<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: So lovely to look at...
Review: As Naversen points out in his introduction, the "Victorian Era" in architecture coincided exactly with the booming, ballooning expansion of that part of the country most of us think about when we think about "the West"--the lands that lay beyond the Missouri River jump-off towns of Westport, Independence, St. Joseph and Kansas City. Here he has concentrated on houses in the Pacific Tier, from Washington down through Oregon to California, travelling from Seattle to San Diego with stops in lumber towns, Mother Lode camps, military installations, heads of navigation, and even major cities like Portland. (It's rather a pity he didn't venture into some of the other Western states, where thousands more such treasures must lie in obscurity, but perhaps a future volume will mend the oversight.) Using the same double-spread format as in the companion volume, "East Coast Victorians," he studies everything from the prefabricated Frisbie-Walsh House, erected in Benicia, CA, about 1849, to the towered Queen Anne Sherwood House, built in Coquille, OR, more than 50 years later. Large houses and small, elaborate and simple, white and multicolored, all are here, some commissioned by Western robber barons, others built for the common middle-class family. Most are of 1880 vintage and later, but if you're a fan of Victorian housing, all are enough to set you drooling.
<< 1 >>
|
