| Additional Information: | A 'site file' exists for this property. It contains additional information such as correspondence, newspaper clippings, or historical information. It is a public record and may be viewed in person at the Wisconsin Historical Society, State Historic Preservation Office.
ELABORATE HIGH STYLE QUEEN ANNE HOUSE. SEE NRHP FILE FOR DETAIL PHOTOS. 1992 winner of the Great American Home Award sponsored by the National Trust.
On a manicured lawn facing a wide boulevard, the splendid Allyn House flaunts the wealth and refinement of the Victorian elite. Mix, based in Milwaukee, designed the two-and-one-half-story cream-brick mansion with a playful profusion of dormers, gables, porches, and pavilions. The stunning full-width veranda showcases the Eastlake mode of Queen Anne decoration; lavish details made by chisel and lathe, such as the spindle frieze beneath the eaves, evoke the Victorian era’s furniture. These embellishments came to be called “Eastlake” for the prominent English furniture designer Charles Lock Eastlake (who cringed at his association with a style he found extravagant and bizarre). Above the porch’s projecting central entryway rises a colorful front-gabled balcony, flashing more Eastlake details, and above that springs a side-gabled rooftop belvedere with a pedimented balcony. Elegant cresting crowns the composition. The veranda, balconies, and belvedere faithfully re-create the originals, which were removed in 1950.
The house’s side facades are almost as showy as the front. The porte-cochère features spindle columns and a paneled gable. Queen Anne windows--large panes with borders of tiny stained-glass lights--a soaring chimney, fishscale shingles, sunburst motifs, and other ornament add color and texture.
Visitors enter the house through glazed double doors with a stained-glass transom. Inside, carved newel posts and fat-spindled balusters stud the handsome oak staircase. Stencilwork, woodwork, parquetry, and other rich wall, ceiling, and floor finishes fill nearly every room. Each formal chamber retains its original walnut and oak fittings, including Eastlake-style dentil and rosette moldings around the pocket doors. Each of the nine fireplaces has an Italian marble front, ornamented with gold leaf and floral intaglio designs. Beveled mirrors with elaborate walnut frames adorn the mantels in the parlor. Besides opulent decoration, the Allyn House also boasted the latest in electrical and mechanical systems: a pulley-powered elevator, hybrid gas-electric “gasolier” lighting, a speaking tube in the upstairs hall for communicating with kitchen servants, and a cold room off the kitchen, which stored ice in its ceiling to keep perishables chilled. All these features survive. |
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