What Little We Know So Far

This is a postcard of North 7th Street in 1912. It is the only picture we have found of the house to date. The Victorian House sits in the middle of the photograph. From the photo you can see the tower and original veranda. Each house on this street is still standing today.

There is very little in the fossil records of the Guernsey County Courthouse about this home. There remains but a few obscure tax records, and an estimated date of construction. What we need to find is buried deep in the dusty volumes stored away in the nooks and crannies of the courthouse. Regretfully, we don't know who built this house, when it was built, or who initially occupied it. But, we do know some interesting facts.

We know that the blueprints for this home were purchased from a catalog. Yes, a catalog- much like you would choose a floor plan for a home today. It was originally specified to be built from brick.

You can see in the original 1891 line illustration to the left, that the house had a round front window, and the veranda's roof swept down to the right. The chimney on the left moved towards the back of the house. We believe the house, when built, had a veranda that dominated the front of the house.

The original design was published on paper in 1891 and is refereced as "Design 44". The architect, George Barber, was one of the countries most successful, late Nineteenth Century Domestic Architects, and used the mail order business sell his designs. To meet individual needs, Barber's designs were assembled in inexpensive illustrated catalogs, complete with price lists and order forms. You could write Barber and request changes to the print and he would draft an original set to your specfications. We believe this is how this house came to be in Cambridge.

Design number 44 is the Queen Anne style of the Victorian period. Most of Cambridge's Victorian architecture was razed long ago. Very few examples exist, and those that have survived, have been abused over the years. Although we haven't found the original courthouse records of who had this house built, we think it is construction date is close to 1895. We found a name behind the remnants of a fireplace mantel written cursive in pencil "John Clary, 404 7th, December 16th 1897". We researched the name with outstanding help from our local library and discover that he didn't build the house, but was the painter. We haven't found anything else.

To understand the architectral basics of the Queen Anne style, click on the icon below for a mini course on the Queen Anne style.

Understanding
Queen Anne
Architecture

The house is three floors, and was converted into six apartments long ago. On the landing of the second floor, there is a third set of stairs that ascend to the room next to the tower. At first, I was perplexed as to why they were there, but soon concluded that the people that converted this home into apartments- installed these third floor steps in order to access the two additional rooms and tower. It looks ugly and is one of the first things on the task list to remove. The floor plan is a little bit different from the original prints we found. The people who had the house built changed the floor plan to suit their needs and I like it better than the original print. We calculate the living space at roughly 3400 square feet.

We would welcome any additional information about this house. If you know anything about this house, the neighborhood, or photographs,
please email us at:



victorianhouse@efadgroup.com