Yeah, Big House, See, Yeah

[Philippe Cordier]

Like Patti, I've wondered what the building material of Seaview Terrace is, and I would also have hesitated to say concrete, thinking that couldn't be right, could it?  But then again it doesn't look as though it's actual stone either.

French chateaux appear to be a light tan color, from what I know, which looks like limestone, but I have no idea if limestone is the building material or if it's even found in France.*  The one aspect of Collinwood that does remind me of a French chateau is the circular (as opposed to square) tower with small windows, topped by a (bluish) pointed top - no idea what the architectural term for this would be!  It would be fun to research the French chateau connection further.

For a look at what a stately house built in 1795 in Maine actually looks like, see the fascinating photographs on this website:  http://www.generalknoxmuseum.org/montpelier.html.  Take the tour and clip on the floorplan to see photographs of the rooms and grounds.

Interesting discussion as just yesterday I was taking photographs of a small stone (yes, true stone blocks) mansion about a block from where I live, known as Mansion Hill.  And yes, it has reminded me of Collinwood from the moment I saw it.  Strange that this is the second city where I've lived where I've been only a couple of blocks from a stone mansion that is very reminiscent of Collinwood!  I like to walk by it as much as possible.


*On a hunch I did a quick search on google recalling that my great-grandfather from Lorraine, France, settled in an area of Minnesota known for its limestone quarries, and sure enough, Lorraine (and neighboring Alsace), were major sources of limestone for France - and a further quick search finds that limestone was used for chateaux throughout France.  Collinwood, I thought, had a limestone appearance, but on closer examination of photographs I have, Seaview Terrace is a much cooler color, and, as mentioned above, does not appear to be actual "stone," though it's hard to see enough detail in photographs to say for sure.  Anyone who has been there, do you remember?

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Seaview Terrace is a much cooler color, and, as mentioned above, does not appear to be actual "stone," though it's hard to see enough detail in photographs to say for sure.  Anyone who has been there, do you remember?

Seaview is built of brick with a smooth stucco top coating (these days it's quite sad to see that the stucco is actually falling off the building in a few places  ). And since there seems to be a real interest about the house's architectural style, I'll post more about it later once I've had a chance to scan some photos/illustrations from my architecture books.

[stefan]

Only on a TV show would a small tiny family move from the "old" beautiful gorgeous mansion into the "new" overwhelmingly larger house. Oh, that's right .. the "old" house was suppose to belong to Barnabas.

[Mark Rainey]

In my "unofficial" DS novel, The Labyrinth of Souls, I justified it this way:

"Collinwood was neither a warm nor a happy house. Its oppressive hulk had perched on Widows' Hill for two hundred years, jealously guarding its secrets like a depraved mother, and within its walls, light succumbed to shadow as if in fear of what it might illumine. The house had been patterned after a French chateau, with spacious wings designed to accommodate a prosperous and prolific family; yet, since the day of its completion, rarely had even one wing of the mansion been fully occupied. Had its builder envisioned the years of tragedy and heartache that would ensue for the endlessly troubled--some would say cursed--inhabitants of the house, he would have surely burned the plans for this grandest of his dreams before construction even began."

[Mysterious Benefactor]

the architect who designed the house (Howard Greenley) patterned it after an actual French chateau of the Renaissance period.

The style of architecture that Seaview Terrace falls into is called the French Eclectic Style. It was its most popular between 1915 and 1940. And what's probably most interesting about Seaview Terrace is that it was sort of made over into the French Eclectic Style because architect Howard Greenley took an already existing structure that had been built in 1882 and, through a series of makeovers and additions that were completed in 1925, transformed it into the Seaview Terrace we're familiar with today. (Personally, I'd love to come across some photos of what the original building looked like - but I've yet to find even one in any of the books on the architecture of Newport, RI.  ) As such, Seaview Terrace contains a few features that are not commonly seen in houses of the French Eclectic Style - namely the gables. However, French Eclectic is, well, very eclectic, and the shapes/designs of this style of architecture are usually varied, in part because its precedents encompass elements taken from both formal symetrical manor houses and informal asymetrical farmhouses. To say that Seaview Terrace features an asymetrical design would be putting it mildly.    But quite honestly, the fact that it is so asymetrical is one of the reasons I really love the design of the house. Designwise, it just has so much going on for it.

Typically, these are the features of the French Eclectic Style:

• 1) tall, steeply pitched and often hipped roof, most often without dominant front-facing cross gable, but often featuring one or more dormer windows.
• 2) eaves frequently flared outward at roof-wall junction.
• 3) brick, stone, or stucco walls, sometimes with half-timbering

However, often it will also feature:

• circular or octagonal tower(s), often with a decorative capping.
• prominent chimneys.
• upper story balconies and porches.
• and a roof covered with heavy tiles.

features that Seaview Terrace definitely possesses to beautiful effect.

The illustration above is of a house name Falaise, which is an excellent example of French Eclectic and which is located in Sands Point, Long Island, NY - and it's interesting to note that it's front facade features a design that can also be seen in the facade of a wing of Seaview Terrace's which is rarely seen on DS and which is never seen once the show switches to color:

Originally, the bottom floor of that wing at Seaview Terrace was used as the kitchen and the top floors as servants quarters. But nowadays the bottom floor is used as a communal laundry room and the top floors are used as (very small) dormatory rooms and bathrooms/showers.

these days it's quite sad to see that the stucco is actually falling off the building in a few places

As you can see below, the bricks are actually exposed in spots where the stucco topcoating of Seaview Terrace has cracked and fallen away:

And in closeup:

Though, quite sadly, much of the house has fallen into disrepair and ruin...

[Philippe Cordier]

Wonderfully evocative description of Collinwood by Mark Rainey ...

I find echoes of Collinwood in this description as well:

"[The house] was itself like a great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of rich and somber reminiscences. . . . You could not pass it without the idea that it had secrets to keep . . . Under that roof, through a portion of three centuries, there has been perpetual remorse of conscience, a constantly defeated hope, strife amongst kindred, various misery, a strange form of death, dark suspicion, unspeakable disgrace."

(from Chapter 1 of "The House of the Seven Gables," Nathanial Hawthorne)


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MB -

It's exciting to see the results of your research!  You've answered some burning questions about Collinwood that have heretofore remained obscure!

From what you've found (and I'm curious whether you just happen to have these architecture books lying around, or if you went to the library ...), it seems the oft-repeated statement found in various sources that Seaview Terrace was built to resemble a French chateau is inaccurate.  From what you say, the French aspects were a later re-design of the house.  That point aside, the French Eclectic Style by definition does not seem to be the same thing as modeling a building on a chateau, would you agree?

I like how you've pointed out some of the specific elements of this style in actual photographs of Seaview Terrace.

[Philippe Cordier]

When I returned to my apartment tonight I walked past that mansion I mentioned above.  There were lights on on all three levels, shining through the high gothic windows.  The house looks like a miniature Lyndhurst - it is built of large blocks of a gray stone.  Perhaps I can post a couple of pictures here whenever I get my film developed (the home is no longer a private residence).  I could easily imagine the Collinses living there except for the fact that the house is crowded on a surprisingly small corner lot, only a couple of feet from the public sidewalk - not removed and remote like the Collins family mansions.

This raises the question - what is the stone building material used for Lyndhurst?

[BuzzH]

It may not be as ridiculous as it might at first appear because, remember, things are different in PT.

 Exactly.  We have no idea how history, styles, architecture etc unfolded in Parallel Time.     

  I'd say that even in the regular time band, Collinsport is not strictly bound by things like time-appropriate architecture.  Collinsport is a weird place, and things there aren't exactly the same as they are everywhere else.

Ah, but this is the great thing about Parallel Time, we can CHANGE anything we want and who cares if it's not historically accurate?  It's Parallel Time!   Hey, we can say the south won the Civil War in PT if we want to!!  

[BuzzH]

It's also probably worth noting that the actual interiors of the house look nothing like the DS sets.

Except for the foyer, which actually very much resembles the foyer of "Colliwood", complete w/the stain glass window up top where, on the show, the landing to the staircase is (doesn't exist at Seaview though-the staircase/landing that is).

Also, if you take away that short hallway that connects the foyer of Seaview/Cecilia Hall w/the music room directly back from the front, double doors, that music room could double for the drawing room of Collinwood.     I have to believe that Sy Tomasoff at LEAST got as far inside that mansion as the foyer, hallway and music room.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I'm curious whether you just happen to have these architecture books lying around, or if you went to the library

No, I have architecture books lying around (I suppose one might say I'm almost as much of an architecture geek, er, buff as I am a DS, er, buff  ) - and the reason it's taken me so long to get back to you is because I've been going through several of my books to try to further flesh out the look of Seaview Terrace and how it compares to some other examples of the French Eclectic Style and the architecture of French chateaux in general. 

it seems the oft-repeated statement found in various sources that Seaview Terrace was built to resemble a French chateau is inaccurate.  From what you say, the French aspects were a later re-design of the house.  That point aside, the French Eclectic Style by definition does not seem to be the same thing as modeling a building on a chateau, would you agree?

Well, when it comes to most descriptions of Seaview Terrace, the operative word is usually that the house is "patterned" after a French chateau of the Renaissance period, not that it's necessarily an exact duplicate. And even though Howard Greenley took an already existing structure, which not incidentally was named Seaview, and, for want of another term, French Eclecticized it and rechristened it as the Seaview Terrace we know and love, that doesn't really mean that Seaview Terrace as it exists isn't as much an example of French Eclectic as if Greenley had built the entire structure from the ground up. By its own definition French Eclectic "patterns" itself after elements of the manor houses and farmhouses of rural-France. And, unfortunately, there seems to be painfully little info concerning just what Greenley did to the existing exteriors/interiors during the reconstruction, so for all we know they may bear little resemblance to how they once looked. (That's one of the reasons I would love to find photos of the original Seaview before the reconstruction/additions.)

One of the things that I find most fascinating about the portion of Seaview Terrace that originally existed as Seaview is that it's often described as having been "Elizabethan," by which I'm assuming from the present look to mean it was either Tudor or at least Tudoresque in design. And the reason I say that is because Seaview Terrace in its current form still exhibits what could be considered Tudor elements. For example:

These photos of Stan Hywet Hall (aka "My Dream Collinwood"  ) and a house at Bodnant Gardens in Wales showcase typical examples of Tudor style gables with half-timbering. Look familiar? But in fact, half-timbering is a feature that's displayed at least once on every one of Seaview Terrace's wings (and not just as a decorative gables feature but also under a few of the flat roof lines) - from the main portion of the house (in the photos I've already posted in reply #19), to the formerly used as the kitchen/servant's wing (photo below left and already posted in reply #19), and to what we could call the drawing room wing by virture of the fact it's where DS always indicated Collinwood's drawing room was located (photo below right):

All that being said, however, the very elements of Seaview Terrace that resemble Tudor are also elements that can and often do show up in French Eclectic, which leads me to believe that may have been the reason why Greenley chose to go with the French Eclectic Style for the renovations rather than some other form of French architecture - the original structure was easily adaptable. (Well, that and also the fact that French Eclectic was already a popular style in the 1920s.) Half-timbering is a Tudor feature, but as I pointed out in reply #19, it's also one of the three main features of French Eclectic. And while gables are not a common element in French Eclectic, the style can exhibit them, as can be seen in these two examples:

And as can also be seen, the roof design of the wing on the left in the photo on the right definitely shares a few elements in common with Seaview Terrace. And both of these houses also share elements with the two examples of Tudor that I cited at the outset. In fact, French and English architecture share several elements in common. The French and the English may have often been bitter enemies and/or even at war with each other at several points along their histories, but even when they weren't on the best of terms, they were still, um, "borrowing" from one another when it came to matters of style and taste (though, of course, despite the facts of how much they often resembled one another, each considered their own style and taste to be far better than the other).    Which leads me to the fact that the French and English influences aren't simply "warring" within the outside elements of Seaview Terrace - and that can be seen from the very outset as you enter the main entrance. Why? Well one of the first things one is faced with upon entering the entrance hall is a sculpture of England's St. George of St. George and the Dragon fame:

And if you've been observant, you will have noticed that you've passed several dragons on your way inside because they appear not only above the outside door but the inner door as well:

(And as a side note, St. George is by no means the only religious iconography inside Seaview Terrace. It's actually on abundant display througout the house. Just some examples:

From (top left) the carved angels under the windows in the main entrance vestibule, to (middle left) the ceiling from which a chandelier is suspended above one of the staircases (I flipped the photo upsidedown to showcase the painting better), to (bottom left) the carved angels along the outer edges of the back entrance hall's ceiling (which also features a beautiful painting at its center), to (right) the stained glass windows in the second floor room of the tower.)


However, as English as St.George might be, the outside of the main entrance showcases what is one of Seaview Terrace's most pronouncely French features, and that is the window (which, BTW, David is seen looking from as Roger drives off to his car accident in Ep #15) above the portico, the design of which is actually more reminiscent of the deeply French Chateauesque Style (which was recently on display on the forum via this linked photo of Biltmore):

And the peak of the portico itself is classic French Eclectic design:

As can be seen here in a linked photo of Falaise (the house whose illustration is featured in reply #19).


Another pronouncely French feature is the tower:

which is very reminiscent of such tower designs as that of (right) Chateau de Pierrefonds, located a short distance northwest of Paris.

And speaking of Seaview Terrace's tower (which is quite probably the most iconic image associated with Collinwood), it's interesting to note that it and several rooms which had been imported intact from France were dismantled by the Bradleys (the family that commissioned the French Eclecticizing of Seaview) from their extravagant home in Washington D.C. and transported in their entirety (along with several other interesting details from the house, like stained glass, windows, wrought iron, entire mantels, ceilings and doorways) by train from Washington D.C. to Newport and then connected to the already existing Seaview structure - which is the very likely reason why the second and third story rooms in the tower require stairs to access them (stairs to go down to the second floor and stairs to go up to the third). (If you think David could have really just opened his door and walked into his bedroom on the same level as the hallway, think again. That first step in would have resulted in quite a fall!  )


But getting back on track to discussing the French Eclectic aspects of the house, another interesting bit about the former kitchen/servants wing is how, in a classic French Eclectic touch, three of the dormer windows above the servants entrance are recessed into the porch roof above the entryway:

(The middle dormer is hidden by the trees.) This view of the house was never seen on DS. And if you're wondering how it fits into the scheme of things, here's a wider shot:

(you can partially see all three dormers in this view) which also happens to showcase the former chapel (and, yes, that's also my barely 14-year-old self standing at the stone wall  ).

The look of the former chapel (which has also been used as a ballroom and simply (and amazingly wastefully) for storage) is actually a classic vaulted bay design that appears frequently in French Eclectic:

And thus concludes today's discussion on how the French Eclectic Style relates to Seview Terrace. 

[Philippe Cordier]

This is fabulously fascinating and will take some time to study.  I'm not sure if it's a bit beyond my comprehension or if it's just that I'm bleary-eyed from having spent the last five hours or so trying to read from a photocopy of a microfilm of a photocopy of a 375-page book in French on the home town of one of my ancestral branches, which I'm mentioning because it was quite interesting to find about five pages on the history of the chateau of this town.  I'm a bit embarrassed about having made sweeping statements about French chateaux being constructed of limestone - I probably was a bit overenthusiastic - because there are all sorts of chateaux spanning hundreds of years, of course, and obviously all weren't built of limestone, though I think that stone may have been used in some from the Renaissance era; I believe I found a reference to its being used at Versailles.  So at least my perceiving a link between chateaux - limestone - and Collinwood may not have been too far off.  And I see from your comments about the tower that I recognized one element correctly!  It has seemed somewhat confusing that Seaview Terrace incorporates Tudor elements along with the French elements.  I had perceived the Tudor elements, and had heard the chateau references, but hadn't really thought about it.

The research you've done, MB, makes me wonder why no one in DS, er - buffdom, seems to have looked into this before.  It seems this could be developed into an essay and printed somewhere.  Perhaps submitted to Pomegranate Press for a future book?

I wish I could print this out with your well-chosen photographs and annotations to tuck away.

Thanks for the crash course on "French eclectic style"!

I'd almost forgotten about the chateau in my avatar photograph.  Time to check into my notes on that ... If I remember correctly it was constructed over different time periods, so maybe it could be called "French eclectic" ... 

[Philippe Cordier]

A chapel - that might have been interesting if they had decided to keep a chapel at Collinwood.  Although, I think it's been pretty much agreed that the Collins family were Protestant so a chapel in the home seems unlikely.  But think what use the Rev. Trask could have gotten from it in 1897!

I've gone through this slowly once now, and the steps you take us through are a model of clarity.  The only thing at the moment that seems like it might be unidentified (though I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open) is the last photo, on the right, to the right of the one pointing out the chapel.

I actually had a slight start when I saw the one with you behind the low stone wall, MB - for a moment I thought it was a ghost!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

A chapel -

Actually, I found it a bit creepy when I first found out that room had once been a chapel. But that probably has a lot to do with the fact that The Legend of Hell House is one of my favorite haunted house movies and the chapel in the Belasco Mansion ("the Mt. Everest of haunted houses") plays a significant part in the proceedings. 

- that might have been interesting if they had decided to keep a chapel at Collinwood. ... think what use the Rev. Trask could have gotten from it in 1897!

You have a point there. And just imagine if someone like, oh, say, Nicholas or Evan or Gerard/Judah had attempted to perform a Black Mass in it. (And the evangelicals of the '60s thought walling up Rev. Trask was unforgivable blasphemy?!  )

The only thing at the moment that seems like it might be unidentified (though I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open) is the last photo, on the right, to the right of the one pointing out the chapel.

That's just a photo of another French Eclectic Style house with a vaulted bay. 

I actually had a slight start when I saw the one with you behind the low stone wall, MB - for a moment I thought it was a ghost!

I can assure you I was very much alive at the time. Still am so far as I know.