of HS students went in there to check it out.

[downtowndoll]

Originally Posted by PortCity

Intersting info Downtowndoll !! The most impressive part of Mobile to me when it comes to houses is the Fort Cond Village D. T with the red brickstreets and all I beleieve the houses in that part of Mobile are older than 1822. That is the oldest and original standing neighborhood in Mobile and oldest neighborhood in Alabama period. The houses in Fort Conde village I beleieve are Creaole Cottages as well.


There is a Georgia Cottage on Springhill Avenue going west bound it is pushed back but is beutyful !!! A must see.

First, let me recommend a great book: From Fort to Port, by Elizabeth Barrett Gould. It is out of print but could easily be found at the downtown book shop, Bienville Books. It is a scholarly book with a great deal of actual research. Some of the older books on Mobile, frankly, have a lot of incorrect dates in them and occasionally incorrect history on the houses. They weren't researched very well.

Well, there are a few homes in Fort Conde village that are pretty old but the majority are Italianate or even later- Victorian- some were moved there to make up for the fact that they destroyed many , many old homes with the creation of the George C. Wallace tunnel and all the ugly I-10 interchanges making Fort Conde' village a virtual island that noone wants to live in. Thank goodness for that developer Larry Posner (as usual, the people who actually care about saving houses are not from Mobile) has been slowly redoing each house in there. He's finally been able to work on the Hall-Ford house, an interesting raised cottage/ Creole type; it dates to 1838. Creole style looks like this: it's going to have a very steep roof usually with dormers (these are windows) with a porch. French doors will typically open onto the porch, so a lot of houses you may think are Creole, are not Creole.

The Conde-Charlotte house, which is a house museum, is the only one that is 1822-1824. I have heard that it is older than that, but, if that is so, it would only be the brick floor which has the outline of the old city jail and two of the jail doors.
Nothing else is older than that, due to many of the architectural styles not being created yet. Very sad that the tearing down of many neighborhoods was allowed, and we were left with, really, just the Conde house and the Hall Ford house as the oldest.

Now you may be interested to know that there is a very old neighborhood, an African American community, just south of Canal Street and north of Virginia Street. Many were torn down in there through Urban Renewal , but some old ones(not many though) were left. Supposedly, many of the families who were originally there- many as free blacks- stayed. A maid I once had lived in her great grandmother's house and the maid is about 60 now. Her house was one that didn't get torn down.

Now the house- Georgia Cottage- is a raised cottage Greek Revival, similar to Oakleigh. It was originally Augusta Evans' (a well-known authoress) childhood home. It was built in 1845. Augusta's mother's portrait is at Oakleigh in the library. The land itself is what is truly stunning. Today, it's the Meaher's house- if you saw the Order of Myths documentary, that's where the Queen of the Mobile Carnival Association lived. They are also the descendants of one of the two men who made a bet that they could ship some slaves over on the Clothildefrom Africa in the late 1850's. They made it over but were stranded when the Civil War broke out. They founded an area called Africatown, north of Mobile.

[downtowndoll]

...then you would need to drive over to Pascagoula, Mississippi to see the Old Spanish Fort. It is circa 1726 with clay walls made of bousilliage and is believed to be the surviving carpenter's shop of the La Pointe- Krebs estate. So it's really not a house but gives you an idea of what they looked like.

[downtowndoll]

The other homes we have to see would be the Vincent home, circa 1827, which is now the Medical Museum over on Spring Hill Avenue. There's a nice park beside it.

The Toulmin house, which had to be moved to Univ. of S. Alabama. It dates to 1828.

These style homes are very rare because when plantation-style architecture later became really popular elsewhere in the state, this frame over brick style wasn't popular anymore and people began tearing them down.

[downtowndoll]

Originally Posted by Keeper

Excellent post Downtowndoll...lThat is the one thing I love about Mobile, the old houses. They are almost magical. I remember the creole houses that were on Gov't near Broad st. Unfortunately they were not in the best of shape back in the 60s and are long gone now.

I remember the house that was haunted as told back in the 60s. It was vacant at one time and IIRC a couple of HS students went in there to check it out.

A couple of those homes were saved and were moved to lots in the Oakleigh Garden District.

Some of these houses are definitely haunted... I didn't really believe until I moved into one ( we moved). It wasn't too bad but constantly being awakened in the middle of night by the sound of old lady slippers wasn't fun! Right now, ours has nothing in it and it 's great.